Chapter Four #2
Unless that was the point. I go still. My grip tightens around the hay bale string. A woman living alone. Quiet. Busy. Preoccupied with animals. Easy to underestimate. The thought leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
By late morning, the clouds thin enough to let muted sunlight spill across the farm in dull silver bands. I change into a drier jacket, load a crate and gloves into the back of my truck, and text Nora that I am still on schedule for early afternoon.
Nora responds almost immediately.
Bless you. He hates everyone.
I type back: So do I. We’ll get along.
That earns a laughing reply and, for one blessed minute, makes the world feel normal again.
I am locking the supply room when I feel it. Not a sound. Not movement. Just that same sudden awareness from the night before, as if the air has shifted pressure around me. I turn slowly. The yard stretches empty in front of me. Barn. House. Enclosures. Gravel drive. No vehicles. No men.
Nothing.
Still, I scan the tree line beyond the side pasture, gaze narrowing.
“Very cool,” I say to no one. “Love this.”
A rustle answers from the brush. My pulse jumps hard before a deer bounds out from the edge of the woods and clears part of the ditch with liquid grace, disappearing toward the far field. I stare after it, one hand pressed flat to my chest.
“Fantastic,” I mutter. “I am losing my mind.”
But I am not.
Or at least I do not think I am. I just know what it feels like to be observed.
At one o’clock, I climb into my truck and head for the wildlife rescue.
The drive gives me too much space to think.
The roads wind between damp fields and woods just beginning to give up winter.
The sky remains pale and washed out, bright without ever becoming warm.
I drive with one hand on the wheel and the other resting near the coffee I no longer want, my thoughts drifting back, unwillingly and repeatedly, to the previous night.
I try to imagine Marius in ordinary situations and fail.
At a grocery store, inspecting produce with that same expressionless focus.
At a gas station, pumping fuel like some terrifying old god between acts of violence.
Curled into an armchair reading something historical and bloodless beside a fire.
That last thought catches me off guard.
I frown harder at the road. Where did that come from?
He looks like the kind of man who reads war histories and bank ledgers and old laws no one else cares enough to understand. Something exacting. Something severe. Not that I know anything about what he reads or what he does when he is not trespassing and threatening people on private property.
And yet.
No.
Absolutely not.
I tighten my grip on the wheel.
This is what sleep deprivation does. It makes everything strange. It makes dangerous men feel mythic. It layers fascination where there should be simple self preservation.
By the time I pull into the wildlife rescue lot, I am irritated enough with myself to feel almost steady again.
Nora meets me outside with a trap, a pair of thick gloves, and a look of deep weariness.
“You look awful,” she says by way of greeting.
I take the gloves. “You always know what to say.”
“I try.”
We head toward the back outbuilding where the raccoon is being held temporarily, and Nora glances sideways at me.
“You really do look awful, though. Bad night?”
I consider the question.
Then, because I am too tired to lie convincingly, I say, “A man showed up at my farm last night with two other men and told me someone used my land to move something that belongs to him.”
Nora stops walking.
“What?”
I take another step before realizing she is no longer beside me and turn back.
She stares at me. “Leona.”
“I know.”
“No, I do not think you do.” She lowers her voice. “What kind of man?”
I think of cold blue eyes. Pale hair. A voice like a locked door.
“The kind you do not want showing up twice,” I say.
Nora’s face changes at once, humor draining out of it. “Did he threaten you?”
“Yes.”
A beat.
“Did he touch you?”
I hesitate just long enough to annoy myself.
Nora catches it instantly. “Leona.”
“Barely.”
“That is not a comforting answer.”
“It was not meant to be.”
Nora blows out a breath and pushes a hand through her hair. “Do you want to call the sheriff?”
I picture trying to explain Marius to a local sheriff who still thinks most county problems can be solved by patient conversation and stronger coffee.
“I do not know,” I admit.
Which is the truth.
Because what would I say? A dangerous man with an old world accent and expensive shoes came to my farm and implied organized crime brushed against my fence line? It sounds absurd even in my own head.
Nora looks like she wants to argue, but the raccoon hurls itself against the temporary crate inside the outbuilding with a snarl, reminding us both of the task at hand.
“Well,” Nora says dryly, “at least this one is a simpler problem.”
I stare at the crate as blue painted fury rattles the metal door from inside.
“Debatable.”
Nora snorts.
I crouch slowly a few feet from the crate, letting the raccoon see me without crowding it. Its black ringed eyes are huge with panic, its wet fur spiked along the spine, one paw smeared bright cobalt from whatever disaster led to this point.
“Hey, sweetheart,” I murmur.
The raccoon hisses like a tiny demon.
“Yeah, okay. Fair.”
As I reach for the trap setup and begin talking quietly through the process with Nora, the familiar steadiness returns in pieces. This I understand. Fear. Pain. Agitation. The work of gentling a bad situation without expecting gratitude from the creature caught inside it.
Still, even as I work, part of me remains elsewhere.
Back at Briar Hollow.
Back in the rain dark yard.
Back in the moment when a man named Marius de Witt looked at me like he had already decided I mattered.
And that, more than the threat, is the thing I cannot stop thinking about.