Chapter Seven #2
The cardinal came back. Landed on the feeder’s roof with a delicate tap of claws on wood, eyed the seed port with the suspicious calculation of a creature that had been fooled before, and then dropped its head to peck.
Success. I didn’t move. Roulette didn’t move.
We sat there in the thick afternoon heat, a man in a chair and a woman at a railing and a red bird eating seed from a tiny wooden outhouse, and for one perfect, suspended moment, nothing in the world was broken.
* * *
The feeder lid had fallen into the grass when I’d handed Roulette the empty sack. I didn’t notice until I went to screw the cap back on the feeder and realized I had nothing to cap it with. I stepped off the porch without thinking, bare feet sinking into the warm grass, and bent to retrieve it.
And stopped.
They were propped against the bottom step like someone had set them down carefully, making sure they wouldn’t fall over.
Yellow tulips. Six of them, maybe seven, their stems wrapped in a strip of white satin ribbon tied in a simple knot.
The petals were still tight, curved inward at the tips before fully opening, and there was no dirt on the stems -- they’d been cut clean, recently enough that the exposed ends hadn’t begun to dry or curl.
Whoever had left them had chosen the flowers with care, wrapped them like a gift, and placed them where I would find them.
My hands curled at my sides. There was no note. No card. Nothing written on the ribbon. That was the message. I’m here. I can reach you. I know where you are.
The cicadas still screamed. The cardinal had vanished. The feeder swung on its wire, forgotten. I stared at the flowers until their yellow edges blurred.
Behind me, wood creaked. Roulette’s mug clicked against the arm of his chair. I heard him stand, already past surprise and into response. His boots came down the steps, one at a time, and then he was beside me, close enough I could feel the heat coming off him through my shirt.
He crouched. Didn’t touch the flowers. Examined the ribbon from about six inches away, the knot, the satin catching the light. Then he straightened and turned slowly, taking in the fence line, the tree line, the gaps between houses, the gravel lot beyond. Measured. No wasted motion.
“Go inside,” he said.
His voice was quiet and controlled, and it made my stomach drop.
I didn’t move. My feet were rooted to the grass, and my lungs had forgotten how to expand, and the yellow of those tulips was the only color in the world.
“He found me here,” I said.
The words came out exactly as they lived in my head, stripped of anything that might sound like fear because I refused to give whoever had left those flowers the satisfaction of hearing it. But Roulette heard it anyway. He heard everything.
He put his hand on the small of my back, his touch light but firm enough to remind me I had a body that could move, and guided me toward the steps.
I went. One foot after the other, up the three wooden stairs.
My bare soles felt every splinter, every grain, every imperfection in the wood.
He didn’t follow me all the way up. He stopped on the top step, turned, and began a sweep of the porch that looked trained.
His hand ran along the railing, checking for anything fastened to the underside.
He examined the doorframe, the hinges, the crack between the screen and the wood.
He moved to the side of the house and checked the window I’d struggled with yesterday; the latch, the sill, the gap between the frame and the wall.
There was nothing theatrical in it, nothing performative.
Just a man making sure the perimeter was clean.
I stood just inside the screen door, knuckles white where I gripped my elbows, while Roulette worked the porch with practiced precision. Railing. Doorframe. Hinges. Window latch. Each point checked once, cleanly, before he moved on.
The tulips stayed where they were, yellow against the gray wood of the step, the white ribbon catching the afternoon light.
Someone had walked onto this compound -- past the gate, past the cameras, past whatever security the club thought was enough -- and left flowers on my doorstep like this was a courtship and not a hunting ground.
A hard ache worked through my face. I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth and held the tears back. Not because I wasn’t afraid. Because if I started crying now, I wasn’t sure I would stop.
The deadbolt slid into place with a heavy, final sound.
Roulette moved through the house, calm and deliberate.
He checked the front windows first, running his palm along the sill, testing the latch.
Then the kitchen window above the sink, the one that looked out onto the side yard.
The guest room window, where the blinds were still drawn from this morning.
The bathroom. His bedroom, where I heard the closet door slide open and then shut.
Not frantic. Not the scared rush of someone who’d just realized the perimeter had been breached.
This was protocol in motion -- the house was clean, the windows were locked, the doors were secure -- and he confirmed it anyway because men like him didn’t skip steps.