Chapter 3
Lucy
I was refilling Harold's coffee, listening to him tell me about Emma's latest soccer game, when my phone buzzed in my apron pocket. I ignored it. Probably just a notification, maybe Joanna texting from the back about a supply order. It could wait.
Then it buzzed again. And again.
"Everything okay, sweetheart?" Harold was watching me with concern, his coffee cup still extended.
"Fine." I smiled, poured, moved on to the next table. "Just fine."
But my hands weren't steady when I finally pulled out my phone during a lull, ducking behind the pastry case where no one could see my screen.
Unknown Number.
Saw you at the café today. You look good.
The words blurred in front of me. I blinked, read them again, felt something cold spread through my chest.
I knew it was him no matter how many times I'd tried to convince myself otherwise. Wrong numbers don't keep finding you. Strangers don't know exactly how to make your skin crawl.
I deleted the message. Blocked the number. Shoved my phone back in my pocket and picked up the coffee pot again.
Ten minutes later, another buzz. Different number.
Unknown Number.
I miss you.
My hand shook so badly I had to set down the pot before I dropped it.
I knew that phrasing. Knew the rhythm of those words, the particular way he always started. Sweet first, almost gentle, like he wasn't the same person who'd once slammed my head into a wall because I'd smiled at a waiter.
Another buzz.
Unknown Number.
Why are you ignoring me?
And there it was. The shift. The accusation underneath the question, the warning dressed up as confusion. I'd seen this pattern a hundred times. The charm, then the concern, then the anger. Always in that order. Always escalating.
Evan had found me.
For a moment I just stood there, frozen behind the counter, the café noise washing over me like I was underwater. Customers laughing. The espresso machine hissing. Carla and Diane debating something at their usual table. Normal sounds from a normal world that suddenly felt very far away.
Six months of hiding. Six months of looking over my shoulder, of using a different name, of convincing myself that this time I'd finally disappeared.
None of it mattered. He'd found me anyway.
I met Evan Harris when I was sixteen years old, and I thought he was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
He was a senior, I was a junior, and he had this way of looking at me like I was the only person in the room. My father had left when I was seven, and my mother worked double shifts just to keep us afloat, so I'd spent most of my life feeling invisible. Then Evan came along and made me feel seen.
I didn't notice the warning signs at first. Or maybe I did, and I just didn't want to believe them.
The way he got jealous when I talked to other guys. The way he always needed to know where I was, who I was with, what I was doing. The way his compliments started to feel like corrections.
You'd look prettier if you wore your hair down.
You shouldn't laugh so loud, people are staring.
Why do you need to hang out with your friends when you have me?
By the time he hit me the first time, I was already so deep in that I didn't know how to get out.
It was always my fault, after. I'd made him angry.
I'd pushed him too far. I'd done something wrong, said something wrong, been something wrong.
And then he'd cry and apologize and promise it would never happen again, and I'd believe him because I needed to believe him, because the alternative was admitting that the boy I loved was a monster.
I was eighteen when I finally left him. He'd shown up at my house drunk, drunker than usual, pounding on the door at 2 AM while my mother called the police.
Something in his eyes that night had scared me in a way I couldn't ignore anymore.
The next day, I changed my number, stopped going to the places he knew I'd be, and refused to be alone until he finally got the message.
He called for weeks after. Showed up at my school. Left notes on my car. But then he enlisted in the Army, shipped off to basic training, and slowly, finally, the calls stopped.
And then I met Mateo.
Mateo, who never raised his voice, who never made me feel small, who looked at me like I was a miracle instead of a project. Mateo, who asked before he touched me, who told me I was brave for leaving, who held me when I woke up from nightmares and never once made me feel weak for having them.
Mateo showed me what love was supposed to feel like.
We had three years together. Three years of learning to trust again, learning to believe I deserved softness.
He proposed on a Tuesday, no special occasion, just because he said he couldn't wait anymore.
We were going to get married in the spring.
We were going to have kids and grow old and prove that the worst thing that ever happened to me didn't get to define my future.
Then the warehouse collapsed, and Mateo was gone, and I learned that the universe didn't care about what I deserved.
I went to Denver after the funeral. I'd been teaching second grade at West Valley Springs Elementary, had loved those kids, but I couldn't face the classroom anymore.
Couldn't stand in front of seven-year-olds and talk about futures when mine had just collapsed.
So I quit, left town, and got a job at a restaurant instead.
Something mindless. Something that didn't require hope.
I rented a small apartment and tried to remember how to breathe without Mateo.
And then, eighteen months ago, my phone buzzed with an unknown number.
Unknown Number.
Miss you.
Two words, and my whole body went cold. I don't know how he tracked me down. Social media, maybe, or people we'd known in high school. It didn't matter how. What mattered was that he was back, and he was drunk, and he hadn't forgotten.
The texts started. Then the phone calls.
Then the showing up at my work, watching me through the window with that smile that used to make me feel special and now made me feel hunted.
Then the break-in: my apartment trashed, nothing stolen, just a message.
Just him proving he could get to me whenever he wanted.
I filed a police report. Got a restraining order. And Evan laughed and kept coming, because paper doesn't stop a man who's decided you belong to him.
So I ran. Back to West Valley Springs, the town I'd sworn I'd never return to, the last place Evan would think to look. I used my mother's maiden name. Kept my head down. Became invisible.
It was a flimsy shield. Evan could find the name if he looked hard enough. But it was the only protection I had, and for six months, it worked.
Until today.
"Lucy."
Joanna's voice cut through the fog. I looked up from the counter I'd been wiping for the past ten minutes, the same spot over and over, and found her watching me with sharp eyes.
"Break room," she said. "Now."
I followed her to the back, the door swinging shut behind us, muffling the café noise. Joanna leaned against the prep table, arms crossed, studying me the way she did when she was trying to decide how hard to push.
"You've been staring at your phone all morning," she said. "And you look like you've seen a ghost. Talk to me."
I opened my mouth to say I'm fine, but the words wouldn't come. Maybe because I'd said them too many times already. Maybe because Joanna was looking at me like she already knew they were a lie.
"My ex," I said. The words felt strange in my mouth, too small for what they meant. "He's been texting me."
Joanna's expression didn't change, but something in her eyes went hard. "The one you left before you came here?"
I nodded.
"The one who put those shadows under your eyes? Who taught you to flinch every time someone moves too fast?"
I didn't answer. I didn't need to.
"Have you gone to the sheriff?"
"It won't help." My voice came out flat. "I filed reports in Denver. Got a restraining order. He didn't care. It just made him angrier."
"This isn't Denver." Joanna's voice was firm. "This is West Valley Springs. We take care of our own here. You go to Sheriff Daniels, you tell him what's happening, and we handle it."
I wanted to believe her. Wanted to believe that this town, this small mountain community, could protect me in ways Denver couldn't. But I'd learned the hard way that protection was an illusion. Keeping myself safe was my responsibility.
And I'd already failed at that twice.
"I'll think about it." The sentence sounded heavier than I meant it to.
Joanna pressed her lips together. She knew I was lying. But she also knew when to stop pushing.
"You've got my number." She met my eyes, voice firm and certain. "Day or night, Lucy. I mean it."
I nodded because I didn't trust myself to speak.
Back on the floor, I smiled at customers and poured coffee and pretended I couldn't feel my phone burning in my pocket like a bomb waiting to go off.
That night, I sat in the dark with my back against the wall and watched my phone light up.
The café had been agony, every buzz sending my heart into my throat, every unknown number another crack in the fragile calm I'd built. I'd made it through my shift on autopilot, smiling and nodding but dying inside.
At that moment, I was home. As if you could call the apartment home, or call anywhere home, when someone was hunting you.
The texts had started coming from a new number around sunset.
Unknown Number.
I know where you work.
Then, twenty minutes later:
Unknown Number.
I know where you live.
Then, just before dark:
Unknown Number.
You can run but I'll always find you.
I should call someone and ask for help. The sheriff.
Joanna. Anyone. But my hands felt frozen, my body locked in the particular paralysis that Evan had always been able to trigger.
Fight or flight, people said, but there was a third option they never talked about.
Freeze. Just stop, like a deer in headlights, hoping the predator would pass you by.
Across the hall, I heard a door open. Footsteps. Cal's footsteps. I'd learned to recognize them over six months of shared walls and careful distance. Heavy and deliberate, the walk of someone who carried weight even when his hands were empty.
The footsteps paused. Silence stretched.
Then I heard his door close, and I was alone again.
I thought about knocking on his door. Thought about walking across the hall and asking for help, admitting that I was scared, admitting that I couldn't handle this alone.
But Cal was Mateo's best friend and also Mateo's captain.
The man who'd been there when my fiancé died, who carried whatever happened in that warehouse like a stone around his neck.
We'd spent six months pretending we didn't know each other, pretending there wasn't a dead man standing between us, and breaking that silence now felt impossible.
What would I even say? Hi, remember me? Your best friend's fiancée? The one you couldn't save? By the way, my abusive ex tracked me down and I'm terrified and I don't know what to do.
And then what? He'd feel obligated to help. He'd get tangled up in my mess, my history, my curse. Everyone I loved got hurt. Everyone I let close got destroyed.
I couldn't do that to him. Couldn't add his name to the list of people I'd failed.
I stayed on the floor until my legs went numb, listening to the silence of the building, the distant sounds of traffic, my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.
The phone lit up one more time.
Unknown Number.
You can't ignore me forever.
I turned the phone face down and pressed my palms against my eyes until I saw stars.
Maybe he was bluffing. Maybe he was still in Denver, sending threats from a distance, trying to scare me into responding. Maybe if I just stayed quiet long enough, he'd get bored and move on.
Maybe.
But I checked the lock one more time before I finally crawled into bed. And I didn't sleep until the sun came up.