Chapter 3 #2
The casual delivery prickled Annie’s skin.
News traveled fast in Fairview. It always had. But this felt too exact. Too immediate. Like the woman hadn’t simply heard gossip—like she’d heard details.
Annie forced a small laugh. “Kids, probably. Somebody looking for trouble.”
Sarah tilted her head, studying Annie as if she weighed the answer. “How awful. People don’t respect anything anymore.”
Emma tugged at her mother’s sleeve. “Can we go now?”
“Of course.” Sarah smiled again, then turned her attention back to Annie one last time. “I’m glad you’re all right.”
She took Emma’s hand and walked out.
Annie found herself at the window, watching them cross Main Street. Sarah pulled out her phone almost immediately and began speaking, her free hand punctuating her words with small movements. Not frantic. Not worried. Efficient.
Annie’s throat tightened.
Calm down, she told herself. She’s talking to her husband. She’s making dinner plans. She’s normal.
Normal people didn’t always behave the way Annie expected. Annie knew that better than anyone. She’d built a career on understanding how people hid what they didn’t want seen.
Still, her instincts wouldn’t quiet.
She scanned the street until she spotted Jack—leaning against a telephone pole near the corner of the building, phone to his ear. Relief washed through her so sharply it almost made her dizzy.
He stayed close.
He kept watch.
He didn’t abandon her.
She stepped away from the window and forced her hands back into motion. Pages. Spines. Covers. She needed evidence, not fear.
But the shop’s sounds had changed. Every creak had edges. Every passing shadow carried weight. Suspicion sank into her muscles and stayed there like a bruise.
This was why she’d walked away four years ago. Not because she couldn’t do the work. Because the work never stopped doing her.
The constant vigilance. The way danger made her mistrust every smile. The way trauma rewrote ordinary moments into threats.
She thought about Jack—the way their minds used to click into place together, like gears aligning. She remembered the precision, the breakthroughs, the quiet satisfaction of giving the forgotten dead a voice again.
She also remembered the other part. How safe she’d felt beside him. How unsafe that feeling made her. How his presence had tempted her to let her guard down. She’d survived losing him once. She didn’t know if she could survive letting him close again.
Her phone sat on the counter near her ledger. She reached for it without deciding to. Her thumb hovered over Jack’s contact.
One call. One sentence. I changed my mind. Take the case. I’ll stay out of it.
She could hand this back to him and retreat into her old life of antique auctions, display arrangements, customers who wanted stories that didn’t bleed.
Then she saw Eric again in her mind—his eyes fluttering, his hand clutching hers, his whisper scraping out like a warning from a dying man.
“They know.”
“They know what? Who?”
And why did it matter enough to hurt him?
Annie lowered the phone and slid it away. She couldn’t outrun this. She couldn’t shop her way out of danger. Whoever had targeted her already knew her name, her shop, her apartment, her uncle.
Distance wouldn’t protect Uncle Eric. Truth might.
She pulled another book from the box—a slim volume of poems with a faded cloth cover. Her fingers ran along the spine.
Then she heard it.
A soft scratching sound. Not the building settling. Not the normal creak of old wood. Not the faint tap of a loose windowpane. Something deliberate.
Something that didn’t belong.
The scratching came again—longer. Slower. Like someone dragged a tool along wood. Like fingernails carved lines with intent.
Annie’s blood turned to ice.
She angled her head toward the sound. The shop held its breath around her.
The back door.
Her mind flashed to the gouged warning upstairs. Letters cut deep enough to feel like wounds.
YOU’RE NEXT.
The scratching stopped.
Silence filled the space it left, heavier than the sound itself.
Annie snatched up her phone. Her hands shook, but she moved fast. She didn’t waste time debating. She didn’t second-guess. She ran for the front door.
Jack.
She had to reach Jack.
She burst outside and scanned the street. The telephone pole stood empty.
Panic surged. Heat prickled under her skin.
Where did he go?
She turned in a tight circle, searching faces, cars, corners. She didn’t see him on the sidewalk.
Then she spotted him at the end of the alley beside her building, body angled toward the shop’s rear entrance. He stood still, shoulders set, gaze locked on the back door like he expected it to bite.
Annie sprinted toward him, lungs burning.
When she reached him, she followed his stare.
The back door held a fresh mark—new scratches gouged into the wood, deliberate and deep. Not random. Not from a stray nail or shifting hinge. A message.
Her stomach dropped.
They came back.
Jack didn’t look away from the door when he spoke. “They left something.”
Annie’s pulse slammed in her ears as the afternoon sun warmed her skin and did nothing to chase the cold out of her bones.
“They left us another message,” she whispered, and the words tasted like fear.
***
Jack leaned against the telephone pole between Annie’s shop and Red’s Diner, phone pressed to his ear, eyes fixed on the front windows of Annie’s Antiques. Officer Martinez’s update tightened something cold and heavy in his gut.
“Run that by me again,” Jack said quietly.
“We canvassed the blocks around the shop,” Martinez replied. “Found a witness who saw a dark sedan parked in the alley this morning. Tennessee plates, but they couldn’t get the numbers.”
Jack shifted his weight, scanning the street. “Any description of the driver?”
“No. But here’s what stands out. Mrs. Chen from the flower shop says she’s seen that same car several times over the last two weeks. Different times of day. Never stays long.”
Surveillance.
Someone had tracked Annie long before last night. Maybe even before the estate sale. This wasn’t a reaction. It was preparation.
“Start pulling Blackwood connections,” Jack said. “Anyone still local.”
Martinez exhaled. “That’s where it gets complicated. There are more ties than we thought.”
“Give me what you’ve got.”
“Simon Blackwood still owns the Ridge Road property. But there are cousins, in-laws, distant relatives. The Blackwood money filtered through half this town. Some legitimate. Some not.” Papers rustled.
“The Hayworth’s on Elm—Sarah Hayworth’s maiden name was Blackwood.
The Caldwell’s—Marcus Caldwell’s grandfather worked Blackwood operations during Prohibition.
And there are rumors around the Mitchells.
No confirmed family line, but questionable money. ”
“Mitchell,” Jack repeated, writing it down. The name tugged at something he couldn’t place. “What kind of rumors?”
“Commercial real estate. Thomas Mitchell owns half of Main Street. Nobody can trace where his original capital came from.”
Jack added the note, jaw tight.
Through the window, he saw Annie moving among the boxes, her posture focused, methodical. A woman with a small child approached the shop. Annie let them inside.
“Keep digging,” Jack said. “I want financial histories, property transfers, shell businesses. Anything that intersects the Blackwood's.”
“Already on it.”
The call ended.
Jack studied the street again, mentally laying out lines between families, businesses, inheritances, and influence. A network like this didn’t survive for generations without people protecting it.
Which meant Annie didn’t just stumble on a piece of jewelry. She’d stepped into a legacy.
His phone vibrated with a text from Red’s.
Lunch ready.
As he pushed off the pole, movement caught his attention. The woman and child exited Annie’s shop. The woman pulled out her phone immediately, posture shifting from polite to purposeful.
Jack slowed. Not panic. Not concern. Efficiency.
He watched her walk away before turning his focus back to the building.
Whatever they’d uncovered so far barely skimmed the surface. Someone had watched Annie for weeks. Someone had coordinated timing. Someone had escalated to violence in less than twenty-four hours. That kind of behavior didn’t come from desperation. It came from fear of exposure.
Jack headed toward the diner—and stopped. A faint sound reached him from the alley beside the shop. Scratching. Not metal. Not footsteps. Deliberate contact against wood.
He changed direction instantly, moving fast but controlled. The sound cut off as he reached the corner. Fresh gouges scarred the back door. They were deep. Intentional.
Jack pulled out his phone and began photographing.
GIVE IT BACK OR ELSE.
A threat. He scanned the alley. Nothing. They’d been there seconds earlier while he’d stood ten feet away.
The front door burst open.
“Jack!”
Annie ran toward him, breath shallow, fear plain on her face.
“I heard something at the back,” she said. “And then I came out and you were gone and—”
“I’m here.” He kept his voice level. Grounded. “You did the right thing.”
She followed his gaze to the door. Her shoulders tightened. Her color drained.
“This isn’t stopping,” she said quietly.
“No.” He kept his attention on the alley even as he spoke. “Not until we understand what they want and why.”
“Or until I give it back.”
The words didn’t sound like surrender. They sounded like exhaustion.
“That’s not an option,” Jack said. “Not yet. Not until we know what we’re dealing with.”
“They’ve already hurt people.” She gestured toward the door. “They’ve made their point.”
“And they’ve made a mistake,” he said. “They’re showing us how afraid they are of what that locket could expose.”
She didn’t answer.
“You can’t stay here alone tonight,” Jack continued. “Not after this.”
“I’m not leaving.” Her voice stayed steady, but her hands trembled. “This is my home. My business. And I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Then I’ll stay.” He didn’t hesitate. “Storage room downstairs. I can monitor both entrances.”
“Jack, you don’t have to—”
“Yes. I do.” He glanced at the street, the rooftops, the alley mouth. “They crossed a line today. You think they’ll respect the next one?”
She looked back at the door. At the words carved into it.
Finally, she nodded.
“The storage room gives me clear sightlines,” he went on. “I’ll notify Martinez. He’ll send someone to process this. If anyone comes back, we won’t miss it.”
“And if they don’t?” she asked. “If they change tactics?”
“They want the locket,” he said. “They won’t destroy it by accident. That gives us leverage.”
She studied him for a moment, then gave a small nod. “Then we do this carefully.”
“Always.”
He texted Martinez their location and the new threat.
When he looked up again, he saw resolve settling into her posture. Not calm. But not panic either.
“That message wasn’t just for me,” she said. “It was for both of us.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “And we’re not ignoring it.”
They walked toward the diner together.
Jack took mental inventory as they moved—sightlines, exits, blind corners. Protection came first. Evidence second. Questions third.
Inside Red’s, a white bag waited on the counter.
They carried it back across the street.
They would eat in the shop. They would go through the Blackwood items piece by piece. They would follow the clues where they led. Whatever someone had tried to carve back into silence, Jack intended to bring into the light.