Chapter 15
ETHAN
Something’s off before I even open my email.
Chris calling out sick on a random weekday was weird.
Mark calling out sick on the same day? Practically unheard of.
By ten a.m. the office feels hollow. Too quiet. No running commentary from Mark. No half-whispered jokes from Chris across the aisle. Even the phones sound different—less chaotic, like the floor’s holding its breath.
Beth was quiet, dealing with her own shit. I felt badly for her but secretly thought her ex was a dick and she deserved better.
I’m halfway through a spreadsheet when my BlackBerry starts vibrating nonstop on my desk.
Not ringing.
Buzzing.
Over and over.
I glance down.
From: Tony
Subject: Why aren’t you here?
Before I can process that, another one hits.
From: Mark
Subject: wtf dude
Then another.
From: Chris
Subject: bro??
Then Dan. Then someone else from the crew.
My stomach drops.
I open Tony’s first.
where the hell are you?
I scroll. No context. No explanation. Just confusion aimed directly at me.
I mutter to myself, low, sharp. “What the fuck?”
I type back, thumbs stiff.
because no one invited me?
I stare at the screen after I send it, waiting for something to click. Some memory. Some email I missed. Some voicemail that never came through.
Nothing.
Ten minutes pass.
Then my phone rings.
Tony.
I answer. “Hey.”
“What the fuck, dude?” he explodes. No hello. No warning. “You just missed my surprise birthday party.”
I sit back in my chair slowly. “Your what?”
“The guys took me deep-sea fishing,” he says. “Out of Provincetown. Beers. Rods. Whole thing. We’re literally on the Cape right now.”
I blink. Once. Twice.
“I didn’t know,” I say carefully. I had forgotten, Shit. August 20th.
Silence.
Then: “Bullshit.”
“Tony,” I say, sharper now, “I swear to you, I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t get the voicemails?” he demands. “We left you voicemails. Multiple. It was guys-only. Beth wasn’t supposed to know. That was the whole point.”
My chest tightens.
“I didn’t get anything,” I say. “No messages. No missed calls. Nothing.”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“Hold on,” Tony mutters.
I hear muffled voices on his end. Wind. The low hum of an engine. Someone laughing in the background. Chris, maybe. Mark.
Then Tony comes back.
“…You just got that new phone, right?”
The words hit me like a punch I don’t see coming.
“Yeah,” I say slowly.
“Did you change your voicemail pin?”
My jaw tightens.
“Yeah.”
“What did you set it to?”
I don’t answer right away.
“Ethan.”
I swallow. “My mom’s birthday.”
There’s a sound on the other end of the line that isn’t quite a laugh.
“…Jesus Christ.”
A cold, creeping realization slides down my spine.
Tony exhales hard. “Okay. Okay. That explains a lot.”
“What?” I ask.
“Well,” he says carefully, “we definitely left you messages.”
I grip the phone tighter.
“And I definitely never got them.”
Silence stretches between us, heavy and loaded.
Tony finally says, quieter now, “That’s… not great.”
“No,” I agree. “It’s not.”
I stare at my desk, at the blinking cursor on my computer screen, at the neat little world of work pretending everything’s normal.
A surprise party I never knew about.
Voicemails I never heard.
An entire crew on the Cape without me.
“Happy birthday,” I say finally, flat.
Tony sighs. “Yeah. Sorry, man.”
We hang up.
I sit there long after the line goes dead, staring at my BlackBerry like it might explain itself if I just wait long enough.
My new phone.
My missing messages.
And the sickening thought I can’t quite shake:
Somebody else might’ve heard them instead.
And if that’s true—
Then this wasn’t an accident at all.
I hang up and just sit there for a minute, phone warm in my hand.
My new phone.
That’s all this is.
Has to be.
I let out a slow breath and roll my shoulders, trying to shake the tightness out of my neck. “Okay,” I mutter to myself. “Relax.”
There’s no way she knows my voicemail pin.
No way.
She’s never met my mother.
Doesn’t know her birthday.
Wouldn’t even know what month she was born in.
And even if she did — who the hell checks someone else’s voicemail? Who even thinks to do that?
I rub my face with both hands and lean back in my chair.
New phone.
New system.
New settings.
Early adopter bullshit. That’s all it is.
Verizon probably screwed something up. Or the voicemail didn’t port over right. Or the messages glitched. Hell, half the time this thing freezes if I scroll too fast. That’s what you get for buying the “latest model.”
I glance down at the BlackBerry clipped to my belt — steady, reliable, boring as hell.
Work phone never fails me.
My flip phone? Brand new. Untested. Probably fried half its features the first time I dropped it on the dock.
I shake my head, almost laughing at myself.
“Yeah,” I say under my breath. “This is on me.”
Missed calls happen.
Voicemails disappear.
Surprises get ruined.
It sucks — missing Tony’s birthday, missing the guys out on the Cape — but it’s not some grand mystery. Not everything has to mean something darker.
I straighten up in my chair and pull my focus back to the screen in front of me.
Spreadsheet.
Deadlines.
Normal life.
Still, as I plug the phone into its charger at the edge of my desk, I hesitate for just a second longer than necessary.
Not scared.
Not suspicious.
Just… aware.
Because something has been off lately — not just today, not just the party — but in little ways that don’t quite add up until you stop and look at them too closely.
And I don’t want to do that.
Not yet.
I let the phone charge and turn back to work, telling myself — honestly, convincingly —
It’s just a phone.
I call Sage at work.
Not accusing. Not sharp. Just… checking.
“Hey,” I say when she answers. “Random question—did you know anything about the fishing trip today? The Cape thing?”
There’s a pause. A small one.
“Fishing trip?” she repeats. “No. What fishing trip?”
“Tony’s birthday,” I say. “Deep-sea fishing. Apparently everyone went.”
Her voice shifts immediately. Concern floods in, warm and genuine. “Oh my God, baby. No. I had no idea. I’m so sorry you missed that.”
“It’s fine,” I say, automatically. “Honestly, my new phone’s been acting weird. I think it ate the voicemails. I’m gonna swing by Verizon at lunch and get it sorted.”
“Oh no,” she says, and she sounds truly upset. “That sucks. You would’ve loved that trip.”
“I know,” I admit.
“Well—” she brightens, quick and eager “—maybe for your birthday we can do something like that. Just us. Cape trip. Fishing. A whole weekend.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, sure.”
I hang up feeling… oddly calmer.
Annoyed, sure. But still convinced this is a tech thing. A dumb phone problem. Not life. Not people.
At lunch, I walk into the Verizon store two blocks from the office.
Fluorescent lights. Countertops worn smooth by elbows. A guy my age in a red polo asks how he can help.
“My voicemail’s been weird,” I say. “Missed messages. People swear they left them.”
“No problem,” he says cheerfully. “What’s the number?”
I give it to him.
He types. Scrolls.
Stops.
His face changes.
Just a flicker — barely there — but I catch it.
He clicks again. Scrolls slower this time. Then turns the monitor toward me.
“Okay,” he says carefully. “So… this is your voicemail access log.”
The screen fills with timestamps.
My stomach drops before my brain catches up.
“There are multiple remote logins,” he continues. “Someone’s been calling in and entering your PIN.”
I lean closer.
2:03 a.m.
3:17 a.m.
4:55 a.m.
Then—
1:08 p.m.
1:22 p.m.
My chest tightens.
Wednesdays.
One to two p.m.
The time I turn my phone off.
The time I told Sage—very clearly—not to call me because Jim and I have our weekly closed-door meeting.
I swallow.
“Those are when someone accessed your voicemail,” he explains. “Some messages were listened to fully. Some were partially accessed. If the caller hangs up before the message finishes, the system can still flag it as ‘new.’ That’s why you might’ve seen missed messages that felt… incomplete.”
I stare at the screen.
This isn’t a glitch.
This is deliberate.
Remote.
Timed.
Precise.
Someone knew when my phone would be off.
Someone knew my PIN.
My mind scrambles for logic.
There’s no way she knows my PIN.
No way.
She’s never met my mother.
Doesn’t know her birthday.
Wouldn’t even know the day.
Except—
I set it up at Verizon.
Out loud.
0109
January ninth.
I remember it suddenly. The casualness of it. The way I hadn’t thought twice. The way she’d been standing right there, leaning into me, apologizing, kissing my jaw, saying she was so, so sorry about the phone.
The employee shifts uncomfortably.
“Do you want to change your PIN?” he asks.
The words come out of my mouth before I’ve fully processed them.
“No.”
He blinks. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Because if I change it… then she’ll know that I know.”
Silence.
I hear myself say it.
How insane it sounds.
I shake my head slowly, running a hand over my face.
“Dammit. Fuck it all to hell.”
The employee nods, polite but clearly unsettled. “Okay. Well. If you change your mind—”
“Thanks,” I say, already backing away from the counter.
Outside, the city noise crashes back in — traffic, voices, life moving forward like nothing just split open inside my chest.
This wasn’t jealousy.
This wasn’t insecurity.
This was surveillance. Maybe even criminal behavior.
I stand there on the sidewalk, flip phone heavy in my hand, and think the thought I’ve been avoiding for weeks now.
Not what if.
But how long?
I don’t confront her.
Not because I’m weak.
Not because I don’t see it.
But because I finally understand something I couldn’t put words to before.
This isn’t a problem you argue your way out of.
It’s quicksand.
The harder you fight, the deeper you sink.