Just checking in
Haven’t heard from you
Getting worried
Where are you?
MAGGIE ANSWER ME
This isn’t funny
You can’t just disappear
I know you’re reading these
Why are you ignoring me?
The timestamps started three days ago—right when she’d left Tampa. They came every few hours at first, then every hour, then multiple times an hour. The most recent one had arrived twenty minutes ago.
She clicked on the latest message, her hands shaking.
I drove by your house. Your mail is piling up. Your neighbor says she hasn’t seen you in days. You don’t just get to vanish. Not after everything.
Her chest tightened, ribs squeezing around lungs that suddenly couldn’t pull in enough air. He’d gone to her house. Talked to Mrs. Pérez. Was probably still driving past, checking, waiting for her to come home.
She scrolled through more messages, each one more frantic, more possessive. Reading them felt like being back in Tampa, back in that suffocating nightmare where she couldn’t step outside without wondering if he was watching.
Another email arrived as she stared at the screen.
I’ll find you
Her hand trembled as she slammed the laptop shut without reading past the subject line. The cabin suddenly felt too small, the walls pressing in. She grabbed her phone and texted Taryn with shaking fingers.
He’s been emailing. A lot. Started the day I left.
The response came within seconds:
Maybe just talk to him?
She blinked at the screen. Why would Taryn even suggest that?
Taryn knew what Landry had done, had seen the evidence with her own eyes—the slashed tires, the “gifts” left on her doorstep, the emails that alternated between love declarations and veiled threats. Taryn had been the one who’d held her hand through the restraining order process, who’d supported her decision to take a break from filming.
And now she was suggesting Maggie just... talk to him? As if this were a simple misunderstanding between exes?
She tossed the phone onto the bed without responding. Her skin felt too tight, like it might split open if she moved too quickly. She paced the cabin, five steps one way, five steps back, her breath coming in shallow gasps. Outside, the Montana night was silent except for the wind rattling the window frame. No traffic sounds. No sirens. No neighbors. Just vast, empty darkness stretching for miles.
Landry didn’t know where she was. He couldn’t. She’d been careful. She’d told almost no one, and the people she had told wouldn’t say anything.
But the emails kept coming.
The window caught her eye. Through it, she could still see the distant glow of Anson’s forge.
She pulled a patchwork quilt off the couch and wrapped it around her shoulders, curling into the chair by the window. The light was steady, constant, safe.
She’d driven across the country to escape Landry’s obsession. Surely that was far enough.
It had to be.
