“Come on,” she said, softening. “Let’s go home. It’s cold.”
Cold.
The word hit wrong. Like a warning.
Like a promise.
I nodded. Let her link her arm through mine as we moved toward the elevator with the crowd.
My phone stayed silent after that, but my body didn’t.
It pulsed with adrenaline and dread and something that felt too much like arousal.
The predator had finally spoken.
And he wasn’t coming to Charleston.
He was moving me.
That night, I lay in bed staring at my ceiling fan, the same slow, soft spin as always, but my body felt like it belonged to someone else now—wired, alert, sensitized.
I replayed the messages until the words lost meaning.
Lady.
You’re going north.
Don’t argue.
As if he already knew.
As if he’d already decided.
At 8:58 a.m., I sat at my kitchen island with coffee I couldn’t taste, my laptop open, my hair damp from a shower I’d taken purely to feel something normal.
My inbox refreshed.
A new email appeared at the top.
From an address I didn’t recognize.
No logo. No signature.
Just a subject line that made my stomach drop:
Speaking Invitation: Hudson Summit on Violence Prevention (CONFIDENTIAL)
My hands went cold as I clicked.
The email was … immaculate.
Professional. Legitimate. Specific. It referenced my work—my recent keynote, a policy memo I’d written, a grant initiativeI’d spearheaded last spring. It praised my “measured expertise” and asked if I could keynote a closed-door summit in upstate New York on January 3.
Two days away.
All travel covered.
Car service arranged.
