Mateo. My mother.
And now Evan was threatening Cal. Watching him. Taking pictures of his truck at the station.
If something happened to him because of me, I couldn't survive it. Not again.
Maybe staying away from him was the only way to keep him safe. Maybe losing him in that moment was better than losing him the way I'd lost Mateo.
But even as I thought it, I knew it wasn't true. Evan wouldn't stop just because I stayed away. He wouldn't stop until someone made him stop.
And I was lying here in the dark, using fear as an excuse to avoid the harder truth: that I loved Cal, and loving him terrified me, and the promise was just the reason I'd given myself to run.
I rolled over, stared at the ceiling, and tried to convince myself I was doing the right thing.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand.
I picked it up without thinking.
Unknown Number
Everyone you love burns. That's just who you are.
CHAPTER 18
Lucy
I couldn't stop staringat the text.
Unknown Number.
Everyone you love burns. That's just who you are.
It was as if he had read my thoughts.
It was nearly eleven, and sleep wasn't coming. Gabrielle had finally gone down an hour ago, her small body warm in the bassinet beside my bed, but my mind wouldn't stop spinning. The words glowed on my phone screen, ugly and deliberate, and no matter how many times I read them, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was missing something.
Everyone you love.
Not "the firefighter." Not "Cal." Everyone.
I'd been turning it over all day, ever since the text arrived. Through the chaos of Joanna's burst pipe flooding the café kitchen. Through the phone call cancelling my evening shift. Through dinner anddishes and putting Gabrielle down for the night. The words kept circling back, insistent, like a warning I couldn't quite decode.
A knock at the guest room door. Joanna's voice, soft: "Lucy? You still up?"
"Yeah."
She pushed the door open, already in her robe, reading glasses pushed up on her head. Her face was tired. She'd spent most of the day dealing with the plumber and the insurance company and the mess of a cancelled evening service. "Saw your light on. Everything okay?"
I almost did it again, lied. Almost said I was fine, just couldn't sleep, nothing serious enough to worry about. But my phone was still in my hand, and Joanna's eyes dropped to it, and I saw her expression shift.
"What happened?"
I showed her the text. I watched her face go tight as she read it.
"When did this come in?"
"Last night. I called the sheriff this morning, they're 'monitoring the situation.'" I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my voice. "Same thing they always say."
We sat in silence for a moment. The house creaked around us, settling into the cold night. Outside, the wind had picked up, rattling the windows in their frames.
