But she wasn’t a child anymore. And Detective Black had looked her in the eyes and said he believed her.
That had to count for something.
“Nora?”
She jumped, nearly knocking over her coffee. Her supervisor, Patricia, stood beside her cubicle with a concerned expression.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” Patricia was in her fifties, always professional, always kind in that distant way supervisors managed. “I wanted to check in. IT said you called about a security concern with your files?”
Nora’s heart sank. She’d hoped the IT ticket would be handled quietly. “Just some formatting issues. I think maybe my laptop glitched.”
“Hmm.” Patricia’s expression suggested she didn’t quite believe that. “You’ve seemed stressed lately. Is everything okay? I know the Morrison audit has been demanding.”
There it was. The gentle implication that Nora was the problem, not the situation.
“I’m fine,” Nora said automatically. “Just want to make sure everything’s secure.”
“Of course. Well, if you need anything, my door’s always open.” Patricia smiled and walked away.
Nora waited until she was gone, then pulled up the IT ticket she’d submitted that morning. Status: CLOSED. Resolution: “No security breach detected. User error likely cause of file discrepancies.”
User error.
Her jaw clenched. They hadn’t even investigated. Just assumed she’d screwed up and closed the ticket.
She forwarded the ticket closure to Detective Black with a short message:They don’t believe me either.
***
Lunch with Lila should have been a relief. Her best friend since college, the one person who’d stuck byher through therapy and bad dates and the general anxiety that colored Nora’s world.
But sitting across from Lila at The Brew & View, watching her friend’s skeptical expression, Nora felt that familiar isolation creeping back in.
“So let me get this straight,” Lila said, poking at her salad. “Someone’s stalking you, messing with your work files, and moving things in your apartment. But there’s no actual evidence.”
“The parking garage—”
“Someone walked toward your car. That’s not a crime, Nora.”
“It felt wrong.” Even as she said it, Nora heard how weak it sounded. “And things in my apartment have been moved. Little things. Like my coffee mug was on the wrong side of the sink, and I know where I left it.”
Lila set down her fork, her expression softening into something worse than skepticism—pity. “Honey, you’ve been under a lot of stress. The Morrison audit, this new promotion you’re going for...maybe your anxiety is acting up again?”
There it was. The gentle dismissal wrapped in concern.
“I’m not imagining this,” Nora said, trying to keep her voice steady. “I know what anxiety feels like. This is different.”
“Okay.” Lila held up her hands. “I’m not saying you’re making it up. I’m just saying...maybe you’re seeing patterns that aren’t there? Remember sophomore year when youthought your roommate was stealing your clothes, but it turned out you’d just misplaced them?”
Nora’s face burned. She’d forgotten about that. The embarrassment of accusing Sarah, the awkwardness that had followed. The way her therapist had gently suggested that Nora’s trust issues from foster care sometimes manifested as suspicion.
Maybe Lila was right. Maybe she was spiraling, seeing threats in normal situations, letting her traumatic childhood make her paranoid.
Except for the parking garage. The footsteps behind her. The voice calling out.
That had been real.
“I filed a police report,” Nora said quietly.
