CHAPTER 1
CADDO
The first time he saw her, she was moving into the house next door. The change itself was a surprise.
His neighbor had been an older gentleman who owned the house since it was constructed in the fifties. Mister Barber liked to say that he was there and they just built the house around him, as if he was saying that he was older than the neighborhood.
And maybe he was, Caddo had always seen the older man as a fixture, a linchpin of sorts.
But... he had been getting on in age and there had been a few Emergency Services calls to the house. Caddo had begun to check on the man during his time off-shift until Mister Barber had been moved to a care home by his doctor.
Since then the house had been empty.
No sign up for rent or sale.
In a way, Sam had expected the older man to come back.
That had been wishful thinking.
Yet, the woman who'd moved in one morning had been a dream.
She was tall.
Graceful.
And had a kind of wall around her that said, 'Don't look. Don't talk. Don't... anything.'
So he'd left her alone, silently watching.
Until the day she walked up to his front door with a covered plate and rung his bell.
He'd been working that day, but thanks to the RING cam, he'd been able to answer her.
"Hello?"
She'd leaned back from the door as if she expected the door to open and needed to put some distance between them.
But when the door didn't open, she'd frowned, the bridge of her nose behind her oversized glasses.
"Sorry," he cleared his throat as he felt his face heating, "I'm not at home, so I'm talking to you through the Ring Camera."
"Ah," she nodded and then frowned again, "that's probably something you shouldn't tell me."
It wasn't a criticism, or at least that's not how he heard it.
Sam felt like it was her own thoughts. Something she'd likely told herself and others because she worried.
She had a kind face.
A beautiful face, too. One that made him itch to touch it.
"But, you're a man, so maybe it's not something you worry about."
She didn't sound like she was complaining. Her tone was matter of fact.
That's one of the things that Sam hated about the world, the way that women had to guard against so many things on a daily basis.
"Everyone should be safe," he agreed. "Is there something I can help you with?"
