I climb the steps slowly, each step heavier than the last. The welcome mat is where I left it. The railing still chipped. The paint still peeling in the same corner.
I pull my keys from my bag. They jingle too loudly in the quiet. I step up to the door and slide the key into the lock.
Then, I stop.
Don’t be stupid. You’re tired. You’re jumpy. You’re?—
“Scarlett.” Donovan’s voice is low behind me.
I nod, even though he can’t see it.
“I’ve got it,” I say.
My hand tightens around the key. I turn it, and the lock clicks. At the same moment, something deep in my gut twists hard. Because I know—before I even open the door—that something’s off.
Everything looks… normal. But the air feels wrong. I take another step. Then another. And that’s when I see it.
The hallway. My bedroom door hangs wide open. I didn’t leave it that way. I never do.
My pulse spikes.
“Donovan,” I whisper. He moves past me, focused and dangerous.
I follow despite myself, covering my mouth with my hand. Drawers are dumped onto the floor. Clothes are ripped from hangers. My dresser is pulled halfway out like someone was trying to tear it apart.
The mattress is shifted, sheets twisted and shredded. Someone tore through my life looking for something they didn’t find.
But who? There’s only one answer.
Like the private investigator warned.Him.
He couldn’t have found much. I know better than to leave anything of importance here. Anything that could speak to my past or give away who I am in the present.
But this violence is a total violation of all that I have left—my privacy and my safety.
My breath leaves me all at once. “No…”
Donovan’s entire posture shifts. Like a wall of muscle locking into place. A shield against whatever this is.
“Stay here,” he says.
I don’t argue because I can’t. Instead, I watch him move through the space quickly and efficiently. He checks corners, rooms, closets… any place someone could hide. And each time he comes up empty-handed, I breathe again.
Each step is controlled. Each movement deliberate. Like he’s done this before… second nature.
I freeze, pressing my back against the wall, arms wrapped around myself as I listen to his footsteps, doors opening and closing, the rustling of fabric.
Then, nothing.
He comes back into the living room. “Clear,” he says. “We need to call Sheriff McLeod.” He pulls his cell phone from his pocket like he’s ready to do it for me.
“Wait.” It comes out too frantic, too breathy. Not local authorities. This isn’t their jurisdiction. This is bigger than that. I have to speak to the people who placed me here, the U.S. Marshals.
“Wait for what?” he asks, eyes simmering like a stormy ocean.
A voice calls from outside.
“Scarlett?”
