Testing the mechanism like it might've failed in the sixty seconds since I'd left.
She feels it now.
The unease. The sense that something had shifted beneath her feet while she'd been distracted by her father's collapse, by bills, by the daily weight of keeping things together.
She'd been so focused on surviving she'd stopped watching for predators.
I pulled out my phone. Scrolled to the message I'd drafted two hours ago but hadn't sent.
Checked in on your daughter today. Remarkable woman. You raised her well.
My thumb hovered over send.
Not yet.
Timing mattered.
Let her realize first. Let tonight arrive—the kind of night where exhaustion made thoughts louder, where silence in an empty apartment amplified every doubt.
She'd replay our conversation. Pick apart my words, searching for hidden meanings.
She'd find them.
Because I'd left them there to be found.
The why would torment her. Why I'd come. Why I'd mentioned her father. Why I'd known anything at all.
She'd tell herself it meant nothing. Coincidence. Small town gossip. Athletes with too much time and not enough substance.
She'd almost believe it.
Almost.
The bookstore door opened. Belle stepped onto the sidewalk, keys clutched tight, scanning the street like she expected to find me still standing there.
The door swung shut behind her.
She locked it. Tested the handle.
The fear she wouldn't name. The instinct overriding logic, demanding she secure what could be secured even when reason said once was enough.
She walked to her car parked in the narrow lot beside the building. Looked over her shoulder twice before unlocking the door. Slid inside. Didn't start the engine immediately.
Just sat there, gripping the steering wheel, staring at nothing.
I could see her face in profile through the windshield. The exhaustion. The confusion.
The dawning understanding that something had changed, and she didn't know what.
I smiled. Started my engine as hers turned over. Pulled into traffic three cars behind her, maintaining distance, letting chance and city planning do the work.
She'd go home. Lock those doors too. Maybe call her father, check on him again even though she'd probably already called twice today.
She'd try to sleep.
Fail.
And tomorrow—or the next day, or the day after—the message would come.
