I stood in my dark bookstore, coat half-buttoned, and listened to nothing.
My hands had stopped shaking.
I locked the deadbolt. Tested it twice. The brass felt cold under my palm, solid enough to matter. The key turned smooth—no resistance, no drama. Just metal sliding into metal, tumblers clicking home.
The alley beckoned.
Check it. Prove yourself wrong.
I rounded the corner of the building, phone clutched in my hand with 911 already keyed in. Just needed to press call. The alley stretched narrow and dark between my store and the insurance office next door. Dumpster at the far end, overflowing as usual. Puddles catching fragments of streetlight.
Empty.
No footprints in the standing water. No cigarette butts. No evidence anyone had been here at all.
I walked the length of it, anyway. Checked behind the dumpster—just cardboard boxes dissolving in the rain. Scanned the ground near my window. Nothing but gravel and wet pavement.
Stress.
I made it back to the street, my sneakers squelching.
Exhaustion.
The bank letters. Dad's voice on the phone, breath rattling in his chest. Forty-three dollars for an entire Thursday. Numbers that didn't add up no matter how many times I reworked them.
Your imagination feeding on fear.
I'd read too many thrillers, that was all. Spent too many nights alone in that store while my mind churned through worst-case scenarios. Turned shadows into threats and ordinary sounds into omens.
My car sat three spaces down. The Civic's paint had faded to a color between grey and resignation. I fumbled my keys, dropped them, retrieved them from a puddle.
And then… Black SUV. Directly across the street. Parked in front of the closed pharmacy, engine idling—I could see the faint shimmer of exhaust in the cold air.
Lights off.
I stood there, key hovering at the door lock. Staring.
The SUV sat motionless. Tinted windows reflected nothing but darkness. No silhouette visible behind the glass. No movement inside.
But someone was watching. I felt it the same way I'd felt it in the store—that pressure between my shoulder blades, that animal certainty that something had marked me as prey.
My hands worked the lock. I slid behind the wheel. Doors locked immediately. Engine started on the second try.
The SUV didn't move.
I pulled into the street. Checked my mirror.
It followed.
Not immediately. It waited—counted to three, maybe four—then eased from the curb. Headlights still dark. Just close enough to keep me in sight.
My foot pressed the accelerator.
The SUV matched my speed exactly.
I never saw the driver's face.
Chapter 2
