For several seconds, I don’t move or make a sound. Everything narrows down to the phone in my hand and the image glowing on the screen. Someone has my knife. They want me to be afraid. And frankly, I am.
I try to reason with myself. Whoever this is doesn’t know where I am now. I’m safe … I think. There was the storage room door open and the footprint. Probably coincidence. But what if it isn’t? The thought and image on my phone sends absolute chills through me.
My thumb shifts before I fully decide what to do.
Sheriff Vaughn.
I call the number on his card with shaking hands. The phone rings once. Twice.
“Vaughn.”
His voice is calm, and that almost makes me feel silly. But I can’t help it.
“It’s Kara Stone,” I say, but my voice comes out thin and strange. “I just got a text.”
“What kind of text?”
“A photo.” I swallow, but my throat feels lined with sand. “Of my knife. The one taken from my house.”
He’s silent for about four seconds. This is no longer a storage door.
“Are you inside the beach cottage?”
“Yes.”
“Doors locked?”
“Yes.”
“Check them again.”
I move quickly, checking the front door, then the sliding doors to the screened porch. Both are locked. The windows are closed. The cottage suddenly feels too full of glass. Add the pale curtains and pretty sight lines to a quick list forming in my mind of ways the outside world might reach in.
“They’re locked.”
“Good. Do not respond to the text. Do not delete it. Forward it to the number I’m about to give you, then put your phone on the charger if you can. I’m on my way, and I’m looping in Sunbreak Security.”
“Okay.”
“I’m also going to ask you to stay away from the windows until we get there.”
My gaze lifts toward the porch doors, toward the curtains shifting softly in the air-conditioning.
“Do you think someone is outside?”
“I don’t know,” he says, which is both better and worse than pretending. “But until I know more, I’d like you away from the glass.”
I do exactly what he says. I forward the image to the number he gives me. Nausea rises hot and sudden in my throat. Then I set the phone on the island, step back, and press one hand to my stomach.
The screen lights up almost immediately. It’s Vanessa. Her name fills the phone, bright and familiar, a video call this time. For one second, I want to answer because she is the person I call when the world stops making sense.
But someone just sent me a picture of my stolen knife with a creepy message like a twisted love note. Before I can deliberate any longer, her call moves to voice mail. The screen goes dark.
Immediately, a text appears.
Everything okay? Call me when you can.
My breath stutters as I stare at it. Of course she’s checking on me. She checks on me constantly. That’s what Vanessa does. She worries loudly and often, and with the persistence of someone who has appointed herself emotional supervisor of everyone she loves.
