Page 8

We eat for a stretch with only the fire and the wind between us. Her knee rests close enough to mine that I feel the heat through my jeans. I leave it there. So does she. Every time she shifts on the blanket, the contact grows firmer before she settles again. I watch how she holds the spoon, how her shoulders have dropped since she came out of the bath, and try not to think about how easy it would be to close the rest of the distance.

“Do you ever picture getting married?” she asks later. The tone is light. The question feels loaded. “Or was the plan always just living up here alone?”

“Never saw it for myself.” The answer comes without stalling. I’m going to be 100% honest with this woman. “I spent too many years where my home and my community were temporary. Barracks, deployments, then this cabin because it was quiet and nobody else had a claim on it. I didn’t figure anyone would want to stay long enough for any of the permanent parts to matter.” I meet her eyes. “Starting to think I might have been wrong about that.”

Color rises in her cheeks. She looks down at her soup, then back up, and the small smile she gives me feels like it costs her something. “I started writing about real people because the usual pattern always bothered me. Something terrible happens, and everyone's first question is why and who did it. The victim, the person this tragedy happened to, is just a footnote in the story. I got tired of seeing victims represented that way. I wanted the story to stay with them for once.”

“That tracks.” I set my spoon down. Firelight moves across the scar on my jaw. I feel her notice and don’t turn away. “Explains why these stalker notes land the way they do. Someone’s taking the work you did to keep those people seen and using it so you’re the focus.”

“Pike thinks the books are somehow about him,” she says more quietly. “Or that I wrote them for him. I’m still not sure which idea is worse.”

“Either way, he decided the story belonged to him.” I tear another piece of bread and offer it to her. This time our fingers linger. “It doesn’t. Your books are written with such empathy and compassion and always with the victim in mind.”

We sit in comfortable silence, finishing our soup. I’m dreading what happens next. I don’t want to watch fear spread across her face or for her to become withdrawn as we go through the rest of the stalker's messages, threats, and actions. I briefly think about having one of the guys from Equinox come to the cabin to help us go through it, but I know that’s not what she’d want.

She moves first, stacking both bowls and the bread plate before I can reach for them. She gets up and heads toward the kitchen. I quickly follow with our water glasses. At the sink, she turns on the hot water, and I step in beside her with the towel. Our elbows knock. She doesn’t move away. When she passes me the last bowl, her fingers linger against mine a second longer than the handoff requires.

“Hot chocolate?” I ask.

“You keep that around?”

“Marshmallows too, another one of my sister’s influences. They aren’t pink, though.”

She laughs under her breath and rests her hip against the counter while the milk heats. The cabin fills with the smell of chocolate. I pour two mugs, drop marshmallows into hers without asking, and carry them back to the blankets. This time she sits beside me instead of across from me. Close enough that her shoulder brushes my arm every time she lifts the mug.

“Thank you,” she says. “For the picnic tonight and for letting me take my time to look at all of this. What I’ve seen didn’t seem that bad, and I’ve been comfortable and brave in that world. I’m sure it’s made me seem a little naïve, especially given what I write, but I don’t want to face the possibility that someone out there might really want to hurt me.”

“I might agree that you’ve been a little naïve, but I also find that part of yourself you’ve been trying to protect so precious. If I could save you from having to go through any of this, I would, but you’re the one who has to read it so you can take care of yourself.” I take a sip of the frothy hot chocolate. The chocolate is sweet and a little too hot.

She nods and leans a little more into my side. The contact is light, yet settles something deep inside me. I keep my free hand on my own thigh and try not to notice how easy it would be to turn it over and offer it to her.

The first folder is the things she already knows. I open it on the table in front of us. Printed pages, dates in the margin, lines from her own books just enough out of sync to know they’re from before publishing. She reads the top sheet without flinching.

“I recognized the cadence right away. Pike used to mark drafts the same way. Little arrows. Questions in the margins like he always knew more than I did.”

“He had access to the files? To the interviews?”

“I gave them to him.” Her finger follows one line without quite touching the paper. “He was good at the work. Too intense, but good. I kept the research after I let him go. It would have put me months behind, but it was also part of his contract. That’s where I got it wrong.”

“Keeping what he worked on wasn’t a mistake.” I shift so our thighs press together from knee to hip. She doesn’t move away. “You didn’t make a mistake. This is on him.”

She exhales, slowly. “He emailed after the third note. Said I’d already written the ending and wouldn’t admit it was his. I deleted it. Didn’t tell Kelli or anyone else. I thought if I ignored him long enough, he’d go away.

“This type of guy doesn’t get bored.” My hand rests on the blanket between us. Her pinky drifts over and settles against my finger. “They keep pushing until someone makes them stop.”

“And you think that’s what this is.” She doesn’t phrase it as a question.

“I think he had access, motive, and a habit of not hearing no.” I turn my hand just enough that our fingers brush more fully. “Whether he’s the only one involved is what the second folder is for.”

We move through the rest of the pages without rushing. She points out which book each line came from. I note the ones that match the samples. The fire burns lower. Her mug empties. Mine goes cold. Every time she leans in to read something closer, her hair slides against my shoulder and the jasmine cuts through the chocolate and smoke. I leave my hand where it is. She leaves hers against it.

“These are all ones I’ve already seen,” she says when the last page turns. She closes the folder and sets it on the hearth. “The other folder is worse?”

“It is.”

She looks at the second folder, then at me. Her knee presses harder against mine. “Will you stay with me while I go through it?”

“I might even be accused of hovering,” I answer, and she laughs. Her smile sends zaps through me as I pull her closer. “I’m not going anywhere, but there’s no award for doing this right now either. You could wait until the morning.”