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She carried her food container to the fridge, but when she opened the door, she paused. Something about the sight of the neatly arranged shelves—take-out containers, juice carton, the half-empty bottle of creamer—felt off. Not wrong exactly. Just…altered.

She frowned, unable to pinpoint why. Maybe she’d shifted things around this morning without realizing it—or Daniel had. She’d encouraged him to make himself at home. Or maybe she was searching for something to justify the chill running down her spine.

“Stop it,” she muttered, shutting the fridge. “You’re exhausted.”

Luna yawned, as if agreeing.

Polly exhaled and glanced toward the clock on the stove. After nine o’clock. Daniel was probably finishing up his group session, or maybe he was talking with his counselor afterward. He’d said he would call later, and she believed him. The thought warmed her.

She brushed a hand over Luna’s head, the dog soft and warm beneath her palm. “Come on, girl. Let’s get ready for bed.”

They moved down the short hallway to the bedroom. The overhead light cast a warm glow across the quilt, the stack of books on the nightstand, family pictures arranged just so on top of the dresser. Or not.

One of the picture frames had toppled over. Had Luna somehow gotten up there while she’d been loose in the apartment? “That’s ridiculous.” She smiled at the dog trailing along behind her. “You haven’t learned how to fly, have you?”

Luna simply cocked her head.

“Right. That was a dumb question, hmm?”

And yet—she couldn’t shake the feeling that something in the room was holding its breath, waiting.

She drew in a slow breath of her own, telling herself to shake her damn suspicions. Tomorrow, everything will look normal again.

She straightened the picture, then sat on the edge of the bed to unlace her boots. Luna padded toward the bathroom doorway, tail wagging gently. The sound of her collar tags jingling in the quiet was oddly reassuring.

But when Polly followed her a moment later to brush her teeth, the reassurance dissolved.

Her toothbrush was gone.

The holder on the counter sat empty, her toothpaste standing beside it like she’d left it that morning. She checked the floor, the counter again, the drawer where she kept spare toiletries. Nothing. No toothbrush.

She knelt to open the cabinet door and check the garbage can inside. She pulled it out with shaking fingers and looked inside. Empty. The liner had been changed.

Her stomach tightened. She hadn’t done that.

The air in the bathroom felt suddenly thinner, the quiet pressing at her ears.

“Luna…” Her voice was barely a whisper. The pup trotted back, looking up at her with wide, curious eyes.

Polly’s throat worked as she swallowed hard, forcing her mind to keep moving, to think past the rising panic. Someone had been in here. In her refrigerator, in her bedroom, in here. Someone had freed Luna from her crate.

Her hand hovered over the phone on the bathroom counter, trembling just enough to make the screen blur.

Don’t overreact.

She swallowed again, her pulse thudding in her ears. “Okay, think,” she whispered. “Maybe I threw it out by mistake… Maybe I was so distracted having Daniel here this morning that I just missed these little details.”

But the longer she stood there, the less believable that sounded. She wasn’t a lovestruck schoolgirl, and she didn’t have amnesia. She remembered brushing her teeth, setting the brush in its holder, rinsing the sink. She wouldn’t have thrown it away. And she certainly hadn’t changed the garbage liner.

And then she remembered one more thing that was out of place. Not something missing—something that shouldn’t be there.

She ran back to the kitchen. Back to the neat stack of mail. Back to the unmarked envelope that sat on top. No stamp. No postmark. No address.

A sick, hollow feeling opened in her gut.

Whoever had been here hadn’t taken anything obvious. They’d just…touched her life. Rearranged the smallest things, enough to make her question her own memory.

She picked up the envelope. Pulled out the scribbled missive.