Chapter 7: Send Her Home
I turned the phone so Carol couldn't see the screen.
Too late.
She read my face.
"What is it?"
I set the phone face-down on the counter.
"It's nothing."
"Don't do that." Her voice was sharp.
Sharper than anything I'd heard from her yet.
"Don't protect me from information.
He does that.
Don't you do it too."
I picked the phone back up and handed it to her.
She read the message.
The color left her face.
"He has a second phone," she said.
"I didn't know the number." She set my phone on the table between us like it was something that might bite.
"He's watching the house."
"Or he checked the car mileage and knew you'd walked somewhere."
"Or Danny's school phone." She stood up.
"I have to go back."
"Carol—"
"If I'm not home when he gets there, it gets worse.
Not for me.
For Danny." She was already moving toward the back door.
"He doesn't touch us.
But he finds other ways.
Last time I was late coming home, Danny's school laptop disappeared for two weeks.
Garrett said it was lost.
It wasn't lost."
I stepped between her and the door.
Not blocking her — just present.
"Listen to me.
Patrice is forty minutes away.
If you go back now, he knows you've been talking.
That changes things."
"He already knows."
"He knows you came for coffee.
He doesn't know what we talked about.
He doesn't know about Patrice.
He doesn't know I have the drive." I kept my voice low and steady.
"Go home.
Be normal.
Make dinner.
Don't react to the text — he sent it from a number you're not supposed to know about, which means he can't bring it up without admitting he has a second phone."
She stopped.
I could see her thinking.
Really thinking — not panicking, not freezing, but calculating.
The same mind that had built seventeen folders over three years.
"He'll ask where I was."
"Neighbor's house.
Coffee.
You were gone forty minutes.
There's nothing wrong with that."
"He'll ask what we talked about."
"The neighborhood.
The school.
Our sons becoming friends.
All true."
She looked at me for a long moment.
"You're good at this," she said.
"I've had practice," I said.
"Go home.
Text Danny from the school phone when you're safe inside.
I'll have Patrice call me the moment she arrives and I'll come to you — not you coming here.
I'll knock on your door like I'm returning something.
A dish.
A book.
Something normal."
"He'll be home by six."
"Patrice will be here by four.
That gives us two hours."
Carol picked up my phone from the table and looked at the text one more time.
Then she handed it back to me and walked to the back door.
"Don't lose that drive," she said without turning around.
"I won't."
She went out.
I watched her cross the narrow strip of yard between our houses and disappear through her back door.
I stood at my window for a moment.
Then I went to my laptop, opened a new document, and started writing down everything she had told me, in order, with times.
At 1:52, my phone buzzed again.
Same unknown number.
*She's home.
Good choice.*
I stared at the message.
He wanted me to know he was watching.
He wanted me scared.
He wanted me to feel like he was already ahead.
I screenshot both messages, emailed them to myself, and added the email to the folder.
Then I called Patrice.
"He knows she was here," I said when she picked up.
"He has a second phone.
He texted me."
A beat of silence.
"He texted you directly?"
"Yes."
"Okay." Her voice didn't waver.
"That's actually useful.
That's him making contact.
That's evidence of surveillance and intimidation." Another pause.
"I'm leaving now.
I'll be there in thirty-five minutes.
Don't respond to his texts.
Don't delete them."
"Already documented."
"Good." I heard her car door close.
"One more thing.
When I get there, I'm going to need you to make a decision."
"What decision?"
"Whether we do this quietly — safety plan, controlled exit, legal process — or whether we move faster." She started the engine.
"Because if he's already surveilling the neighbor he met twelve hours ago, Carol's window may be shorter than we thought."
I looked out the window at the house next door.
Curtains still drawn.
No movement.
"How much faster?" I asked.
May you like
"Tonight," Patrice said.
"Possibly tonight."
