I stood there shivering in the cold morning air, the silence of the street feeling heavy. A rational person would have gone back to bed or called the police. But my gut twisted with a nausea I couldn’t ignore.
Three months ago, my father died of a “sudden stroke,” and since then, my life had felt… watched. Strange cars parked too long. Click noises on my phone line. Gabriel’s fear felt like the piece of a puzzle I didn’t want to solve. I called in sick. I sat in my kitchen, staring at the clock as the hours crawled by. 9 AM. 10 AM. The silence in the house grew so loud it felt like pressure building in my ears.
Then, exactly at 11:30 AM, my phone rang. It wasn’t my boss. The caller ID was blocked. “Ms. Rowan,” a calm voice said. “This is Officer Taylor. We need to know why your keycard was used to enter your office building at 8:02 AM.”
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