“I have a feeling I won’t like what you’ll have to say.”
There was a brief pause on the other end. The kind of pause indicating the speaker had already considered how to phrase what came next.
“Probably not, boss.”
“Talk,” I sighed, scrubbing a hand down my face.
“There’s a man.”
My back went ramrod straight and something cold settled beneath my skin, spreading slowly and deliberately until it reached everything.
The sentence itself meant nothing, but I didn’t like the tone he’d used. Something was wrong.
“Define that for me,” I said, my voice even enough it gave nothing away.
“He’s been around her building,” the voice continued carefully. “And it ain’t random. We didn’t flag it immediately because he kept distance at first but he’s consistent. He watches her.”
I leaned back against the wall slightly, letting my gaze drift unfocused across the room as I listened. Even before he had finished speaking, I had already formed a picture in my head of what was going on, and I knew where this was going.
“For how long?”
“Two weeks confirmed. Possibly longer … but he escalated recently.”
Of course he did. They always did, eventually.
Watching was never enough for men like him. Watching turned into wanting, and if this urge was left unchecked, it always turned into something uglier.
“Meaning?” I needed them to clarify but because I wanted to hear it stated exactly for what it was.
Another small pause. “He’s been following her.”
I didn’t respond for a moment, not because I didn’t know what to say, but because I was choosing very carefully what not to do. Under the circumstances, this required significantly more effort.
My first instinct — the immediate, violent one — was to have them put an end to it.
To remove the variable.
To solve the problem as efficiently as possible and move on.
But I wasn’t ready to leave yet, and if anyone was going to do it, I wanted to be the one.
They told me he was average and forgettable. The kind of man who slipped through spaces unnoticed because there was nothing about him worth noticing in the first place, which made him infinitely more dangerous than the ones who announced themselves too loudly.
The kind that blended in.
The kind that waited.
The kind that learned routines and mistook access for entitlement.
I exhaled slowly through my nose, feeling my jaw tighten as the mental image took shape.
“Has he touched her?”
“No.”
The answer was immediate and without hesitation, easing some of the pressure in my chest. It wasn’t entirely gone, but it was under control for the moment. If the answer had been anything else, this conversation would have been very different.
“Does she suspect anything?”