The sound el shattering glass shattered the silence, Jennifer stood up, her heart racing.
Dyson was already in motion. “Stay here”
She 1677 Tutowed him into the kitchen.
Glass sparkled across the tile floor. A brick lay among the shards of glass, having smashed the small windows above the sink.
Byron picked it up. Something was taped to it.
Ho unfolded it, and his jaw ti
jaw tightened.
*YOU THINK YOU’RE SAFE? HE CAN’T PROTECT YOU?
Jennifer’s stomach twisted Panic gasped shout breath in and out of her.
And then she ar: İL
Beyond the fence at the edge of the yard was a dark figure.
Not moving Just watching
dow.
Her mouth went dry. “Tyron,” she whispered, pointing
He looked up in time to see the Ligure turn and vanish into the night
But not forgot
Jennifer felt her kices go wel
“I’m calling the police,” Byron said, reaching for the phone
Jenniler bid nothing
Her
As were locked on the place the shadow bad previously occur
Because just then, she had a sickening feeling
This wasn’t about Devlin anymore.
I was someone else, and whoever they were.. they were getting closer.
Sunlight moved through half–closed blinds, costing pale gold on jennifer’s bedroom floor. Above all, dust motes ned in the light as though they were trazen in time.
jenniler sat at the edge of her bed, arms teldad tightly around herself Everything from the last pight clung to her, like a second skin–the shattered window, the brick, the terrifying note.
The police had come and gone. They took photographs, collected the brick and the torn up note, digred for prints, but left with more questions than answers,
No princs, not a singular picked camera–airybody else saw nothing Just a message sipping through her mind like a servam: “He can’t protect you.” Byron hadrefused to leave all the time insisting that she was fine, but she knew he had to be in the kitchen now brewing coffee or pacing as die bądali night. Still, Jennifer needed space, even if it was just a breath. Slowly she stood and crossed to her closet. Not sure what she looked for–something familiar, a sweater, perhaps. She reached up to the top shelf and pulled down an old box–a battered cardboard thing, wor at the corner and scattered with dust from neglect.
It was her memory box, the one she hadn’t toucved since the divorce. Her fingers trembled as she lifted the lid. Inside were fragments of another life: a faded photograph of her and Devlin at the beach, grinning into the sun, a ticket stub from the concert where he first told her he loved her; and at the very bottom, a sealed envelope with her name written in her own. handwriting. She stated at it. The litter. The one she had written two years ago, but never sent. A love letter to Devlin, witten on one of the nights he hadn’t come home,
Her hands trumbled, be taking the seal, the opened the pages, yellowing ever so gently at ins edges:
“Devlin,
I don’t lovom where you are tonight, Maybe you’re working late. Maybe you’re trying to avaldnie. Maybe bail. I’m wiling this because I can’t keep screaming in silence. I need you. ta kinow that I love you still. Even when you forget to say it back. Even when you came boine and burely glance in my direction. Even whey, your phone bizons with a message, and you just avoid
still remember that first time we danced barefoot in the kitchen, laughing and holding onto each other as if life was ours for the taking Hemember that? You singing all–key, and 1 mot pving a daus? Then you would trace cindes on my back just to help me fall asleep. I wonder slutever happened to that, Derlin? Where did it and we vanished?
| am seat writing this to have a goat you. I am writing this because I into you. I malas us Angi don’t know how much longer I can pretend that everything is okay
Come back to me, please
Love, Jennifer
Tears blamed the rest of the words.
Jailer folded the letter with deliberate slowness, bet touch feeling the the was catering something elusive, like opening wounds that had never really healed. She carried the lette dowtairs. The bouse was silent apast the sufi cink of a spons on a roller mug
Byron looked up as she entered the cheen “Hey You okay?
Shenorked and held the letter up. “I found this.”
The the pain her eyes and let it go at that.
She moved past hins toward the fireplace in the living room. She loveli and placed the keiten uns the bearth before stalking a match.
«Flames danced across the edges of the paper, dramig in inwardas black ash possomed her words.
He moved
to her and sold “Are you sure about this?”
