Page 2 of Evermore

“Bullshit.” Jake dropped into the chair next to River's desk. “You've been staring at that slide like it holds the secrets of the universe. Either you've discovered alien life, or something's seriously messing with your head.”

“I'm thinking.”

“You're brooding. There's a difference.” Jake settled into the chair beside River's workstation. “Talk to me. What's eating at you?”

River sighed and pulled the letter out. “Someone left me this. During my dive this morning. And before you say anything, yeah, I know how crazy it sounds.”

Jake read it with the same focus he brought to incident reports, but his expression kept getting more and more concerned. “Jesus, River. This is...” He looked up. “This is really fucking specific. Like, stalker-level specific. You're sure you don't know anyone named Finn?”

“Never heard of him in my life.”

“And this stuff about your dad's watch? Your research?” Jake was reading it again, frowning. “This isn't stuff someone could just figure out by following you around. This is intimate.”

“Tell me something I don't know.” River took the letter back, folding it carefully. “That's why I can't figure out what the hell is going on.”

“Okay, so maybe it's someone from way back? College? Someone your dad knew?” Jake was in problem-solving mode now, which River appreciated even if it wasn't going to help.

“I'd remember someone who knew me this well. And the handwriting doesn't ring any bells.”

Jake stood up and walked over to the window, looking out at the harbor with that alert expression he got when things didn't add up. “You want my honest opinion? Take this to the cops. Someone's been watching you way too closely, and that's not romantic, it's creepy as hell.”

“Right. And tell them what? 'Officer, someone wrote me a love letter that knows too much about my life'? They'll think I'm paranoid.”

“They'll think you're being smart.” Jake turned around, looking serious. “River, I've seen what happens when people get obsessed. This isn't normal.”

River wanted to argue, but Jake was right about the obsessive quality. The letter demonstrated knowledge requiring either extensive surveillance or impossible intimacy. Both options were disturbing.

“I'll think about it,” River said, knowing he wouldn't follow through. Something about the letter felt too personal for police intervention.

Jake studied his face, clearly debating whether to push harder. “Promise me you'll be careful. Change your routine. Don't go places alone until we figure out who's behind this.”

“I'm always careful.”

“You're always competent. That's different.” Jake grabbed his mug and headed for the door. “And if you get more messages, call me immediately. Don't handle this alone.”

After Jake left, River tried to lose himself in familiar work rhythms, but the letter's words kept intruding. He found himself checking the harbor through his window more frequently than usual.

Dr. Amelia Reeves arrived for their weekly review, her presence filling the lab with comfortable authority. She examined River's latest data with careful attention.

“The restoration rates are exceeding projections,” she said, flipping through photographic documentation. “The kelp recovery is remarkable. You should be proud of this work.”

“Thanks.” River tried to match her enthusiasm, but his attention kept drifting to the desk drawer. “The ecosystem is more resilient than expected.”

Dr. Reeves studied his face with sharp perception. “Everything okay? You seem distracted.”

“Just thinking about the next phase.” River gestured toward charts mapping slow recovery across different coastline sections. “Some areas aren't responding as quickly.”

“That's normal variation. Ecological recovery isn't linear.” She fixed him with the direct gaze that had intimidated graduate students for decades. “But that's not what's bothering you, is it?”

River considered telling her about the letter, seeking rational perspective. But it felt too intimate, too potentially embarrassing.

“Personal stuff,” he said finally. “Nothing that affects the work.”

“Personal stuff affects everything if you let it.” Dr. Reeves gathered her materials. “Take time off if you need it. The ocean will still be here when you get back.”

After she left, River sat alone as afternoon faded toward evening, the letter's presence like physical weight. He'd built his life around predictable patterns and measurable phenomena, but the message had introduced mystery his scientific training couldn't process.

The rational response was clear: document the incident, report it, take precautions. But rationality felt inadequate when faced with words from someone who seemed to know him better than he knew himself.

The lighthouse cottage felt different when River returned that evening, as if the letter had changed his relationship with the space. The beacon's familiar rhythm seemed more intrusive. His sanctuary had been compromised by knowledge that someone had been observing his private moments.

River spread the letter on his kitchen table under bright light, studying it with methodical attention. The paper was definitely aged.

But the content remained impossible. The writer knew about eating cereal from the box during research absorption. About talking to marine samples like colleagues. About guilt that drove unnecessary risks during storms.

River looked at the Submariner on his wrist, crystal fogged with accumulated moisture.

The watch had been a gift for his father's twentieth Coast Guard anniversary, engraved with coordinates marking his first rescue.

River had worn it daily since the funeral, unable to let go despite salt water slowly corroding the movement.

How could a stranger know the watch's significance? The way River touched it unconsciously when thinking about his father? The guilt that made him keep wearing it despite damage?

The phone rang while River was trying to convince himself to eat something that wasn't cereal. Sarah, right on schedule for her weekly “make sure River hasn't become a hermit” call. He thought about letting it ring, but she'd just keep calling back.

“Hey, Sarah.”

“You sound weird. What's wrong now?”

God, she was like a bloodhound for emotional distress. “Nothing's wrong. I'm fine.”

“Uh-huh. And I'm the Queen of England.” Sarah's voice had that mix of love and exasperation that meant she was settling in for a long conversation. “Talk to me. What's going on?”

“I'm not isolating, if that's what you're getting at.”

“I didn't say you were. But now that you mention it...” He could hear her moving around, probably doing dishes or grading papers while simultaneously psychoanalyzing her emotionally stunted brother. “When's the last time you talked to someone who wasn't Jake or Dr. Reeves?”

River looked at the letter sitting on his kitchen table. Did mysterious correspondence count? “I talk to people.”

“Sea urchins don't count.”

“They're excellent listeners.”

“River.” Sarah's voice went soft, the way it did when she was genuinely worried. “I know you're still dealing with Dad's death. I get it. But you can't just disappear into that lab forever. It's been two years.”

“I'm not disappearing.”

“Then prove it. Come to dinner this weekend. Bring a friend. Hell, bring a date if you can remember how those work.”

River almost laughed. If only she knew about the love letter from a complete stranger who somehow knew his life better than he did. “I'm not ready for dating.”

“You're never going to be ready if you keep living like you're the only person left on earth.” Sarah sighed. “Dad wouldn't want this for you, River. He'd want you to be happy.”

There it was. The Dad card. The one thing guaranteed to make River's chest tighten up like he was trapped under thirty feet of water. “Don't.”

“Don't what? Tell you the truth?” Sarah's voice got firmer. “You think honoring his memory means punishing yourself for surviving? Because that's not grief, River. That's guilt, and it's eating you alive.”

River wanted to tell her about the letter, about impossible intimacy from someone who seemed to understand his isolation better than his own sister. But Sarah would want to analyze it, apply psychological training to something defying rational explanation.

“I'm not disappearing,” he said. “I'm just working through some things.”

“For two years? River, healthy grief has a timeline. What you're doing isn't healing, it's hiding.”

After Sarah hung up, River sat while the beacon continued its rotation, casting moving shadows across the letter's pages.

His sister wasn't wrong about isolation or avoiding emotional connection.

But she didn't understand that some wounds were too deep for conventional healing, that some guilt required ongoing penance.

The letter suggested someone else understood. Someone who knew about storm nightmares and dangerous diving and conversations with marine samples. Someone who saw isolation not as pathology but as protection.

River touched the watch face, feeling slight roughness where corrosion had begun pitting the crystal. The letter's writer understood that some destruction was worth accepting, that some connections were worth maintaining even when they caused ongoing damage.

He folded the letter carefully and returned it to the drawer, but words continued echoing as he prepared for bed. Someone named Finn claimed to love him, understand him, know details that should have been impossible to obtain.

Tomorrow, he would start looking for answers. Tonight, he would dream about voices that felt familiar despite being completely unknown.

River's research into the name “Finn” began before his morning coffee finished brewing.

Local directories revealed one result: “Between the Lines,” an antiquarian bookshop in the historic waterfront district.

Limited hours, no website—a business catering to serious collectors rather than casual browsers.

The coincidence felt too neat. A love letter from someone named Finn, and exactly one person by that name locally. River's scientific training made him suspicious of convenient explanations, but curiosity overrode skepticism.

The drive took him through neighborhoods he rarely visited, past Victorian houses converted to galleries and cafes. The historic district retained working fishing village charm—weathered docks and functional boats rather than decorative ones.

“Between the Lines” occupied a narrow three-story building between a pottery studio and wine bar, deep green facade with gold lettering suggesting old-world craftsmanship. The window displayed rare books and antique maps, arranged with careful attention by someone who understood their value.

River parked across the street and studied the building while debating his approach. He could walk in and ask about the letter, but that felt too direct, too potentially embarrassing if this was mistaken identity. Better to observe first, gather information before committing.

Through the window, he could see someone moving among tall bookshelves—a man with auburn hair catching afternoon light as he arranged volumes with careful, reverent movements.

Something about his posture suggested deep familiarity with the space, comfortable navigation of someone who knew exactly where everything belonged.

River found himself studying the man's profile, noting vintage clothing that looked authentically worn rather than costume-like.

Cardigan over oxford shirt, functional suspenders.

Clothing suggesting someone living slightly outside contemporary fashion, choosing pieces for quality and comfort rather than trends.

The man looked up from his work and their eyes met through the window. River felt an unexpected jolt of recognition, as if seeing someone familiar despite being certain they'd never met. The sensation was disorienting, intimate in a way that made him feel caught in impropriety.

Instead of entering the shop, River turned and walked back to his truck, heart racing with disproportionate adrenaline.

The man in the bookshop was attractive, certainly, but River's reaction felt deeper than aesthetic appreciation.

It felt like recognition, reunion, coming home to a place he'd never been.

The rational explanation was obvious: power of suggestion.

He'd been thinking about someone named Finn for twenty-four hours, built up expectations and emotional investment around the mysterious letter writer.

Seeing an attractive man in the right location had triggered false familiarity—a well-documented psychological phenomenon.

But as River drove toward the lighthouse cottage, the image lingered with disturbing persistence. Auburn hair catching light like burnished copper. Hands moving with the same careful reverence he brought to marine specimens. Eyes that had seemed to hold matching recognition.

The letter waited in his desk drawer, its impossible intimacy now connected to a face and place. River knew he would return to the bookshop, knew he would eventually work up courage to walk through that door and ask the questions building since he'd first read those elegant words.

But tonight, he would content himself knowing Finn Torres was real, that the bookshop existed, that the mystery had tangible anchor in the physical world. Tomorrow, he would begin understanding how a stranger could know him better than he knew himself.

The lighthouse beam swept through his windows in endless rhythm. River fell asleep with the letter's words echoing in his mind and auburn hair catching afternoon light burned behind his closed eyes.

In his dreams, a voice he'd never heard spoke words he somehow recognized, and for the first time in two years, the storm nightmares stayed away.