Page 28 of He Sees You

I stare at that last line.

Her brother has read my books.

The reclusive mountain man who might be a serial killer is familiar with my writing about dark, dangerous men who do terrible things for love.

The cursor blinks on my blank page, and suddenly, I'm writing:

The gift appeared in the night, left by hands she'd never seen on a windowsill that required dedication to reach. Not a threat—threats were crude, obvious. This was something else. A calling card. An invitation. The kind of thing a predator leaves to let prey know it's been chosen.

But prey implied she would run, and she had no intention of running.

She touched the feather, black as ink, soft as secrets whispered in darkness. Whoever left this understood something fundamental: fear and fascination were not opposites but dance partners, moving together in rhythm as old as time itself.

The words flow like water, like blood, like everything I've been missing for months.

I write about a woman finding gifts, each more intimate than the last.

A feather. A book of poetry with certain lines underscored.

A photograph of herself taken from a distance, beautiful rather than threatening.

A man who courts through observing her, who knows her routines better than she does.

I write about the heroine's response—not fear but curiosity.

Not revulsion but recognition.

She doesn't call the police.

She doesn't install new locks. She waits for the next gift with the patience of someone who understands she's part of something larger than conventional romance, darker than typical courtship.

Three hours pass in what feels like minutes.

When I finally surface, I have fifteen pages—more than I've written in the last month combined.

And they're good.

Dark and sensual and terrifying in all the right ways.

The kind of pages that would make Richard at Vesper House forgive all my missed deadlines.

My stomach growls, reminding me I've been surviving on purely coffee and inspiration.

Dad left a note saying he's at the station, won't be back until dinner.

The protection detail is presumably still outside, though I haven't seen the sedan all morning.

Maybe they're trying to be more discreet after I waved at them yesterday.

I need supplies anyway—coffee, wine, something besides Dad's pathetic bachelor grocery selections.

And maybe, if I happen to run into Juliette's brother in town, I can thank him for the inadvertent inspiration.

I throw on clothes without much thought—jeans, black sweater, the leather jacket that costs too much for upstate but makes me feel like myself.

The feather catches my eye as I'm leaving.

After a moment, I tuck it into my jacket pocket.