Page 7 of He Sees You

Juliette, sending another update she doesn't realize is feeding something she wouldn't understand.

Or maybe she would.

My sister always did see more than she let on.

She left the city two hours ago. Stopped for gas in Albany.

I don't respond.

I never do anymore, not to these updates, but Juliette keeps sending them, these little breadcrumbs about Celeste Sterling's life.

She thinks she's sharing publishing gossip with her reclusive brother.

She has no idea she's been training a predator to hunt.

The skull gleams in the weak December sunlight.

I position it perfectly, so it will be the first thing visible when turning onto the property.

Not that Celeste will be coming here.

Not yet.

But the others drive past sometimes—the sheriff, his deputies, the concerned citizens who whisper about the hermit in the mountains who strings up bones like party decorations.

Let them whisper.

They have no idea what real decoration looks like.

What I've done to the ones who deserved it.

I pull out my phone and open the document Juliette sent last week.

Celeste's latest chapter, the one her publisher rejected for being "too tame."

I've read it seventeen times.

She writes:He watched her with the patience of a man who had already decided how this would end, but wanted to savor the journey.

She understands patience, even if she doesn't understand what she's been writing about.

Not truly.

Her heroes are fantasies, men who play in darkness, but would crumble under its real weight.

They ask permission. They feel guilt. They stop when asked.

I'veneverstopped anything I've started.

The sound of tires on snow makes me turn.

Not her—I know the engine sound of every vehicle in this town, and this is Tom Bradley's pickup, struggling with its dying transmission.

He sees me at the property line and accelerates, not making eye contact.

Good.

Tom learned his lesson last year when he put his hands on his girlfriend after too many drinks at Murphy's.