Page 4 of Hunting Brooklyn (Stalkers in the Woods #5)

He leads me down a corridor lined with the sort of art that always looks expensive but never quite makes sense.

There’s a portrait of my father near the entrance to the executive suite: eyes piercing, mouth locked in a half-smile that says, I know things you never will .

I flinch, but keep walking. I should be planning his memorial, his funeral, the celebration of life, but instead, I’ve got our lifelong friends planning those details while I’m here.

My brother didn’t even give a shit that Dad died when I called. Guess he hasn’t gotten over their last argument about him being a deadbeat.

The team is waiting for me in the open-plan bullpen, six people in tailored business-casual who could probably spot my salary at a hundred meters.

I try to recall their names from my hurried cramming last night.

There’s the lead engineer, Simphiwe, who wears her hair natural and her attitude even more so; a numbers guy, Petrus, whose handshake is limp but whose gaze never quite meets mine; two young analysts, both named Grace, who I’m already terrified of confusing; an HR director named Naledi, who looks at me with the mild interest of a cat sizing up a houseguest; and, of course, Thabo, who presides over them all like a benevolent vulture.

We do the dance. Everyone introduces themselves, says a little something about their role, their goals, their favorite “thing about the Marcus ethos,” which is a phrase my father probably made up in the shower. When it’s my turn, I try to be as brief as possible.

“Hi, I’m Brooklyn. I mostly specialize in research and archival work, but I’ll be, uh, leading the transition team as we move into the next quarter. And then… I guess I’ll be taking over. It’s an honor to meet you all.” My palms sweat through two layers of cotton as I speak.

There’s a polite silence, then Thabo claps his hands together. “Shall we get started with a tour of the floor? I don’t believe you’ve been past the second floor, where your office is?”

I nod and follow, trailing a half-step behind. As we walk, I notice the staff exchanging glances whenever my back is turned. Not hostile, exactly, but speculative, like they’re sizing up whether I’m capable of running a multi-billion dollar business.

The tour is efficient. Boardrooms, break rooms, the “collaboration area” with its beanbag chairs and mandatory foosball table. Thabo saves the best for last: my father’s old office.

He opens the door with a reverent pause.

“Your father was very… particular about his work,” he says, almost apologetic.

The room is immaculate, every object placed just so.

The desk is a different beast from the one at home—sleek, dark, monolithic.

On it, a single silver-framed photo: me, age fifteen, beaming like a dork in a Harry Potter scarf while my father pretends to cast a spell at the camera.

I want to hate it, but I don’t. Instead, I run my thumb over the surface of the desk and let my breath out slow.

“Thank you, Thabo,” I say. “You can leave me here for a bit. I just need to, um, get situated.”

He bows again, closes the door, and I am alone in the room with the sharp pang in my chest that this is all happening much, much too fast.

I sit in the chair and try to channel his confidence, but it comes out as nausea.

I open the bottom drawer and find the files immediately—every contract, every proposal, every bit of regulatory paperwork arranged with care.

I thumb through them, searching for anything that stands out.

A folder labeled “South Africa Division—Pending” is tabbed with three different sticky notes in my father’s handwriting: “URGENT,” “WATCH,” and “—X—.”

My skin prickles. I open the folder and scan the contents: memos about land purchases, mining rights, water access agreements. Maps with tracts shaded in aggressive red. A page of numbers that makes no sense unless you know what you’re looking for.

And I didn’t.

I flip to the end and there it is—a single sheet torn from a yellow legal pad, written in my father’s hurried scrawl:

“Find the leak. Verify ownership of Ridge property. Evans proving to be a problem. DO NOT TRUST OUTSIDE PARTNERS.”

A sense of dread settles in my stomach.

I piece together the sequence: someone inside the company was undermining a deal, maybe even threatening the entire division. My father knew, but he didn’t know who. Or he knew and was afraid to write the name down.

The back of my neck tingles. I glance up at the wall clock. It’s only been twenty minutes since I arrived, but I feel years older already.

From the open window, the distant sounds of the city drift in—honking, a siren, the hydraulic gasp of a bus coming to rest at a stop. I rest my elbows on the desk and squeeze my eyes shut.

He would want me to finish this. He was a just man.

My hands move before I decide to, cross-referencing emails and spreadsheets, scribbling notes in a spiral-bound pad I found in the second drawer. I’m so absorbed that I don’t notice the door open behind me until Thabo’s voice intrudes, quiet and polite.

“Ms. Marcus? The conference call is ready when you are.”

“Thank you,” I say, stacking the folders in order and tucking both suspicious memos into my backpack, just in case. My heart pounds, but my voice is steady. “I’ll be right there.”

He nods, gives me the briefest of looks—a flash of something like respect, or maybe relief—and closes the door.

I run my hands through my hair, stand, and face the window. My reflection looks back at me, softer than my father’s, but stubborn all the same.

There’s work to be done, and the dead are not going to rest until I do it.

The world outside the office is quiet, but inside, time goes feral.

It's ten o’clock and I am the last living thing on the thirty-fourth floor, except for the strip of cleaner’s cart abandoned in the stairwell and a single moth flinging itself repeatedly against the break room window.

I do my best work at night. The silence gives me permission to be exactly as strange as I am: to talk to myself, to dramatize Excel pivot tables like they're stage plays, to quote lines from gothic romance novels in a bad British accent.

Tonight, I have resorted to Bronte. “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me,” I recite, daring the darkness to disagree. The words echo against the glass and settle into the warm pool of lamplight at my desk.

I turn back to the files. The deeper I dig, the less sense anything makes.

The land contracts are convoluted even by legal standards—layer after layer of shell companies, names borrowed from Greek tragedies, signatures that are technically correct but stylistically off.

Somewhere in here is the answer my father chased to his grave, and I am just smart enough to know I’ll never be as smart as him.

My pen clicks, I tap my foot, try not to look at the corner where the glass walls meet because every so often I catch a movement there—a blur, a suggestion—and every time it’s only my own reflection in the window.

Still, the feeling is persistent, the sense that I am being watched by something too patient to ever make itself known.

My phone buzzes with a text from my brother. A meme, nothing important. I send back a heart and close the chat. Loneliness used to be a luxury, a thing I hoarded, but now I want to be anywhere but here.

Half past ten, and the office is even emptier. The building’s HVAC cycles off for the night, and the air gets thick, the only sound the hum of the vending machines and the distant, wet slosh of a mop somewhere down the hall.

I quote again, this time under my breath: “Reader, I married him.” I am not sure if I am the reader or the one being read. Either way, the only person I am likely to marry tonight is a stack of fraudulent invoices.

Marking a critical passage in a contract and I flex my fingers.

I am about to draft an email to Thabo when a shadow slides across the frosted glass of my office door.

It is not the cleaner; I heard her go home an hour ago, dragging her radio and humming off-key to Die Antwoord.

The shadow stops, hesitates, then vanishes.

My heart stumbles. I wait a full minute before moving, counting my own breaths, willing the shadow to be just another stray thought.

Then, very quietly, I get up and open the door.

The hallway is long and faintly gold, the overheads set to low for the night.

Every office is empty, every chair tucked in, every personal item locked away for the weekend.

I stand in the doorway for too long, listening.

There is a scent on the air, not the usual mixture of carpet glue and forced air but something greener: crushed pine needles, or the fresh, sharp bite of earth after rain.

“Hello?” I call, because I am not brave but I am, at heart, a masochist for awkward moments. My voice cracks at the end.

Nothing. No footsteps, no sound. Even the elevators are asleep.

I shake my head, embarrassed for myself. Back in the office, I pretend not to notice how my hands are shaking as I return to my seat. I push the weirdness out of my mind, finish drafting the email, and hit “Send” with a finality I do not feel.

It is midnight by the time I pack up. The suspicious files go into the backpack, along with the dog-eared novels and a single granola bar I have been hoarding for emergencies.

I check my reflection in the dark glass of the window: hair wild, eyes wide, sweater already pilled from stress-itching at the cuffs.

I look like every sad girl in every sad campus novel ever written, which is both comforting and extremely not.

About to turn off the desk lamp, something catches my eye: the security camera in the corner of the ceiling, normally pointed at the entry, is now aimed directly at the far wall. I didn’t touch it. I am certain of this because I am too short to reach, and anyway, who would bother?

I stare at it for a moment, willing it to move again, but the lens remains fixed, a single red dot blinking in the shadows. I almost laugh—almost—but the sound would not be entirely sane, so I don’t.

Shaking my head, I gather my things and lock the office door behind me. The elevator ride down is solitary, punctuated by the mechanical tick of floors passing and the strange, metallic scent of elevator soap. In the ground floor lobby, even the reception desk is abandoned.

Outside, the parking lot is a grid of sodium lamps and empty spaces.

My old Corolla is the only car left in the visitor lot, paint the color of curdled milk, windshield streaked with the dust of late winter.

I reach for my keys and see it—a small sprig of wildflowers, pale blue and yellow, tucked under the driver’s side wiper.

I freeze. My first, idiotic thought is that it’s a ticket. My second is that it’s a prank. My third, the one I finally let myself feel, is that it’s a message.

The petals are delicate, local to the Highveld.

My father taught me the names once, when I was small and he still believed in the redemptive power of nature walks.

I reach out to touch them, and for a moment I am a little girl again, hands sticky with sugar water and pollen, listening to him tell stories about the plants that could heal or kill, depending on your need.

I look around the lot, but it is empty. No cars, no lingering footsteps, nothing except the hush of the city after midnight and the prickling certainty that somewhere, someone is watching.

“Perhaps it’s from a sympathetic colleague,” I whisper, but even I don’t believe it. I remove the wildflowers and slip them into the front pocket of my backpack. The keys rattle in my hand.

I drive home with the radio off, the only sound the low hum of the engine and my own pulse, louder now than ever. When I arrive at my flat, I double-check the locks, draw every curtain, and set the flowers in a glass of water beside my bed.

Tomorrow, I’ll ask Thabo if he left them. Tomorrow, I’ll pretend I am brave enough to laugh at ghosts.

But tonight, I sleep with the light on.

My father might be dead, but the living need all the protection they can get.