Page 11 of Tides of Change (Seacliff Cove #2)
I carried my lunch to a small table near the window and tucked myself into the corner so that passersby would barely notice me.
The sandwich was every bit as satisfying as it looked, and I devoured it with a focus that bordered on ravenous.
The latte, sweet and spiced, was like a balm against the nerves still simmering beneath the surface.
After finishing the sandwich, I pulled out my phone to check my author email account, the latte cradled in one hand. Most of the messages were typical fan emails—praise for my books, questions about my writing process. My assistant would handle them later.
But my finger froze over one particular email, from EyeSeeYou. My blood ran so cold no latte could warm it.
You can’t escape me.
The words stared back at me, ominous in their simplicity. My mouth went dry, and my pulse slammed into overdrive. The air in the café seemed to thin, the once comforting scents now cloying and suffocating.
I shot a glance at the street outside, my gaze darting over every figure. A car rolled by, its driver oblivious. A woman pushed a stroller, her pace unhurried. A shopkeeper swept her storefront with lazy strokes.
No one looked at me. Yet my skin prickled as though a thousand unseen eyes were trained on me.
I shot to my feet. The chair scraped across the wood floor and nearly toppled. The sound was loud enough to draw Cooper’s attention.
His brows knit together in concern. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I croaked, my voice tight and unconvincing. “Gotta go.” I quickly cleared my table.
My steps sped up as I left the coffee shop, and I scanned the street with every turn of my head. By the time I reached my car, I was practically jogging.
My errands couldn’t wait, though, no matter how much I wanted to retreat. At the post office, I felt exposed under the fluorescent lights, and my heart raced as I picked up the mail forwarded to my PO box.
A Priority Mail Express envelope sat at the bottom of the stack, having arrived sometime last week. My breath hitched the moment I spotted it.
My name—Ethan Cole—and address in Brooklyn were printed neatly on the label, with the post office’s forwarding address label underneath. The return address on the envelope was from a real estate company in Brooklyn.
My grip tightened around the cardboard envelope as a cold current slid down my spine. I stepped outside, heart thudding, the sounds of gulls and passing cars suddenly distant.
Hands unsteady, I tore the envelope open.
Inside was a glossy flyer from a real estate agency I didn’t recognize. The kind you’d find stacked near the front desk of an apartment building—professional, sleek, harmless-looking. But across the top, scrawled in large, loopy handwriting, was a handwritten message:
We have a customer interested in buying your apartment. Please give me a call.
This had to be another message, disguised as something mundane. Like the gardener’s flyer, left just so. But I didn’t have any real estate agents in my Jake Slate books. There was no fictional breadcrumb this time. Still…I didn’t trust it.
I yanked out my phone and Googled the company’s name.
A website loaded. Clean, modern, real. Full of smiling headshots and staged living rooms. I found the agent’s profile, her phone number, her office address. Everything matched.
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
Legitimate. A coincidence. Real estate business as usual.
But as I tucked the flyer back into the envelope, unease still lingered.
I hastened to my next errand. The grocery store was no better than the post office—every aisle felt too open, every fellow shopper a potential threat.
When I finally locked my front door behind me, my knees nearly buckled with relief. The house wrapped around me like a cocoon, but even its walls felt thinner. I leaned against the door, my breaths ragged and uneven.
The email had shattered my fragile sense of security.
The blinking cursor on my screen seemed to flash a warning.
I’d been staring at the same unfinished sentence for nearly an hour, my thoughts too tangled to form anything coherent.
The story was there, but it was hiding beneath layers of anxiety and the oppressive weight of the previous day’s email from EyeSeeYou.
I sighed, rubbed my temples, and glanced at my phone for the hundredth time.
No new messages. No new notifications. I tapped the screen anyway and scrolled through the same list of unread fan emails.
My chest tightened with the name of every sender.
There was nothing new from EyeSeeYou. Was I relieved? No.
The silence was almost worse.
My coffee sat untouched on the desk beside me. I picked it up, took a sip, and grimaced at the cold, unappealing brew. My gaze drifted to the window and the tightly closed blinds that shrouded the room in shadows. It felt wrong to be so cooped up in my own house.
I clicked over to my social media accounts and scanned the notifications. Most were harmless: comments, likes, a few new followers. But each one felt like a potential threat. I closed the apps with a shaky exhale, leaned back in my chair, and stared at the ceiling.
What was I supposed to do? Should I tell someone? Tell Garrett? My stomach churned at the thought. What would I even say? Oh, hey, Garrett, I think I have a deranged fan who’s stalking me and leaving cryptic messages. That’s normal, right?
The sharp chime of the doorbell made me jump so violently that I nearly knocked my coffee onto the keyboard. My heart pounded as I reached for my phone and pulled up the door cam feed with trembling fingers. Relief flooded through me when I saw Garrett and Noah standing on the porch.
Noah grinned up at the camera while Garrett stood behind him, hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans and looking sheepish. I set my phone down and rushed to the door, my pulse racing, but for a different reason.
When I opened the door, Noah beamed. “Hi, Mr. Ethan!”
Garrett cleared his throat, his expression apologetic.
“Sorry to drop by unannounced. Noah wanted to come say hi…” He glanced away briefly, adding under his breath, “And, well, I guess I did too.” He looked over his shoulder.
“But don’t worry, I scanned the street before we came over.
Just Mrs. Hendershot walking old Bernie. ”
A small, genuine smile broke through my tension. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Noah looked up at me, his face animated. “I’m going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for a sleepover tonight! We’re gonna bake cookies and watch a movie. Grandpa lets me stay up super late.”
“That sounds like so much fun.” My smile softened as I crouched to his level. “What kind of cookies are you going to make?”
“Chocolate chip! Grandma says we might even do oatmeal raisin, but raisins are gross.” As he spoke, Noah glanced down. “Oh!” He squatted to grab something from under the doormat. “Here, this is for you.”
The smile froze on my face as he handed me a piece of paper.
I stood and unfolded it with trembling hands.
A cold dread crept through my chest. It was a torn page—ripped straight from the fifth Jake Slate novel.
The one where I’d typed The End . Beneath those two words, scrawled in jagged red letters, was a message that made my blood run cold: You’ll never see The End coming.
The ground seemed to shift, and my breath came in shallow gasps. My fingers shook as I stared at the page, and the paper quivered in my hand.
“Ethan?” Garrett’s voice cut through the fog, sharp and concerned.
I met his gaze, unable to hide my fear.
“What is it?” It was a command couched as a question.
Wordlessly, I handed him the page. His jaw tightened as his eyes scanned the writing. “What the heck?”
I shook my head; my throat was too tight to speak.
Garrett’s face darkened, and his voice dropped, steady and furious. “We’ll talk about this later. Do you have a Ziploc bag?”
I retrieved a bag from the kitchen and handed it to Garrett. He slipped the paper inside, like evidence at a crime scene. I supposed it was.
“I’ll be here at six. We’ll figure this out.”
I managed a weak, “Okay,” my body still shuddering.
Garrett turned to Noah and softened. “Time to go, buddy. Grandma and Grandpa are waiting.”
Noah waved cheerfully as they left, completely oblivious to the tension. “Bye, Mr. Ethan! See you!”
I forced a smile and waved back as they crossed the street to their car. Garrett glanced over his shoulder and his eyes locked with mine, questions in his gaze.
As I threw the deadbolt, the severity of the situation hit me like a wave against the cliffs. I stumbled to the couch and sank into it. My pulse pounded in my temples, and my vision narrowed. Breathe, Ethan , I reminded myself. You’re not in this alone.
I wasn’t sure what terrified me more—the stalker’s growing boldness or the thought of Garrett getting caught in the crossfire.