Episode 8
1309 Words
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
The email burned a hole in Eloise’s inbox.
She stared at the screen, her stomach in knots, rereading the message until the words blurred.
Time’s up.
Two words, six letters, and a photograph that sent ice down her spine.
Rowan's arms wrapped around her. Her eyes closed. The kiss—intimate, undeniable, and now... exposed.
Her first instinct was to delete it. Her second was to call the police. Her third—and the one she followed—was to march down the hall, grab her car keys, and find Rowan.
He was at the bookstore already, prepping for the weekend's literary panel. She didn’t bother knocking.
“Rowan!” she called, pushing through the front door.
He looked up from a stack of books, startled. “Hey—what’s wrong?”
Eloise held out her phone with shaking hands. “This. Just... look.”
His face tightened as he read the message, gaze locking on the photo. He swore softly.
“They were watching us,” he said, his voice low. “From the woods. Last night.”
“They knew exactly where to stand,” she whispered. “We didn’t even hear a thing.”
Rowan stepped forward, wrapping her in his arms. “Okay. We stay calm. We talk to James. We don't let them win.”
“But they’re watching us, Rowan,” she said, eyes wide. “They knew where we were, what we were doing. We’re not safe.”
Rowan pulled back and looked her dead in the eye. “We’re safer together than apart. Whoever they are, they want to scare you. Make you back down. But we’re not going anywhere.”
The door creaked behind them. Jason, the barista and part-time author, poked his head in.
“Hey, guys. Uh… sorry, am I interrupting a dramatic thriller scene?”
“More like living one,” Rowan muttered.
Jason walked in, his easygoing smile fading when he saw their expressions. “You two okay?”
“Someone’s threatening her,” Rowan said bluntly. “They sent a photo of us last night.”
Jason’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s... incredibly creepy.”
“We need to figure out what they want,” Eloise said. “Before it gets worse.”
That afternoon, they met James at a quiet diner just outside Ashmoor. James had already been digging through the metadata of the original email.
“It’s smartly scrubbed,” he said, stirring his coffee. “But not perfect. Whoever sent it was close—within two miles of your house when they uploaded it. And they’re getting bolder.”
Eloise frowned. “Why now? Why wait ten years and then start playing games?”
Rowan leaned forward. “Because she’s back in town. Because the secret they buried is starting to unravel.”
James nodded. “They want to scare you off before you find the full truth.”
“Well, it’s not working,” Eloise snapped, surprising even herself.
James smirked. “Good. Because I think I’ve got a way to flush them out.”
He slid over a blueprint of Ashmoor’s old community center—the one Eloise was scheduled to host a panel in that weekend.
“We use the event. Make it public. Get as many people there as possible. And when the culprit shows up to eavesdrop or interfere, we’ll have eyes everywhere.”
“Sounds risky,” Rowan said.
“It is,” James agreed. “But you want answers? This is how we get them.”
The rest of the week blurred into a frantic blur of planning, rehearsing, and late-night strategy meetings.
But there were also soft moments in between.
A midnight drive with the windows down. Rowan reaching across the console just to lace his fingers with hers. Eloise falling asleep on his shoulder while reviewing author bios.
Every time they stole a moment of peace, she clung to it like it was the last breath before drowning.
And yet, some things couldn’t be ignored.
Like the man Eloise saw watching her from the edge of her driveway two nights before the event.
Or the anonymous call to the bookstore phone that played nothing but static for sixty straight seconds.
The sense of being hunted never fully left her.
But neither did Rowan.
The night of the panel arrived, wrapped in dusky lavender skies and the warm buzz of a summer crowd.
Ashmoor’s community center was packed—rows of folding chairs filled with readers, writers, book lovers, and more than a few curious gossipers eager to see if Eloise Granger would mention him.
She wore a simple, emerald green dress. Rowan stood backstage, wearing a tailored button-down that made him look simultaneously like a professor and a runaway romance hero.
“You ready for this?” he asked.
Eloise nodded. “More than ever.”
James gave her a subtle thumbs-up from the crowd. The bookstore staff manned the entrance, posing as regular attendees. Even Jason was pretending to be a wandering book nerd, phone ready to record.
The panel began lightheartedly—questions about writing routines, favorite tropes, and Eloise’s notorious avoidance of love triangles.
Then came the curveball.
An older woman from the audience raised her hand. “Miss Granger, your last book, Letters Left Unread, felt awfully... personal. Was it based on true events?”
There was a murmur in the room.
Eloise met her gaze. “Most of my books have a little truth tucked between the fiction. That one... had a lot.”
The woman smiled knowingly. “Then maybe we’ll find out what happens when secrets don’t stay buried.”
Something in her tone was off.
James straightened in his seat.
Eloise scanned the crowd—saw another unfamiliar face in the back. A man in a pressed blazer. Watching her too closely.
She swallowed.
“Sometimes, fiction is the only way to tell the truth safely,” she said, projecting calm.
The panel moved forward, but the tension remained.
After the final applause, Eloise ducked backstage, her heart racing. Rowan was there waiting—and so was James.
“We think someone slipped out right before the Q&A ended,” James said. “Security’s checking the rear exits. You recognize this?”
He held up a folded envelope, hand-addressed.
To Eloise.
She opened it carefully.
Inside, a single sheet of paper.
> You were always too curious for your own good. Ask Rowan what happened the night his father disappeared. Ask him what he’s really hiding. — A Friend
Eloise stared at the note, blood draining from her face.
Rowan read it over her shoulder.
He went still.
“I was going to tell you,” he said quietly.
“Tell me what?” she asked.
He looked at her—and she saw it then. The fear. The guilt. The weight of something he’d carried alone for years.
“I found the letter,” he said. “The one I wrote you. The night I left. I hid it in your favorite book. The one you never finished.”
Eloise blinked. “But I... I never saw it.”
“I know. Someone took it. Someone wanted us apart. And that same night—my father vanished. Disappeared without a trace.”
She staggered back a step. “Rowan—what are you saying?”
“I think my father found out too much. About Derrick. About the cover-up. And he either ran… or someone made him disappear.”
Silence fell like thunder.
Outside, the crowd laughed and chatted, unaware.
Inside, Eloise felt her heart splinter.
Everything she thought she knew—about that summer, about why Rowan left—was wrong.
And now, someone was rewriting their story again.
Only this time, she refused to let it end in tragedy.
- Writer
