CHAPTER FIVE
370 Words
The first time Henry showed up at her office, it was easy to tell herself it was coincidence.
He arrived just as she was stepping into the lobby, dressed in the kind of suit that made people step aside without realizing it. The receptionist’s voice softened when she greeted him, as if she’d known him forever.
“Lunch?” he asked, as though the answer could only be yes.
She almost refused. Almost. But he had a way of leaving no room between the question and the choice.
They walked to a place she’d never noticed before, hidden between a tailor’s shop and a bookstore with dust on the windows. Inside, it smelled like cedar and something faintly sweet. The waitress brought Henry his drink without asking.
“You’ve been here before,” Leah said.
“A few times.” He lifted his glass. “With people I wanted to know better.”
She studied him across the table. “And do you know me better?”
His eyes didn’t waver. “Better than you think.”
It wasn’t a compliment.
That afternoon, when she returned to her desk, a folder sat on her chair. Inside were printouts—her university records, old job applications, even a police report she’d thought had been sealed.
No name, no note. But one page had a single red underline.
Witness refused to give statement.
That night, she found him leaning against the brick wall outside her building, hands in his pockets, looking like he’d been there for hours.
“You could have told me,” he said.
“Told you what?”
“Why you don’t sleep well.”
The way he said it made her chest tighten. Like the truth wasn’t something she could keep from him even if she tried.
“I don’t know what you think you know,” she said.
His gaze softened, but not kindly. “Oh, Leah. You’ll tell me. Not because I ask. Because you’ll want to.”
When she stepped past him toward the door, he didn’t follow. But she felt his presence all the way up to the twelfth floor.
And when she drew her curtains that night, she knew he was still watching.
- Writer
