My Professor’s Dark Christmas Obsession

Chapter 6

Autumn had a book open in front of her and her face was completely still. Inside, she was screaming.

Gabriel was behind her at the stove, moving around, talking about some passage from a novel she’d stopped caring about an hour ago. Every few sentences he'd pause, like he was waiting for her to respond, and she gave him exactly what he needed. A small sound. A nod. Or a "Yeah, that's interesting." Nothing too enthusiastic, nothing too flat. Just enough.

She'd learned how to do this a long time ago. Growing up the way she did, always on the edge of things, always one wrong move away from losing her scholarship, she'd figured out early on how to make herself invisible when she needed to. How to look calm when she wasn't. How to smile at the right time without it reaching her eyes. She'd never thought that skill would save her life. Tonight it might.

While he talked, she was working.

Her eyes were on the keypad by the front door. She'd seen him key in four digits. The angle had been bad, but she caught what she thought was a one and a two. Maybe a seven. She wasn't sure enough to try it yet.

Then she thought about the upstairs bathroom window. She'd noticed the latch on it two days ago. It has no other lock. She hadn't tried to open it yet because she didn't want him to hear her moving around up there, but it was already in her head for when the time was right.

Every time Gabriel came inside from anywhere, he put his keys on the kitchen counter to the left of the stove. He placed them in the same spot every time. She'd watched him do it three times now. She knew exactly where they were.

She was slowly building a plan little by little, piece by piece, because she knew what rushing would cost. A rushed person made noise. A rushed person forgot things. A rushed person got caught.

And she was determined not to let Gabriel catch her.

"Don't you think so?" he asked.

She looked up. "Honestly, yeah," she said. "The way he frames it is almost like an apology."

He smiled at her over his shoulder, giving her that easy, warm smile that she used to love. "Exactly. You always get it so fast."

She smiled back.

After dinner, he poured wine. Two glasses, same as always. She picked hers up and sipped it slowly, watching the fire over the rim. She was watching him too, but sideways, in the way she'd quickly gotten good at.

He thought she was relaxed and her mind was fully present. She needed him to keep thinking that.

He said something funny and she laughed. It sounded like a real laugh, almost. She was getting better at those.

He was looking at her again. She knew that look. He was gazing at her as if she were something he'd found and was never letting go of. It was the most terrifying expression she'd ever seen on a person, but she'd noticed it enough times now that she could gaze back at him without flinching.

"You seem better today," he said.

"I slept okay for the first time in a while,” Autumn replied.

That was a lie. She hadn't slept at all.

"Good." He reached over and touched her hand just for a second. "You needed it."

She nodded. She didn’t pull her hand away.

Later, when he was cleaning up and she was still at the table pretending to read, she quietly tested the window latch in the dining room. She pressed just a fingertip against the metal, applying barely any pressure. It didn't move. Maybe it had been painted shut. She filed it under the “not useful” options in her brain.

She thought about the bathroom window again. She thought about the keys. She thought about the four-digit code and the three numbers she was almost sure of.

That night, she lay in the guest room, staring at the ceiling as she went through everything again, the way she'd been doing every night.

There was no signal on her phone. The landline wasn’t working. The doors were locked, the windows were sealed, there were inches of snow piled up everywhere outside, and she was completely, entirely alone in here.

But Gabriel was not perfect. She had to hold onto that. He was careful and smart, and he'd done this before, but he wasn’t perfect, and somewhere in all of this, there was a gap—something he didn't think of or he’d gotten wrong.

She just had to find it before he found out she was looking around.

She closed her eyes and thought about the day, going over every detail. Every movement he'd made, every door he'd opened, every time he'd left the room for more than two minutes.

Then she realized that there had been one moment. Just before dinner, he'd gone to the study to get something, and she'd heard him on the phone. It was a short call, his voice was low and flat, like he was angry, but she couldn't make out the words.

She thought about that for a long time.

Someone knew where he lived. They had his phone number. They had been on the other end of that call, and they were out there somewhere, in the world, outside this house.

That meant there was a thread. It was thin and far away, but it was still there.

She just had to find a way to pull it.