The first wrong thing was how quiet my apartment was.
The city usually seeped through the walls—traffic, someone’s music, the elevator’s rattling climb. That morning, there was nothing. Just the brittle tick of the kitchen clock and the faint hum of the fridge, like the building was holding its breath with me.
I stood in my tiny galley kitchen in an old T-shirt and sleep shorts, fingers wrapped around a chipped mug, staring at the photo on my table.
Me. In my bed. Asleep.
The overhead light glared off the glossy paper, turning the whites of my eyes into twin moons under my lashes. My hair was spread over the pillow. The blanket was pulled to my waist. One hand lay open on my chest like I’d been about to make a promise and forgotten how.
I had never seen the picture before in my life.
I didn’t remember anyone being in my apartment last night. I hadn’t brought anyone home. I never brought anyone home.
My throat tried to close around the coffee.
Someone had been in here. Close enough to see the faint freckle at my temple. Close enough to stand over me in the dark and raise a camera.
I set the mug down. Carefully, like the ceramic might shatter and take me with it.
“It’s a prank,” I whispered to the empty kitchen. “It has to be. Some—sick joke.”
But the apartment door was locked this morning. Chain latched. Deadbolt turned. My windows were on the fifth floor with rusted safety bars webbed across them. There were no signs of forced entry, nothing missing, nothing moved.
Except the photo, waiting for me on the center of the table.
Prints of my own coffee mug ring dotted the cheap wood all around it. But the space beneath the photo was pristine, as if whoever left it had wiped the table first.
My skin prickled. I backed away like distance could make it less real, toes catching the uneven lip of the rug.
I almost convinced myself to call the police.
I almost convinced myself I wasn’t overreacting.
Then the doorbell rang.
The sound split the silence in half.
I jumped, heart bucking so hard it hurt, coffee sloshing over my hand. The burn snapped me out of my paralysis. I cursed under my breath, ran my fingers under the tap, then stood there, dripping and shaking, listening.
The bell rang again. Not impatient. Just…steady. Like whoever was on the other side knew I’d come. Eventually.
No one visited me unannounced. I had coworkers and acquaintances, not friends. My parents were three states away and believed in texting first and calling never.
“Elise,” a male voice called through the door, smooth and level. “Open up.”
I froze.
I didn’t recognize the voice. But it slid over my name like he’d said it a thousand times.
My muscles locked. Every instinct screamed at me to stay silent, to pretend I wasn’t home, to crawl back into bed and pretend this morning hadn’t started.
Instead, my feet moved toward the door.
The peephole showed me a distorted fish-eye image: a man in a black coat, dark hair, shoulders relaxed like he had all the time in the world. He wasn’t shifting his weight or tapping a foot. He simply stood there, hands in his pockets, gaze directed at the door as if he could see through it.
