Harper didn't sleep well.
She lay awake beside Jacob, staring at the ceiling long after his breathing had deepened into sleep. The shadows on the walls didn't move, but something inside her refused to settle. She kept hearing Ian's voice—soft, steady, too confident.
"I think we worked on the same floor once."
"You just have one of those faces that's hard to forget."
At the time, she'd smiled politely. Now, the words felt like a thread she needed to pull.
And maybe unravel everything.
The next morning, she dropped Sofia at school and told Jacob she had meetings—an excuse to avoid lingering at home, where everything felt a little too quiet.
At the office, Harper didn't go to her desk right away. Instead, she took the elevator to the third floor and headed straight to HR Records.
The request was simple: she needed confirmation about an old contract worker's time with the company—Ian Mercer.
The HR assistant, a woman named Brie, tapped at her keyboard and squinted at the screen.
"Huh. That's odd."
Harper's heart skipped. "What is?"
"He was only here for three months. IT support, contracted through a third-party vendor. Left… oh. Two days after your start date."
Harper blinked. "So we barely overlapped?"
"Technically, yes. But he must've really liked the coffee here," Brie joked. "I remember seeing him around for weeks after he left. Near the elevator banks, mostly."
Harper didn't laugh.
Brie didn't notice.
"Why do you ask?" she added casually.
Harper smiled, tight-lipped. "He reached out recently. I thought the overlap was longer."
She left the office with her pulse racing.
He shouldn't have been around after that.
He had no reason to be there.
But he was.
She spent the rest of the day with that thought gnawing at her.
That night, after dinner, while Jacob graded papers and Sofia disappeared upstairs, Harper opened her laptop and typed slowly:
Ian Mercer – Employment Timeline
Contract duration: 3 months
Ended: 2 days after my first day
No approved visitor access afterward
Witnessed on premises multiple times post-contract
"Eli" claimed we "used to work together"
Seemed to know details about me he shouldn't
She paused.
Then added:
Commented on specific tea habits (white mug)
Knew details never posted publicly (deck, lavender, mug)
Recognized story he should never have read
Harper stared at the glowing screen, the cursor blinking like a warning.
She wasn't just unsettled anymore.
She was scared.
But it was a quiet kind of fear—controlled, focused.
She got up and checked the locks again. Then walked through the house slowly, making sure every window was latched. The back door. The side gate.
And finally, the sliding glass door that led to the back deck—the one she always sat near in the mornings with her tea.
She stood in the doorway for a long time, eyes scanning the dark yard.
There was no one there.
But she closed the curtains anyway.
She returned to her laptop and opened her messages.
Eli: "Maybe dinner next time?"
Eli: "You're someone worth knowing deeply."
The words made her skin crawl now.
How had she ever found them charming?
It wasn't intuition. It was preparation.
He hadn't met her.
He'd studied her.
Harper opened a blank email and typed in the contact for building security.
Subject: Suspicious Behavior – Former Employee
Body:
Hi,
I have a concern regarding a former contractor, Ian Mercer, who may have accessed the building post-employment without authorization. Do we retain visitor camera logs for past months? If so, I'd like to request footage review or a meeting.
—Harper Blake
She hesitated… then hit send.
She didn't tell Jacob.
She didn't tell Sofia.
But something had been off for weeks.
Now, she knew why.
And Harper wasn't going to sit quietly and wait to be watched anymore.
She was going to watch back.