The kettle whistled just as she dropped two spoons of coffee into the press. Anaya moved without thinking, every step automatic—grind, pour, stir, press. She pulled her old coat from the hook by the door, slipped into her scuffed boots, and tied the laces without looking.
The morning was quiet. Too quiet.
She'd barely slept.
Her inbox was full, but she ignored it. Instead, she opened the saved page from her laptop, hoping for... she didn't know what. Something. A mistake. A trace. A misspelled word. Anything human.
What she got was a new story.
Posted anonymously. No date. No signature.
"She always poured too much water in the kettle. Enough for two mugs, though she only ever used one. She liked the sound of the pour more than the drink itself. The first sip always burned her tongue. She never learned."
Anaya froze.
She looked down at her mug.
Steam rose gently from the surface. She touched her tongue to the rim. Too hot. As always.
She kept reading.
"She wrapped her scarf twice around her neck, even though it was never cold enough. Habit, not need. The boots were old, leather cracked along the sides. She liked the sound they made on the stairwell—heavy, even steps. A rhythm she didn't notice anymore."
She sat down, very slowly.
The cracked tile in the bathroom.
The mug with the small chip on the handle.
The way she always left the light on over the stove, even during the day.
All of it was in the story.
All of it.
She scrolled to the top.
No title.
Just two words:
Character Study
She read the story again.
This time, slower.
It wasn't just facts. It was rhythm. The way the sentences moved. The way they sounded like her life felt.
"She paused at the corner every morning, not for traffic, but to count: one, two, three. She didn't know why. A habit from childhood she never outgrew. No one ever noticed. Not even her."
Anaya's breath caught.
She did that.
Not always. Not every day. But enough.
She thought it was just leftover nerves from the academy days—counting to steady her breath before entering a scene. She had never told anyone. Hadn't even said it to herself until now.
"She never locked the top bolt of her apartment door unless she was afraid. She told herself it didn't matter. But last night, she locked it."
Her hand drifted to her keys.
She had locked it. Not because of danger—but because of the voice.
Because of that story she'd heard. That calm, knowing voice.
"There's a name she whispered once, in sleep. She doesn't remember it. But I do."
Anaya stood up.
The name wasn't on the page. Just the suggestion of it. But the mention stirred something at the edge of her memory—a flash of something long buried.
A face.
No features.
Just eyes.
Watching.
She slammed the laptop shut, heart racing.
This wasn't fiction anymore.
This was someone peeling her open like a book.
She tore through her apartment.
Checked under the table. Behind picture frames. Inside the vents.
Nothing.
She pulled her phone apart, opened the back of her laptop, ran every scanner she had—software, signal detectors, even a magnet over her outlets.
Still nothing.
No cameras.
No trackers.
No wires.
But someone had seen her scarf, her boots, her chipped mug. Knew how she moved. What she whispered in her sleep. Things not even she had noticed until she saw them in writing.
She called Boman.
"How secure is my tech?"
"Depends," he said through a mouthful of chips. "You been letting strangers touch your laptop?"
"No."
"Phone?"
"No."
"Connected to any weird Bluetooth lately? Strange Wi-Fi? Plugged into public USBs?"
"No, no, and no."
A pause.
"Then unless you've got a ghost with a flash drive," he said, "your stuff's clean."
She didn't laugh.
She didn't even smile.
"Could someone watch me without devices?" she asked quietly.
"Sure," Boman said. "Old-school way. Through a window. Following you. Classic stalker behavior."
"But how would they know what I'm thinking?"
Silence on the other end.
Then, softer: "You think he's in your head?"
"I think he's ahead of me."
She hung up.
Looked at her laptop again.
Her reflection stared back in the black screen.
Not scared.
Not angry.
Just… read.
//////
The printed page sat on the kitchen table.
She read it one last time, every word quiet in her mind, like thoughts that didn't belong to her.
The descriptions of her life. The odd habits. The hidden things.
And then, at the bottom of the page—just below where the story ended, in smaller font, a different typeface—something she hadn't noticed earlier.
A line.
"You study me. I study you. Now write something back."
Anaya stared at it.
Her first thought: Why?
Why would a killer want her to write?
Her second thought: What happens if I do?
She stood there for a long moment, one hand on the table, the other hovering above the paper like it might move on its own.
This was a conversation now.
Not between detective and criminal.
But between two writers.
And she didn't know who was controlling the page anymore.
---
End of Chapter 5.