Watching You

Chapter 1: The Text

The phone buzzed against the granite countertop, and Laura Matthews glanced up from the salad she was preparing. David's phone. He was in the living room helping Sophie with her math homework, his voice carrying through the open floor plan as he patiently explained long division for the third time.

Laura wouldn't have looked—she wasn't that kind of wife—but the screen lit up with a preview of the message, and the words caught her eye before she could stop herself.

*I know what you did.*

She set down the knife. Read it again. An unknown number, no contact name saved. Just those five words floating in a gray bubble on the lock screen.

Her stomach tightened, though she couldn't have said why. Probably spam. Or a wrong number. People got strange texts all the time.

"David?" She kept her voice casual. "Your phone."

He appeared in the kitchen doorway, Sophie trailing behind him with her worksheet. At forty-three, David still had the broad shoulders and easy smile that had caught Laura's attention at that marketing conference sixteen years ago. His hair had silvered at the temples, but it suited him. Made him look distinguished, trustworthy.

"Who is it?" He picked up the phone, and Laura watched his face.

Nothing. Not a flicker. He glanced at the screen, shrugged, and set it back down.

"Wrong number," he said. "Some scam thing."

"What did it say?"

"Nothing. Gibberish." He was already turning back toward the living room. "Come on, Soph. Let's finish this before dinner."

Laura stood there for a moment, the knife still in her hand, watching the space where her husband had been. Wrong number. Gibberish. But she'd seen the message clearly, and there had been nothing gibberish about it.

*I know what you did.*

She returned to the salad, slicing cucumbers into precise rounds. Outside the kitchen window, their street looked exactly as it always did—manicured lawns, tasteful landscaping, the Hendersons' golden retriever making his evening rounds. Maple Creek wasn't the kind of neighborhood where anything bad happened. That was why they'd moved here eight years ago, why they'd stretched their budget to afford the mortgage. Safety. Stability. A good school district for Sophie and Ben.

Laura had worked hard for this life. The careful meals, the organized closets, the color-coded family calendar on the refrigerator. Every detail attended to, every potential problem anticipated and solved before it could take root.

Control. That was what she'd learned to value. You couldn't control everything in life, but you could control enough. You could build walls high enough that the chaos stayed outside.

The phone buzzed again.

Laura's hand stopped mid-slice. She stared at David's phone, watching another message preview illuminate the screen.

*The salmon looks good tonight. Tell Sophie she's getting better at math.*

The cucumber fell from her fingers, rolling across the cutting board and onto the floor. Laura didn't move to pick it up. She was staring at the window, at the darkening street beyond, at all the places someone could stand and watch without being seen.

Her hands were shaking. She hadn't noticed until now.

"David." Her voice came out wrong—too high, too thin. She tried again. "David, come here."

He appeared again, Sophie still in tow, his expression shifting when he saw her face.

"What's wrong?"

"Your phone." She pointed at it like it was something dangerous. "Read the new message."

He picked it up, and this time she watched his face carefully. This time she saw it—the momentary tightening around his eyes, the way his jaw clenched almost imperceptibly before he forced his expression into something neutral.

"It's nothing," he said. "Just some—"

"Don't." The word came out sharper than she intended. Sophie was watching them both now, her worksheet forgotten. "Don't tell me it's nothing. Someone knows what we're having for dinner. Someone knows Sophie's doing math homework."

"Laura—"

"Someone is watching us."

The words hung in the air between them, solid and irreversible. David's face had gone pale beneath his tan.

"Sophie, honey." His voice was carefully controlled. "Go upstairs and check on your brother. Make sure he's doing his reading."

"But Dad—"

"Now, please."

Sophie went, casting worried glances over her shoulder. When they heard her footsteps on the stairs, David moved closer to Laura, lowering his voice.

"It's probably just someone messing with us. A prank. Maybe one of the neighbors—"

"The neighbors? David, listen to yourself." Laura's voice was rising despite her efforts to keep it steady. "Who would do this? Why?"

He didn't answer. He was looking at his phone again, scrolling through something, and Laura saw that there were other messages. Not just these two. A whole thread of them.

"How long?" she asked. "How long has this been happening?"

"Laura—"

"How long?"

He closed his eyes. "A few weeks."

The floor seemed to shift beneath her feet. A few weeks. Someone had been watching them, messaging them, for weeks, and he hadn't told her.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because I thought I could handle it. I thought if I ignored it, they'd get bored and stop."

"And have they? Have they stopped?"

He didn't need to answer. The phone buzzed again in his hand, and they both stared at it like it might explode.

*She's scared now. Good. She should be.*

"We need to call the police," Laura said.

"And tell them what? That someone's sending us creepy texts? They'll say it's a prank. They'll say to block the number and move on."

"Then we'll block the number."

"I have. Three times. They keep coming from new ones."

Laura moved to the window, her arms wrapped around herself. The street was fully dark now, the streetlights casting pools of yellow light between patches of shadow. Anyone could be out there. Anyone could be watching.

"What do they want?" she asked. "Have they said what they want?"

David was quiet for a long moment. Too long.

"David. What do they want?"

"I don't know," he said finally. "They haven't said."

But something in his voice made Laura turn to look at him. Something in the way he couldn't quite meet her eyes.

He was lying. She was sure of it.

The question was: about what?