Page 20 of Eyes in the Shadows

Hello???

I toss the phone aside with a scowl and it bounces on the mattress next to me. He’s lucky it’s all innocent stuff. But I still don’t like that he feels like he has a claim on her—that he expects a response, or he gets to know things about where she is and what her plans are.

And he calledmecontrolling…

At least I can easily pivot. After Dimitri tore me a new one about my fuck-up, I found a new vantage point in this city’s zoning department's bygone attempt at gentrification. They’d allowed several chain hotels to build on the opposite side of town, likely back in the 90’s, judging from the worn-down carpet and popcornceiling. It’s only six stories high, but it’s clean, and there’s a shower, a bed and a restaurant on the ground floor. No one will surprise me if I leave theDo Not Disturbsign on the handle. And from my room on the top floor, I can watch both the activity at the warehouse and Eleanor.

I’m watching her. Not because I have to, but because I can’t stop.

And what a good girl she was. She listened. She didn’t leave the building. She kept the curtains closed. But the first thing she did this morning? Opened them and let me in.

I listened to her in her apartment all day yesterday, wishing like hell I didn’t have to just listen. The clanging of pots and pans and furious scrubbing told me she was working out the assault to her person with relatively healthy coping mechanisms. I kept waiting for a breakdown of some kind—tears, or something—but it never came.

So, she’s either tough as nails, or has a few screws loose.

Good thing I like ‘em a little crazy. You can’t really be completely ordinary and survive in my world.

I know my focus is torn because it’s only once she leaves for her job for the day around 2:30 that I can really settle in and give the warehouse my full attention. It’s busy there, but only to the trained eye. They’ve locked down the perimeter and are trying to move the goods as subtly as possible, a crate at a time. The same cycle repeats for the rest of the day—a van pulls up, disappears around the back, I see two guys moving around inside, the van comes back around the corner riding a lot lower.

I start itching for another hit of Eleanor after nightfall, but check my watch and see that she’s got about two hours left on her shift. So, I decide to get out, stretch my legs.

Rossi’s warehouse is pretty deserted, but they did leave the van they’ve been using parked out back. Very accommodating of them. I place a tracker under the back bumper.

I eye her phone and grab for it. No one has contacted her since Harrison’s frantic messages this morning. Her older text chains are people from work, spam, group texts with her family and college friends, more spam, and then a few from people who she only ever texts with to trade birthday wishes. Her emotionalsupport browser tabs are mostly abandoned shopping carts full of clothes and recipe blogs, but there are a few with travel destinations and memes. The incognito tabs, however…

I love being right. She is a freak.

My girl—yeah, “my,” I’m way past being normal about this—has a very healthy sexual appetite. She is adventurous and all over the map. Soft and sensual, BDSM, blowjobs, romantic, roleplaying, anal, gay and lesbian… I watch some of the porn she likes and my dick hardens painfully, thinking about her lying in bed with her phone in one hand and the other one working that sweet pussy and clit. I know she’ll be mortified when she finds out I know her secret little fantasies and I can’t fucking wait to see that pretty pink blush on her cheeks.

I watch her walk home, shivering in the wind. I hate that her way home takes her through those blocks so late at night. She shouldn’t have to risk crossing paths with the crackheads in the alleys and men buying their pleasure on street corners. As she walks, I notice that she clutches something tightly in her bag, and I hope it’s a taser or something.

I see her enter her apartment, toss off her winter wear and go to the window. After a second’s hesitation, she opens it and stares into the darkness. Her eyes never quite make it to where I’m watching from, but they’re scanning like they’re looking for me.

I eat my takeout when she sits down with her microwaved leftovers, like we’re having dinner together. She flits around the apartment, disappears behind the wall that I know leads to the bathroom, and emerges half an hour later, hair wet and dressed for bed. She closes the window, locks and chains the door—good girl—and pulls out her couch-bed. I wait for her to close the curtains. She doesn’t.

The next day is exactly the same. Bad guys move their stuff, Eleanor goes to work. Some maintenance guys come to her door in the morning, which puts me immediately on edge, but they are in and out in a matter of hours and I can hear that they don’t even really pay her any attention.

Silly girl. Like a new lock is going to keep me out. I’m glad if it makes her feel safer, though.

The next day, she’s off work. I know because I checked the restaurant website and saw that they’re closed on Sundays. I get out to stretch my legs again andcheck in on the warehouse, which seems to be empty now. Then—wouldn’t you know it?—I find myself on her street.

This is stalker behavior. Some might even go so far as to say obsessive. I know that. But, frankly, it’s my job—it’s what I know how to do. And, unlike in my job, I’m really just keeping an eye on her. It’s a dangerous world with dangerous people, myself included. But I’m not going to hurt her. I’m looking out for her.

It’s not exactly like she’s given me any indication that I’m welcome in her life, except… well, I told her I was watching. And she keeps opening her curtains. It really fucking feels like it’s for me.

And maybe I’m reading into it, but unfortunately for her—and now, I guess, me—she’s cute as hell. And wholesome as fuck.

She starts her day off sitting in the corner of a cafe, nursing a fancy latte and a croissant. Then, she goes to the fucking farmers’ market. She brings her own bags and chats with literally every vendor. On her way out, she stops and stares at the bouquets of flowers with a sad, longing sort of smile but doesn’t buy any.

Halfway home, she stops at a budget cell service store. I know it’s a company that leeches onto larger company’s towers and, as a result, tends to drop calls on its customers. She should have something better.

Her phone is burning a hole in my pocket. I should return it. It’s old and the glass on the back is covered in spiderweb cracks. She really should have something better, but at least this one will do for now. I’ve already cloned it, anyway.

I pull my hat down lower over my brow as I use the key I never returned to access the back stairwell of her apartment building. I narrowly avoid a run-in with one of the neighbors I’d had to convince to leave the building that day, but I make it to the top floor without drawing any notice.

Getting past her new lock is child’s play—a matter of the right tools and a basic knowledge of how tumbler locks work—and it concerns me how easy it is. At least when she’s home, she uses the chain, too.

I step inside and gently close the door. Not much has changed, except everything is a bit neater now and the scent of pine cleaning solution is stronger, stinging my nose. I want to stick around, but I know she’s on her way home and this is a huge risk anyway. So, I don’t dawdle. I wedge her phone into the back of the couch so she’ll assume I never took it, and straightenthe pillow.

---