Page 4 of Beyond Protection
847 documented images. Eighteen months.
When I looked in the mirror, the reflection staring back—dark circles, tension in my jaw—matched exactly what the messages described. Someone had been close enough to see all of it.
The room tilted. Four in. Hold. Four out. Mom's breathing technique.
My phone buzzed again.
I looked.
I see you chose blue today. Good instinct—complements your coloring optimally. You have a natural aesthetic sense. Under proper conditions, this will flourish.
Someone was here. Now. Close enough to see what I was wearing.
I yanked open the bathroom door.
Michael was waiting in the hallway.
"You going to tell me what's going on?" His voice was level. "Or do we keep pretending that was your agent?"
I handed him my phone.
He read the first message. His jaw ticked. Read the second. The third. Scrolled back to the top and read them again.
"When did the first one come?"
"When I got here. On the porch."
"And you've received four total?"
"So far."
He tapped the screen. Checked the metadata. His jaw ticked harder.
"Mac, this isn't fan mail."
"I know."
"This is surveillance—documented surveillance over eighteen months. Someone's been close enough to—" He stopped. Looked at me. "You in danger right now?"
"I don't know."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
He handed the phone back. "Okay. Here's what we're doing. I'm going to pull up some contacts. There's one in particular based in Portland, but he takes contracts up here. Maybe he'll come up and stick close."
"You want to hire a bodyguard?"
"I want to hire someone who knows what they're doing before this gets worse." He pulled out his own phone. "The language in these messages—it's clinical. Professional. Like they're documenting a project, not expressing obsession. That makes them more dangerous, not less."
"It's Thanksgiving."
"Which is why we call now." He was already scrolling on his own. "Before tomorrow, when everyone's harder to reach andwe've lost another day. Don't reply to any of it. Screenshot everything. I'll start a log."
"Michael, I don't need—"
847 photographs. Outside Ma's house tonight. Close enough to see the color of my shirt.
