The Dinner Date

The dinner with Julian was a masterclass in gaslighting.

He had set the table with the good china—the Wedgwood plates I hadn't used since the divorce—and poured the wine with a steady hand. He acted like we were just a normal couple having a normal Tuesday night, except for the fact that I was technically a prisoner in my own home and he was possibly orchestrating a terror campaign against me.

"The pad thai is good," he said, watching me pick at my food. "Spicy. Just how you like it."

"I'm not hungry."

"You need to eat, Elena. You look like a ghost."

"That's funny," I said, putting my fork down. "Considering I keep seeing them."

He sighed, setting his glass down with a deliberate *clink*. "We talked about this. The stress of the launch is making you see things. It happens. Remember the coat rack incident?"

"Stop bringing up the coat rack. That was five years ago."

"Patterns repeat," he said softly. "Unless we break them."

He reached across the table and covered my hand with his. His skin was warm, dry. Comforting. God, it was so tempting to just lean into it. To let him be the strong one. To let him fix it.

That was his superpower. He made you feel like you were drowning, just so he could be the lifeguard.

My phone buzzed on the table.

I jumped. Julian didn't. He just looked at the screen.

*New Notification: Aerie Point Security Alert.*

"What is it?" he asked.

"An alert," I said, my heart picking up speed. "From the perimeter."

"Probably a deer," he said dismissively. "The motion sensors are sensitive."

"It's not a motion alert," I said, picking up the phone. "It's a system message."

I unlocked the screen.

The message wasn't from the app. It was a text. From the unknown number.

*Asset in position.*

I stared at the words. *Asset in position.*

It sounded military. Clinical.

"Who is it?" Julian asked.

"Spam," I lied. I shoved the phone into my pocket.

"You're a terrible liar, El."

"It was a wrong number."

"Let me see."

He held out his hand. Palm up. Expectant. Like he was asking for the keys to the car he bought me.

"No."

"Elena," he said, his voice dropping into that dangerous, patient register. "If someone is harassing you, I need to know. It's my job to protect you."

"I don't need protection from spam texts, Julian."

"Don't you?" He stood up. He walked around the table. He stood behind my chair, his hands resting on my shoulders. He started to massage the tension in my neck. His thumbs dug in, just a little too hard. "You're so tight. You're carrying the weight of the world, aren't you?"

I tried to pull away, but he held me there.

"Relax," he whispered. "Let me take care of it."

My phone buzzed again in my pocket.

He felt it.

His hands stilled.

"Give me the phone, Elena."

"No."

"Give it to me."

He reached into my pocket. I grabbed his wrist.

"Get off me!"

I shoved my chair back, scraping it against the floor. I stood up, putting the island between us.

"Who is texting you?" he demanded. The mask was slipping. The calm, supportive ex-husband was gone. In his place was the man who used to check my mileage and read my emails.

"It's none of your business."

"It is my business if it threatens the security of this house!"

"The only thing threatening this house is you!"

The accusation hung in the air, heavy and sharp.

Julian stared at me. His face went blank. Cold.

"Is that what you think?" he asked quietly. "That I'm doing this?"

"I saw the rose, Julian. I saw it."

"There was no rose."

"And the whistling? Did I imagine that too?"

"You were hallucinating. You were in the middle of a panic attack."

"I know what I heard!"

"Do you?" He took a step toward me. "Because from where I'm standing, you look like a woman who is unraveling. A woman who is a danger to herself. And to this company."

My phone buzzed again.

And again.

And again.

A stream of notifications.

I looked down. It wasn't texts this time.

It was the Aerie Point app.

*Alert: Camera 4 Offline.*
*Alert: Camera 5 Offline.*
*Alert: Camera 6 Offline.*

The cameras were going dark. One by one.

"What is happening?" Julian asked, looking at the wall panel where the smart home interface was mounted.

The screen flickered. Then it went black.

"The system is crashing," I said.

"It can't crash," he said. "I patched it. I installed the Watchtower."

"Maybe the Watchtower is blind," I said.

I ran to the living room. The massive windows looked out into the darkness. The storm had passed, leaving behind a heavy, suffocating fog. I couldn't see the driveway. I couldn't see the trees.

But I could see a light.

A single, small light, moving in the darkness outside.

"There's someone out there," I whispered.

Julian came up behind me. "Where?"

"By the cliff edge."

He squinted. "I don't see anything."

"It was just there! A flashlight!"

"Elena..."

"Don't 'Elena' me! Look!"

The light flashed again. Closer this time.

Then, a sound.

A loud, metallic *clang*.

It came from the roof.

We both looked up.

"What was that?" Julian asked.

"The HVAC unit," I said. "On the roof."

Another clang. Then the sound of metal screeching against metal.

"Someone is up there," I said. "They're trying to get in through the vents."

"That's impossible," Julian said. "The roof access is sealed. It requires a biometric key."

"Unless they have a magnet," I said. "Like the Night Watchers."

Julian's face paled.

"Stay here," he said. He turned and ran toward the stairs.

"Where are you going?"

"To get my gun."

He took the stairs two at a time.

I stood alone in the living room. The silence was deafening.

My phone buzzed again.

*Asset in position.*

I looked at the text. Who was the asset?

Was it the person on the roof?

Or was it Julian?

I heard a noise from the kitchen.

Not a clang. A click.

The sound of the pantry door opening.

I froze.

The pantry door. The one that hid the sub-basement.

I turned slowly.

The kitchen was dark, illuminated only by the under-cabinet lighting.

The pantry door was ajar. Just a crack.

And through that crack, a sliver of darkness spilled out.

I walked toward it. I knew I shouldn't. I knew this was the part of the movie where the audience screams at the screen.

But I had to know.

I pushed the door open.

The wine rack was swung out. The secret passage was revealed.

And standing at the top of the concrete stairs, holding a flashlight, was a woman.

The woman from the gray car.

She was wet. Her hair was plastered to her skull. She wore black tactical gear that looked like it had been stolen from a SWAT team.

She looked at me. She put a finger to her lips.

"Shh," she hissed.

"How did you get in?" I whispered.

"The tunnel," she said. "It connects to the old sanitarium ruins down the cliff. He didn't think I knew about it."

"He?"

"Julian."

She stepped out of the pantry. She was holding something in her other hand. A small, black box with an antenna.

"Where is he?" she asked.

"Upstairs. Getting a gun."

"Good," she said. "That buys us two minutes."

"Two minutes for what?"

"To kill the Watchtower," she said.

She walked past me to the island. She set the black box down next to my laptop.

"What is that?"

"A jammer," she said. "It blocks the signal he's using to control the house. If we kill the signal, we kill his access."

"But he's in the house. He has physical access."

"He has *admin* access," she corrected. "He's running a mirrored session on his phone. He sees what the cameras see before you do. That's how he knew about the rose. That's how he knew when to open the door."

My head was spinning. "So he *did* do it."

"Of course he did," she said, typing furiously on my laptop. "He's been planning this for months. The break-ins? The viral videos? All a setup. A marketing campaign for his new security firm. 'Vance Sentinel.' He's going to launch it tomorrow, right alongside your houses."

"He's using my launch," I whispered. "To launch his own product."

"He's using your *fear*," she said. "He needs a victim to save. And you were the perfect casting choice."

She hit a key.

The laptop screen flashed red.

*JAMMING SIGNAL ACTIVE.*

The lights in the house flickered. Then they went out completely.

"Okay," she said in the darkness. "Now we run."

"Run where?"

"My car is on the service road. I cut the chain."

"We can't leave," I said. "He'll follow us."

"Let him follow," she said grimly. "I have a surprise for him in the trunk."

We started toward the front door.

But before we could reach it, a light appeared at the top of the stairs.

Julian.

He was holding a flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other.

He shone the light down on us.

"Well, well," he said. His voice echoed in the high-ceilinged foyer. "The gang's all here."

He descended the stairs slowly, step by step.

"I wondered when you'd show up, Sarah," he said to the woman.

Sarah. That was her name.

"It's over, Julian," she said. Her voice was steady, but I saw her hand trembling near her belt. "The signal is jammed. The police are on their way. The *real* police."

"Are they?" Julian asked. He reached the bottom of the stairs. He raised the gun. "Or is that just what you told Elena to get her to open the door?"

He looked at me. The beam of the flashlight hit my eyes, blinding me.

"Elena, step away from her," he said. "She's dangerous. She's the one who's been stalking you. She's the one who put the rose on the car."

"Liar!" Sarah shouted.

"Am I?" Julian smiled. "Ask her where she was five years ago, Elena. Ask her why she lost her medical license."

I looked at Sarah.

"Medical license?"

"I was a psychiatrist," she said tightly. "Before he ruined me."

"She was my therapist," Julian corrected. "And yours. Before we met."

My blood ran cold.

"Mine?"

"You don't remember her?" he asked. "Dissociative amnesia again. Convenient."

He took another step.

"She's obsessed with us, Elena. She's been trying to break us up for years. She thinks I'm a sociopath."

"You *are* a sociopath!" Sarah yelled.

"And she thinks you," he said, pointing the light at me, "are a project she failed to fix."

I looked back and forth between them. The man with the gun. The woman in black.

Who was lying?

"Elena," Sarah said. "Don't listen to him. He's trying to confuse you."

"Elena," Julian said. "Come here. Let me protect you."

I backed away. I hit the front door.

"I don't believe either of you," I said.

"Smart girl," a voice said from the darkness behind me.

It wasn't Julian. It wasn't Sarah.

It came from the intercom panel on the wall. The one that was supposed to be dead.

*"Did you really think a jammer would stop me?"* the synthesized voice asked.

The lights slammed back on.

Blindingly bright. Maximum intensity.

We all flinched.

And then the front door—the massive glass slab I was leaning against—clicked.

*Unlocking.*

It swung open.

Standing on the threshold, framed by the fog and the night, was a figure.

He wore a black hoodie. Jeans. Heavy boots.

And a white, featureless mask.

He held a phone in one hand.

He raised it.

And he pressed play.

A recording of my voice filled the room.

*"I want him dead. I want him gone. How much will it cost?"*

It was a recording from three years ago. A moment of weakness. A moment of rage I had confessed to my therapist.

Sarah.

I looked at her. Her face had gone white.

The man in the mask stepped into the house.

He lowered the phone.

He reached up and pulled off the mask.

It wasn't a stranger.

It was Leo.

My apprentice.

He smiled. It was a shy, apologetic smile. The same one he used when he was late for work.

"Sorry, boss," he said. "But the pay was really good."

He looked at Julian.

"Ready for your close-up, Mr. Vance?"

Julian lowered his gun. He looked confused. "Leo? What are you doing?"

"Improvising," Leo said.

He raised a remote control.

"Say cheese."

He pressed a button.

And the entire glass wall of the living room—the twelve-million-dollar view—exploded inward.