The Shadow on the Glass

I sat across from Sasha in the corner booth of The Perch, clutching my oat milk latte like it was the last life raft on the Titanic. The caffeine wasn't helping. If anything, it was just giving my anxiety a faster tempo.

"You look like you're about to vibrate into another dimension," Sasha said, lowering her sunglasses.

"I feel like I'm already there," I muttered. "A dimension where ex-husbands break into your house to fix your Wi-Fi and leave flowers on their own cars."

Sasha leaned in, her vintage band tee slipping off one shoulder. "Okay, walk me through the rose thing again. You saw it. Then he saw it. Then it wasn't there?"

"I saw it," I insisted. "On the hood of his Range Rover. It was right there, Sasha. Red. Wet. Impossible to miss."

"And Julian said..."

"He said he believed that *I* saw it. Which is code for 'you're crazy, but I'm too polite to say it.'"

Sasha stirred her cold brew with a black straw. "Gaslighting 101. Make you doubt your own senses. Isolate you. Make you dependent on his version of reality."

"He fixed the system," I said. "He stopped the lockdown loop. He patched the firewall."

"Did he?" Sasha asked. "Or did he just turn off the glitch he created?"

I looked out the window. The rain had stopped, but the sky was still a bruised purple. The gray sedan was still there, parked across the street.

"Do you see that car?" I asked.

Sasha didn't turn around. She pulled out her compact mirror again. "Still there. Still idling."

"I think I'm going to go over there."

"You are absolutely not going over there," Sasha hissed. "That is how people die in the cold open of a Law & Order episode."

"I need to know," I said. "If Julian isn't the one messing with me... then who is?"

"Maybe it's the person in the car. Maybe it's a fan. My podcast has some weird listeners, El. The 'Night Watcher' episode got a lot of traction on the dark web forums."

"Great," I said. "So I have a stalker *and* a gaslighting ex-husband. I'm living the dream."

My burner phone buzzed again.

*He's lying about the patch.*

I stared at the screen.

"What?" Sasha asked.

"The text," I said. "It says he's lying about the patch."

"Who is sending these?"

"I don't know. But they knew about the rose. They knew about the roof."

I looked at the gray car. The window was still cracked open.

"I'm going," I said.

"Elena, no."

I stood up. "Stay here. If I'm not back in five minutes, call the police. The real police. Not the Aerie Point security."

"Elena!"

I walked out.

The air was heavy, saturated with moisture. I crossed the street, my boots splashing in puddles. The gray sedan sat there like a shark in shallow water.

I walked up to the driver's side.

The window rolled down another inch.

"You're persistent," the woman said.

"And you're stalking me," I said. "So I guess we're both committed."

She turned her head. I saw her face more clearly this time. She was older than me. Maybe forty. Her hair was dyed a harsh black, cut in a sharp bob. She looked tired. Bone-deep tired.

"I'm not stalking you," she said. "I'm trying to save you."

"From Julian?"

"From the house," she said.

"The house is fine. Julian fixed it."

She laughed again. That dry, hacking sound. "He didn't fix anything. He just changed the locks. Now he's the only one with a key."

"Who are you?" I asked. "How do you know him?"

She looked at me. Her eyes were dark, almost black. "I'm the one who wrote the original code," she said.

My heart skipped a beat.

"Bullshit," I said. "I wrote the code. Me and my team."

"You wrote the UI," she said. "You wrote the pretty interface that the rich people see on their iPads. The backend? The kernel? That was Julian. And me."

"You worked for Vance Crisis?"

"I was Vance Crisis," she said. "Before he pushed me out. Before he decided that a brilliant female coder was a liability to his brand."

"What's your name?"

"It doesn't matter," she said. "What matters is what's in the sub-basement."

"There is no sub-basement."

"Check the blueprints," she said. "The physical ones. The ones you keep in the safe."

"How do you know about the safe?"

"Because I watched him install it," she said. "Ten years ago. In the first house we flipped together."

We.

*We flipped together.*

I stared at her. The sharp bob. The tired eyes.

"You're his ex-wife," I whispered. "The first one."

She didn't confirm it. She didn't deny it. She just looked at the house up on the cliff.

"He likes to collect us," she said. "Smart women. Capable women. He finds us, he uses us to build his empire, and then he breaks us. It's his pattern."

"He didn't break me," I said.

"Not yet," she said. "But he's inside now. He's in your head. He's in your code. And soon, he'll be the only thing keeping you alive."

She reached into the passenger seat and picked up a manila envelope. She held it out through the crack in the window.

"Take this," she said.

"What is it?"

"Proof," she said. "Proof that the 'glitches' aren't glitches. They're features. Features he built into the system five years ago. Long before Aerie Point was even a sketch on a napkin."

I took the envelope. It felt heavy.

"Why are you giving me this?"

"Because I couldn't stop him," she said. "Maybe you can."

She rolled up the window.

"Wait!" I shouted. "What about the rose? Did you put the rose there?"

The window paused.

"I don't do flowers," she said. "That's his signature. It means the show has started."

The engine revved. The car pulled away, merging into traffic and disappearing around the bend.

I stood there, clutching the envelope.

*His signature.*

I thought about the whistling. *Hush, Little Baby.*

I thought about the way he had touched my face in the kitchen.

I ran back to the Porsche.

I needed to see the blueprints.

I drove up the switchback like a maniac. The envelope sat on the passenger seat, sliding back and forth with every turn.

I pulled into the driveway. The Range Rover was still there.

I ran inside. The house was quiet. Too quiet.

"Julian?" I called out.

No answer.

I went straight to the study. I pulled the false panel off the wainscoting. I spun the dial on the safe. *Left, right, left.*

The door clicked open.

I reached in.

My hand brushed against velvet.

Empty.

The blueprints were gone.

I felt a cold sweat break out on the back of my neck.

I had checked the safe yesterday. They were there.

Julian.

He must have taken them. While I was at coffee.

But why? If he already knew the layout... why steal the plans?

Unless the plans showed something he didn't want me to see.

*The sub-basement.*

I turned around.

And then I saw it.

Sitting on the desk.

A baby monitor.

It was old. Yellowed plastic. The kind we had bought when I was pregnant. The kind we had thrown away after... after.

It was plugged in. The power light was green.

And through the speaker, faint but clear, came a sound.

*Thump. Thump. Thump.*

Three distinct knocks.

Then, a voice.

"Elena?"

It was Julian's voice.

But it sounded... wrong. Tinny. Distorted. And echoing.

"Elena, are you there?"

"Julian?" I said. "Where are you?"

"I'm... stuck," he said. "I went down to check the foundation. The door... it locked behind me."

"What door?"

"The one in the pantry," he said. "Behind the wine rack."

I stared at the monitor.

There was no door behind the wine rack.

"There's no door there, Julian."

"There is," he said. "You just never looked."

I grabbed the monitor. I ran to the kitchen. I pulled open the pantry door.

Shelves of pasta. Jars of sauce. The wine rack built into the back wall.

I pushed the wine rack. It didn't move.

"It's hidden," Julian's voice said from the monitor in my hand. "Push the third bottle from the left. Bottom row."

I looked at the bottle. A cheap Merlot. I pushed it.

*Click.*

The rack swung inward.

Darkness.

A set of concrete stairs leading down.

*The sub-basement.*

"Julian?" I called down.

"I'm down here, El. It's... it's amazing. You have to see this."

I took a step forward.

Then I stopped.

Something was wrong.

The voice on the monitor. It was Julian's voice. But the cadence... it was too smooth. Too rhythmic.

"Come down, Elena," the voice said. "I found the source of the glitch."

I looked at the monitor. The sound wave visualization was spiking.

*Come down.*

I remembered the text. *He's lying to you.*

I remembered the woman in the car. *Julian is just the actor.*

I took a step back.

"Julian," I said. "Say the code word."

Silence.

"The code word," I repeated. "From when we were married. If we were in trouble. If we needed an out."

Static.

Then: "I don't remember a code word, El. I just remember the whistling."

And then the whistling started.

*Hush, little baby...*

It wasn't coming from the monitor anymore.

It was coming from behind me.

I spun around.

Julian was standing in the kitchen doorway.

He was holding the blueprints.

He looked at me. He looked at the open pantry door. He looked at the baby monitor in my hand.

He smiled.

"You found it," he said.

"You're... you're right here," I stammered. I pointed at the monitor. "But you're on the..."

"That?" He nodded at the device. "That's a recording, El. A deepfake. I generated it this morning while you were getting coffee."

"Why?"

"To see if you'd open the door," he said. "I couldn't find the release mechanism. But I knew *you* would know where to look. You designed it, after all."

"I didn't design this!" I screamed. "I didn't put a secret basement in my house!"

"didn't you?" He walked toward me. He tossed the blueprints onto the island. "Look at the plans, Elena. Look at the date."

I looked.

*Project: Aerie Point. Lead Architect: Elena Vance. Date: October 12, 2021.*

The signature at the bottom was mine.

And there, in the cross-section, was the sub-basement. Labeled: *OBSERVATION DECK.*

"I... I don't remember this," I whispered.

"Dissociative amnesia," Julian said. He was close now. He smelled like rain and betrayal. "You blocked it out. Just like you blocked out the miscarriage. Just like you blocked out the reason we really got divorced."

"Stop it."

"You built this room, Elena," he said softly. "You built it so you could watch. So you could feel safe."

"No."

"Yes. And now... now we're going to go down there. Together."

He reached for my arm.

I pulled away. I grabbed the knife block.

"Don't touch me!"

"Elena, put the knife down."

"Stay back!"

"I'm trying to help you!"

"Help me?" I laughed. It sounded manic. "You gaslit me! You planted a tracker in my bag! You put a rose on your car!"

"I didn't put a tracker in your bag," he said. He looked genuinely confused. "What tracker?"

"The AirTag! I found it!"

He frowned. "Elena... I didn't put an AirTag in your bag."

"Liar!"

"I swear to you. I didn't."

"Then who did?"

He looked at the open pantry door. At the darkness below.

"Maybe," he whispered, "the person who is currently down there."

A sound came from the sub-basement.

Not whistling.

Footsteps.

Wet, heavy footsteps on concrete.

Coming up the stairs.

Julian turned toward the sound. He moved in front of me. He put his body between me and the door.

"Get behind me," he said.

His voice was different. It wasn't the smooth, manipulative voice. It was... scared.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun.

"Julian?" I whispered.

"I didn't bring the rose, Elena," he said, not taking his eyes off the darkness. "And I didn't send the texts."

"Then who..."

A figure emerged from the shadows of the secret stairwell.

It was a man.

He was wearing a black hoodie. Jeans. Heavy boots.

And a white, featureless mask.

He stopped at the top of the stairs. He looked at Julian. He looked at me.

He raised a hand.

And he waved.

Julian fired.

*Bang.*

The shot was deafening in the small kitchen.

The man didn't fall. He didn't bleed.

He just... flickered.

Like a hologram. Like a glitch.

And then he vanished.

"What..." Julian lowered the gun. His hand was shaking. "What was that?"

I looked at the spot where the man had been. There was nothing there. Just the empty air.

But on the floor, where he had stood...

A single, red petal.

Real. Physical.

I looked at Julian. He looked at me.

For the first time in five years, we were on the same side.

We were both terrified.

"It's not a glitch," I whispered.

"No," Julian said. "It's a feature."

My phone buzzed.

Unknown Number.

*Did you like the opening act?*

I looked up.

The lights in the kitchen went out.

Then the living room.

Then the foyer.

Total darkness.

"Run," Julian said.

He grabbed my hand.

And we ran into the dark.