Chapter 3
The next afternoon, I stood behind the service counter at work while my manager pulled the closing schedule from its plastic sleeve.
The paper was ordinary: names, dates, start times, end times, initials beside the shifts. I had seen it every day without thinking about it. The schedule hung on a corkboard beside the service window, close enough that anyone waiting for a signature or a delivery receipt could read it.
My manager, Nora, followed my stare.
“I can move it into the office,” she said.
“Was it always there?”
“For the last few weeks, yes.” She touched the corner of the paper without taking it down. “We need people to check changes during the day. The office door stays locked when I’m not in there, so this was the practical spot.”
I nodded, though the word practical felt suddenly different.
From the alley, the schedule had seemed private because it belonged to my life. Behind the counter, it was just information on a wall.
Nora looked at me carefully. “Did somebody here tell you they knew when you left?”
“No.”
“Did anyone act strange?”
I almost said no again. Then I remembered how many people passed through the workplace: vendors, delivery drivers, repair workers, contractors, people who waited while someone checked an order. Most of them barely looked at me. That didn’t mean they couldn’t have noticed the paper.
“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s the problem.”
She took the schedule down and folded it once. “We’ll keep it in the office from now on. I’ll also ask everyone not to discuss your hours.”
It wasn’t a dramatic solution. Nobody promised the building had become safe. Still, watching her put the paper away gave me one small, concrete change I could point to.
At the computer, Nora opened the delivery log. The entries covered the previous week in narrow rows: company names, arrival times, driver names, initials from whoever accepted the delivery.
There were more names than I expected.
Regular suppliers appeared first, followed by a maintenance contractor and two drivers who had come in only once. Then Nora scrolled to the line that made my breathing shallow.
“Caleb Voss,” she read. “He’s with Northline.”
I knew the name. Caleb had delivered often enough that his face belonged to the workplace in the same loose way the front door and break-room clock did. He wore dark clothes, kept his hair pulled back, and usually waited near the counter while somebody checked the paperwork.
Nora clicked through the entries. “He was here Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.”
“What time?”
“Between four and five each day.”
My shift ended at ten.
The times didn’t prove anything. The schedule would have been visible then, though. So would I, if I was working nearby.
A coworker named Tasha came in from the stockroom carrying a box of cups. Nora asked if she remembered any delivery drivers asking about me.
Tasha set the box down and frowned. “One did.”
My hands went cold.
“Who?” Nora asked.
“I don’t know his name. Dark jacket. Maybe a driver.” Tasha glanced at me. “He asked if you always walked toward the diner after closing.”
The room seemed to contract around the counter.
“Did he say why?” I asked.
“No. I thought he was making conversation.” She rubbed her thumb along the box seam. “It was a while ago. Maybe last week. Or the week before.”
“Was it Caleb?”
“I can’t say.” She looked embarrassed by the uncertainty. “There are several drivers who wear dark clothes. I didn’t pay attention.”
That answer mattered more than certainty would have. Caleb was a name, not an identity. The log held other names, too. Any of them could have seen the schedule. Any of them might have remembered the direction I took after work.
I wrote the names down with Nora’s permission, careful not to circle Caleb.
Detective Ortiz called while I was still at the counter. I told her what we had found.
“Keep the list,” she said. “Don’t contact anyone on it. We need to separate what people know from what they assume.”
“I understand.”
“Malik offered to let you wait inside the diner until we arrange a safer temporary route home,” she continued. “You don’t have to accept.”
I looked through the front window toward the street. The diner sign was visible past the corner, its light beginning to show against the afternoon gray.
“I’ll accept the waiting place,” I said. “But I’ll get home on my own route once you arrange it.”
Ortiz paused. “That’s reasonable.”
“And Malik doesn’t need to walk me anywhere. I don’t want him following me or checking on me without asking.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“No,” I said. “I’ll tell him.”
At closing, I sent Malik a text: I’ll wait inside the diner. Please don’t come outside with me or call unless I ask.
His reply came a minute later.
Understood. I’ll keep a table open.
May you like
I read it twice. He hadn’t argued. He hadn’t treated my boundary like an insult or a challenge.
That didn’t make the walk home safe. It didn’t narrow the list to one person. But it gave me something solid to carry into the evening: the danger had a possible route into my routine, and I could still decide how much of that routine belonged to me.
