Chapter 6
The message arrived during my break, while the vending machine hummed beside the lockers and rain tapped against the narrow window in the break room.
I had been staring at a paper cup of coffee without drinking it when my phone vibrated. The account had no name, no photograph, and no history. Its handle looked randomly assembled, a string of letters and numbers that meant nothing to me.
The message contained three sentences.
You misunderstood what happened in the alley.
Nobody needs to make this bigger than it was.
Stop making trouble.
I read it twice. On the third reading, my hands began to shake.
It didn't mention the dumpster, the wall, or the phone lens beneath the hood. It didn't use any detail I had given Detective Ortiz. Still, the words felt familiar. Not because they repeated the exact phrases from that night, but because they carried the same calm dismissal.
Calm down.
Enjoy it.
Please relax.
The account sent one more message before I could decide whether to move.
You know how easy it is to be mistaken when you're scared.
I set the phone facedown on the table. For several seconds, I listened to the rain and the refrigerator motor and the muffled movement of people working on the other side of the door. Then I picked up the phone again, took screenshots, and forwarded nothing. I didn't answer.
My coworker Tasha found me a few minutes later. She stopped in the doorway when she saw my face.
“What happened?”
I turned the phone toward her but didn't let go of it. “Someone sent this.”
She read the screen. Her mouth tightened. “Do you know who it is?”
“No.”
“Reply and ask.”
I looked at the empty profile. “Ortiz told me not to engage with anyone connected to this.”
Tasha nodded, though her eyes stayed on the last sentence. “Then don't.”
I called Detective Ortiz from the back hallway. She answered on the fourth ring.
“Emily, are you somewhere private?”
“Yes.”
“Send me screenshots. Don't delete the account, don't block it yet, and don't respond.”
“I wasn't going to.”
There was a pause. “You sound angry.”
“I am angry. They don't get to tell me what happened.”
“No,” she said. “But right now, preserving it matters more than proving a point to the sender.”
I sent the images while she remained on the line. Ortiz asked me to record the account name, the time, and whether I had opened any links. I hadn't. She explained that her department's technical contact could request information from the platform, but temporary accounts often left little behind.
“So it might be nothing,” I said.
“It might be. It might also be an attempt to influence you. We document both possibilities.”
The phrase stayed with me: influence you. The message wasn't only about the alley anymore. It was trying to decide what the alley meant.
That evening, Ortiz called back after reviewing the account's basic information. The sender had used a temporary account created through a service that concealed ordinary profile details. The access records were limited, but the message had been sent shortly after a delivery cancellation connected to Caleb Voss.
“Does that place him behind the account?” I asked.
“No. It gives us timing, not authorship.”
I pressed my thumb against the edge of my phone. “How many coincidences are we supposed to wait through?”
“I know,” Ortiz said. “But if we call a coincidence proof, his attorney will call everything after that unreliable.”
The next day, I made a choice before fear could make it for me. I asked Tasha if I could stay at her apartment for several nights. She lived across town, near a busy parking lot and a twenty-four-hour pharmacy. She didn't make a ceremony of saying yes. She simply moved a stack of folded laundry off the spare bed.
At the diner that night, Malik met me near the side entrance. He looked at my face, then at the overnight bag in my hand.
“Are you staying somewhere else?”
“With Tasha.”
He nodded once. He didn't ask me to stay with him. He didn't offer to follow me home or promise that nothing would happen.
I appreciated that more than I could explain.
“I need consistency,” I told him. “Not promises. If you say you'll check in, check in. If you don't know something, tell me you don't know.”
His expression changed slightly, a quiet seriousness settling over it.
“I can do that,” he said. “And if I can't, I'll say so.”
May you like
The rain had stopped, but the pavement outside still shone beneath the streetlights. I saved the message again, sent the original screenshots to Ortiz, and placed the phone in my bag.
The account had no name. The attempt behind it did.
