“Someone is following me.”

My voice is quiet and hollow, and I can’t believe I’m voicing my thoughts out loud. Living in denial is easier, pretending the feeling will go away, acting like everything is fine. Much easier believing it’s a mixture of stress and an overactive imagination.

But I can’t keep telling myself that lie.

Tess doesn’t even react. She’s busy clearing out the inside of a kitchen cabinet. “We’re almost finished, Amelia,” she says, placing a stack of stainless steel pans inside a blue rubber bin at her feet. “You’re lucky your grandma was a minimalist. Mine hordes ceramic knick-knacks like they’re going out of style.”

“It makes moving easier.” Everything in this house serves a purpose. Gran didn’t care for things as trivial as decorations. Only a few packed bins surround me as I rub my palms against the sides of my jeans. These bins are all that’s left of her. All that’s left of my childhood.

“Did you, ah, hear what I said before, Tess?”

She reaches for the matching set of pots, popping pink bubble gum in the side of her mouth. “Yes, sorry. What do you mean by following?”

“Stalking me. Watching my every move. Intervening in my life.” Saving my life.

That idea is still a theory, though.

This time my words register.

Tess turns around, clutching the pots so tightly her knuckles turn white. Her blue-gray eyes lock with mine. “Amelia, hon, it’s been a rough few weeks—”

She doesn’t believe me.

“and this is the first time you’ve ever lived alone. Do you think maybe you’re just—”

“I’m not imagining things, Tess. I’m not crazy.”

“Jesus, Amelia.” She slowly sets the pots inside of the bin. “Do you really believe someone is following you?”

I can’t blame her for doubting me; I get how this looks. Burying Gran is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. She was the only family I had left. Here I am, barely twenty-one, trying to forge a life for myself. If I were Tess, I’d be skeptical too.

Folding my arms over my chest, I lean against the wall. Outside the bay window, there’s a familiar view of my neighborhood street. Manicured lawns, cloudless blue sky, Spanish-style houses fashioned with red-tiled roofs. Strangely, there’s nothing sad about leaving it. Gran was my home, and now she’s gone. This house means nothing without her.

The flower beds lining the walkway are filled with flowers she planted. The woman loved to garden. Gran’s life was grass-stained gloves, watering cans, and the two of us pulling weeds together. I already miss those sweet, simple moments.

Tess walks across the room and hops up onto the window seat. She tosses her bleached-blonde hair over her shoulder, giving me her full attention. “Okay, sweetie. Tell me why you think you’re being followed.”

Why I think. She still doesn’t believe me. But she’s willing to listen. It’s something anyway.

“The typical signs. Tingles on the back of my neck. A shadow out of the corner of my eye. Feeling someone’s presence without actually seeing them.”

My heart rate kicks up a notch just thinking about it.

“I don’t mean to invalidate your feelings,” Tess says, “but how do you know these things aren’t happening in your head?”

“I knew you would ask me that, but I have proof.” I twist the charms on my bracelet, fidgeting. “About two weeks ago I found a note taped to my car window warning me not to drive it. I’d just gotten off work after a closing shift.”

She stops chewing her gum. “You never told me this.”

Tess and I work together at Penelope’s Café, where we first met. I was eighteen, couldn’t brew a decent pot of coffee to save my life, but it was the only job Gran would allow me to have because it was close to home and the hours were flexible with my college schedule. If Tess hadn’t taken me under her wing, I’m sure Penelope would’ve fired me.

“I’ve been meaning to.” I clear my throat. “It really freaked me out at the time. Hector drove me home.”

“What did the note say?”

Hoping to gain more credibility, I go find my purse and return with the crumpled piece of paper, handing it to her.

Tess snorts as she reads the last part. “What kind of shady do-gooder does this sort of thing?”

“The brakes were out, Tess. Whoever wrote that note wasn’t lying.”

“Says who? Bill the mechanic?”

I tilt my head to the side. She can’t think I’m that naïve. But just in case—“I called someone else.”

She looks at me, and then the note again, and I see the wheels in her mind spinning. “I’ll admit, it’s strange. Do you know of anyone who would want to hurt you?”

I shake my head.

“Anyone who’d want to hurt your grandma?”

Again, I shake my head. “You saw how she was. She led a quiet life.”

Not just quiet, but downright boring. That’s the way Gran wanted it though, no drama. No mess. No frills.

“Who knows why anyone would do this to me. Maybe they thought my car belonged to someone else.”

“I thought you said this person was following you.”

“No, I mean, maybe—that I’m not sure about.” Pointing to the note, I say, “Whoever wrote this is the person following me. The shady do-gooder.”

Tess leans back against the window, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You’re confusing me. Now you have two people following you?”

“Possibly. I don’t know about the person who messed with my brakes, but the person who wrote the note was trying to protect me.”

This is why I’ve been so hesitant to tell anyone. It is confusing. Believing one stalker is out to get me while another is trying to save me, like the forces of good and evil are at work—God, I really do sound like a lunatic.

I tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear and let out a lengthy sigh. “All I know is someone is trying to help me.”

“It almost sounds like you’re excusing your stalker for having good intentions.” She folds the note and hands it back as if she can’t stand touching it. “Amelia, that’s seriously disturbing.”

“I’d rather have no stalkers, thank you very much. I’m just telling you what I know.”

It’s super defensive, but she’s right. There’s a small, twisted part of me that secretly believes there’s a guardian angel following me around. Replacing the word stalker with guardian angel makes my situation feel much lighter.

“Any other weird incidents I should know about?” she asks, tilting her head to the side. Her voice glosses over, smooth and patient, the way a parent would speak to their child.

“One more. You know Triple-Shot-Mocha Mike?”

Mike bartends at the pub across the street from Penelope’s. He comes in for coffee every day, and hits on the majority of our female staff, sometimes in extremely inappropriate ways.

“The jerkoff Wi-Fi freeloader who thinks he’s God’s gift to women?”

“That’s him. Last week, he groped me when I dropped the sugar canister. I bent down to clean up the mess, and he slid his hand up my ass. Didn’t immediately pull away either—I had to shove him off me.”

Tess crinkles her nose. “Please tell me you had Hector boot him out.”

“Hector wasn’t there. It was just me and Penelope, and we were in the middle of a rush.”

“You should’ve knocked him flat on his ass.”

“Thankfully someone else saved me the trouble.”

“Someone else beat up Mike?”

“He came in a few days ago wearing a shiner.” A wicked smile pulls at the corners of my lips as I remember the yellow-tinged bruise covering Mike’s right eye. “When I tried to take his order, he told me to stay away. He even requested Craig to serve him.”

Tess snorts. Craig is a crappy barista, notoriously monotone and lacking basic customer service skills. But Penelope keeps him on as her employee because he’s her nephew. And everyone puts up with him for the same reason.

“Mike’s an ass. He could’ve earned that shiner for a dozen reasons. Do you really think someone punched him for groping you?”

“After he asked for Craig, I heard him mumble beneath his breath I wasn’t worth the trouble. Why else would he have said that?”

Tess’s phone buzzes, and she slides it out of her back pocket. She checks the text message on the screen. “It’s my dad. He wants me to stop by his house for dinner.” She stands, looking around. “Do you think you can handle the rest by yourself?”

“Yeah, there’s not much left.” The plastic bins and cardboard boxes are piled against the bare walls, my whole life stuffed inside of them. Transitioning from this house to a tiny apartment leaves me wondering what’s worth keeping.

I walk Tess to the door. “Does this mean you’re still not convinced I have a stalker?”

“I don’t know, sweetie.” She reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “These incidents are concerning, but I don’t know if they’re enough to make me believe you’re being followed by not one, but two separate people. It’s a stretch.”

Her doubt makes me question myself. I didn’t realize how much I needed her to believe me.

Tess looks at me again, noticing I’m not pleased. “You can never be too careful though. Why don’t you sleep at my place tonight?”

Her apartment complex is gated, she has two Labrador retrievers, and her roommate is a six-foot-tall muscled steamboat of a guy who works as a bouncer downtown. It’s not a bad idea…

Then I think of everything I need to do tomorrow. “No, I’ve got to be up early for my Oltek interview.”

Tess frowns. “Excuse me?”

Crap.

I hadn’t meant to bring that up.

“You’re applying to Oltek?” Her judgmental gaze slices into me like shards of glass.

“I’m officially a college graduate. It’s time for me to start adulting.”

The ceremony was a week after Gran passed. I didn’t go. The one woman who pushed me to get my degree wouldn’t be there to see me walk. So I didn’t bother.

“You should be figuring out what Amelia wants to do,” she says, jabbing her finger into my chest to further her point. “Not what you think is expected of you.”

“This job is a great opportunity.”

“An opportunity your boyfriend scored for you.”

Ugh. This is headed there again. “Just because his dad is the CEO doesn’t mean it’s a sure thing. And if I do get the job, it doesn’t mean I’ll be working with Ethan. It’s a big company.” With amazing benefits, a 401k, and two weeks’ vacation per year to start. For a girl fresh out of college, all those things sound a heck of a lot better than spending my days serving coffee and pastries. Not that there’s anything wrong being a barista. But after four years of busting my ass in school, I’m ready for the next chapter. I’m ready for my little office cubicle decorated with superfluous wall art and pictures of my dog. I don’t have a dog—yet. Gran didn’t want to deal with the hair and the potty training and the barking. But I’m definitely getting one now that I’ll be living alone. Maybe a cute little cocker spaniel or a fluffy bichon frisé to keep me company.

“And what happens when you break it off with Ethan, huh?” Tess asks, cutting into my thoughts. “You think they’ll just let you stick around?”

“Why are you so sure we’re going to break up?” I stare at her pointedly. “Do you really think our relationship is doomed?”

“Yes.” There isn’t even an ounce of guilt. “You’re too good for him.”

That makes me groan out loud. “Ethan is a great guy.”

“On paper, maybe. In real life, he’s a pretentious asshole. One day you’re going to figure that out, too.”

“We’ll see,” I grumble, opening the door.

I both love and hate how Tess says what she thinks without any excuses. Right now, not so much the love part.

Because she makes a good point.

I’ve been going back and forth about interviewing for this job for a while. It doesn’t feel right. Probably because Ethan doesn’t feel right. It’s still a new relationship, my first real adult relationship, and I should see where it goes. But sometimes, I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder if it will ever be right.

“Are you sure you don’t want to spend the night?” Tess asks again, nervously biting the inside of her cheek. “I’d hate to see you end up on one of those dateline murder mysteries. They’ll interview me, and I’m a crier. An ugly one at that. My face gets all blotchy. I lose my breath. My nose runs like a faucet.”

“That would be awful.”

“I’ll become a pariah. The customers at Penelope’s will secretly wonder what’s in their cappuccinos. They’ll call me Tearful Tess. Seriously—you should just come over and save me from a life of mockery and shame. Imagine the insults from Craig.” She shivers.

“I’ll be fine,” I insist, shoving her outside. “Besides, I’ve got an alarm system.” Gran installed a top-of-the-line security system years ago. The woman may not have cared for pretty baubles, but she went all out on safety precautions. Growing up, mace was a staple school supply for my backpack.

“If you need anything—anything—call me. Promise.”

“I promise.”

“Love you, babe.” Tess says the words without an ounce of shame. She’s like that with her family and close friends, never forgetting to tell them she loves them.

“Love you, too.” The words sound awkward and clunky when I say them.

Closing the door behind her, I head down the hallway leading to my bedroom. Shower, then sleep. Two things I need badly.

I trip over a box next to the coat closet, catching myself against the wall. At first I think it’s a bin we left out. But as I bend down to move it aside, my hands go still. It’s not a box. It’s an old, leather-bound photo album, one I’ve never seen before.

Dusting off the cover, my fingers travel over the stitching at the bottom.

Serra.

A name?

I quickly open the album, sucking in a sharp breath. These pictures are of Gran. A much younger Gran than I remember, early nineties maybe. Her hair was less gray, her skin less weathered by lines and sun spots. There are other people in the pictures too—people I don’t recognize. I slowly sink to the floor until I’m kneeling, flipping through the pages in quiet fascination. Could they be…is it possible? Are these people my family?

I feel Gran’s spirit hovering over my shoulder, ordering me to put the album away. She hid these kinds of things from me, everything from her past. Everything from my past.

“Why?” I ask aloud, as if her ghost is really there in the hallway. “Why did we never talk about them?”

By them, I mostly mean my parents. While Gran was alive I asked her about them all the time, but she refused to go into detail. My mother overdosed on heroin shortly after I was born. My father died a few years later in a car accident. From the few pieces of information I was able to gather, it seemed neither of them were very good people.

So many photos I’ve never seen. Group photos, one in a vineyard. One by a pool. I touch their faces, recognizing subtle similarities. The dark hair and deep-set eyes, the prominent cheekbones, and full-lipped mouths. Do they really look similar to me, or am I seeing what I want to see?

Sighing, I close the album, and carry it with me to my bedroom. Whoever these people are, they probably don’t even know I exist.

* * *

Tess’s offer haunts me as I’m trying to sleep. Why don’t you sleep at my house tonight?

Should’ve taken her up on that.

Because now I’m lying awake in bed, listening to the rapping at my window like it’s a monster’s gnarled claws working the latch open in a furious attempt to break in and eat me for dinner. Cliché, friggin’ tree branch. But my mind can’t accept the obvious. If my imagination had wings, it would be flying all over this room, creating a horror movie out of lifeless objects.

The rapping stops.

I listen quietly for several minutes, expecting to hear it again. A gust of wind blows. Leaves rustle. Windy, ordinary Tampa night. The alarm clock on my nightstand says two o’clock.

I’m never going to get any sleep if I don’t check it out.

Frustrated, I toss my sheets aside, and head for the window, moving back the curtain. The bald cypress tree rustles outside, but the branches aren’t close enough to cause as much noise as I heard.

It could’ve been the neighbor’s cat.

Good, solid explanation. Mrs. Florence from the across the street owns a tabby that’s a well-known neighborhood nomad. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s roamed these window ledges.

I let the curtain fall back, ready to go back to bed. Out of the corner of my eye, there’s movement. A shadow passes in front of the window, and I spin around. Holy mother of God.

That is not a tree branch.

My heart lurches against my chest, but I force myself to pull back the curtain again. I scan the front yard. The only thing moving is the bald cypress’s leaves. The yard, empty. No one’s out there.

My phone buzzes, and I nearly jump a mile high. I grab it off the nightstand, my hands fumbling to answer it. “Hello?”

“Amelia De Palma?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“This is Sergeant Jack Armstrong. We received a call reporting an attempted break-in at your address…”

My ears start to buzz. Goose bumps prickle across my skin, and I lean against the wall behind me for support. Slowly sliding down to the carpeted floor, I curl my knees to my chest, clutching my phone as if it’s my lifeline.

“Miss De Palma? Ma’am? Are you there?” The sergeant’s steady voice breaks through the phone as the buzzing quiets down.

“Yes, I’m here,” I whisper. “I’ve been hearing…noises.”

“Just sit tight. We’ve dispatched a deputy to check out the area.”

“Thank you—wait. Who did you say called you?”

“Anonymous tip. Probably a concerned neighbor. Don’t worry, ma’am. The deputy should be arriving any moment now.” His voice is reassuring. Confident.

“Okay.” I slowly let out a breath. “Will you stay on the phone with me until he gets here?”

I sound small and helpless; I don’t like it. It makes me feel like a frightened child.

“Of course, I’ll stay on the line with you, ma’am.”