Chapter 4: The Five-Minute Deadline
My hand tightened around the phone until my knuckles turned white.
The call had ended, but I couldn't lower the device.
Outside the bedroom window, the dark blue SUV was still parked across the street.
The driver sat perfectly still.
Watching.
Waiting.
Lily looked at me, panic spreading across her face.
"What did he say?"
I swallowed hard.
"He wants me to come outside."
Her eyes filled with tears.
"No."
"He threatened Noah."
"My cousin?" she whispered.
I nodded.
"He said I have five minutes."
Lily grabbed my wrist.
"You can't go."
"And I can't ignore him."
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
My mind raced through every possible option.
Call the police.
Run out the back door.
Stay inside.
Every choice seemed dangerous.
The man had planned this too carefully.
He already knew my routine.
He knew where Noah went to school.
If he had been watching us for months, who was to say he wasn't watching the police station, too?
Then another thought struck me.
How had he known I was hiding in the house?
I hadn't told anyone.
Mrs. Greene certainly hadn't.
Someone had seen me come back.
Or...
Someone had never stopped watching the house.
I rushed to the living room and carefully pulled back the curtain.
The SUV hadn't moved.
The driver's window was still halfway down.
He wasn't even pretending to hide.
He wanted me to know he was there.
My phone vibrated again.
A text message.
Don't make me repeat myself. Four minutes.
No sender.
No number.
Just the message.
I looked toward the ceiling.
Smoke detector.
Hallway.
Living room.
Kitchen.
How many tiny cameras could be hidden inside a normal house?
A sick feeling settled in my stomach.
"Lily," I whispered.
"Has he ever been inside when I wasn't home?"
She slowly nodded.
"A few times."
"What did he do?"
"I don't know."
"You never asked?"
"He said if I asked questions..."
She couldn't finish the sentence.
I already knew the ending.
I hurried from room to room, suddenly noticing things I'd ignored for years.
A smoke detector that looked newer than the others.
A digital clock that always faced the couch.
An air freshener plugged into an outlet near the front door.
Were they ordinary objects?
Or something else?
I couldn't tell anymore.
My entire home suddenly felt unfamiliar.
Another text appeared.
Three minutes.
My breathing became shallow.
"Lily," I said, kneeling in front of her.
"I need you to listen carefully."
She nodded through her tears.
"If anything happens to me, lock every door and call 911."
"No."
"You have to."
"I'm not losing you too."
I cupped her face.
"Look at me."
She did.
"You've spent months protecting me."
A tear rolled down her cheek.
"It's my turn to protect you."
She threw her arms around me.
"I don't want you to go."
"I know."
The hug lasted only seconds.
It felt like forever.
When we pulled apart, I noticed something sticking out from beneath her desk.
A folded piece of paper.
It hadn't been there earlier.
I picked it up.
The paper contained only one sentence.
Come alone. No police. Check your mailbox.
Neither of us had heard anyone approach the house.
Someone had slipped the note inside while we were upstairs.
That meant we weren't just being watched.
The house was being surrounded.
I walked to the front door as quietly as possible.
The mailbox stood only twenty feet away.
The SUV remained across the street.
The driver hadn't moved.
Slowly, I opened the front door.
Warm summer air rushed inside.
Everything looked perfectly normal.
Birds chirped.
Sprinklers hissed across green lawns.
A mail carrier drove past at the end of the block.
No one would have guessed that my family was trapped inside a nightmare.
I stepped onto the porch.
The SUV's headlights flashed once.
A signal.
I walked toward the mailbox.
Inside was a small brown envelope.
No stamp.
No address.
Just my name.
Olivia.
My hands trembled as I opened it.
Several glossy photographs slid into my palm.
The first showed me leaving work three days earlier.
The second showed Lily walking into school.
The third...
Made my knees nearly buckle.
It was taken inside my own bedroom.
Late at night.
I was asleep.
The angle was from the doorway.
Someone had been inside my house while I slept.
Behind the photographs was a folded map of our neighborhood.
Three locations were circled in red.
Our house.
Noah's elementary school.
Mrs. Greene's home.
Written beneath the map, in neat black ink, were six words.
Choose who survives. One hour.
I felt the blood drain from my face.
This wasn't random intimidation anymore.
Someone was forcing me into an impossible choice.
Before I could react, a black luxury sedan rolled slowly onto our street.
It stopped directly in front of my house.
The passenger window lowered.
A woman in her early forties looked directly at me.
She wore a navy business suit, dark sunglasses, and an expression so calm it was almost unsettling.
"Olivia Carter?" she asked.
I nodded cautiously.
She removed her sunglasses.
"I'm Special Agent Rebecca Hayes with the FBI."
She held up her badge.
"We've been trying to find the man watching your family for almost seven years."
My heart skipped a beat.
Before I could answer, she added the words that shattered everything I thought I knew.
"And if we're right..."
May you like
She glanced toward the blue SUV across the street.
"...he's the same man who faked your ex-husband Daniel's death."
