Marcus Reid's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Marcus Reid had two days to close the biggest deal of his career, and he couldn't stop staring at a slip of paper under his door. He flew out here to sign Coastal Realty Group, a client that sold beachfront property and wanted the meeting on the sand. He had spreadsheets to rehearse and a pitch to polish. Instead he knelt on the hotel carpet and picked up the note. Three words, block letters: I SEE YOU. It was the fourth one. The first came the night he arrived. The others followed each morning, always while he slept. Marcus set the paper on a small board by the desk, beside the others he'd pinned there. Four black-edged envelopes and four slips, stuck up like evidence. He meant to study them, to find a pattern. All he found was a cold spot in his gut. Simone looked up from the bed. She wore one of the three sundresses he'd told her to pack. "You've read it twenty times," she said. "It won't change." "Someone's in this hotel," Marcus said. "Watching when I sleep." "So go find them." She said it flat, like she was ordering coffee. "You're no good to me jumping at paper." She was right, and that annoyed him. He pulled on his shoes. The notes came at night and showed up by dawn. That meant the person waited nearby. He stepped into the hall and checked the carpet for prints. Nothing. But down the corridor, the stairwell door hung open a crack. He pushed through it. The stairs were empty. On the landing sat a camera, small and silver, lens facing up toward his floor. Beside it lay a hoodie, gray, folded neat. Across the chest someone had stitched one word in red thread: MARCUS. His name. On a stranger's clothes. Footsteps scraped below him. Marcus went down fast, two at a time, and caught the ground-floor door before it shut. A woman stood on the other side. Blond hair, green eyes, pale and still. She did not run. She looked at him the way you look at something you already own. "You left this," Marcus said. He held up the camera. "I know," she said. "Who are you?" "Claire." No last name yet. No apology. "You walk too fast in the mornings. I almost lost you twice." His mouth went dry. "Stay away from my wife. Stay away from me." "She's in the way," Claire said, calm as a weather report. "People in the way don't last." Then she turned and walked out the door into the morning light. Marcus stood frozen. He had his answer now. He knew who was watching. But the fear hadn't shrunk. It had a face, a name, and a plan. Upstairs, Simone waited alone, and the deal he came to close suddenly felt very small.