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.

Marcus ran back up to the room. Empty. The bed was made. Simone's phone sat dark on the nightstand. He grabbed it and swore. She'd gone to the beach without it. Claire's words looped in his head. People in the way don't last. He took the stairs down and pushed out the back doors into the sun. The beach was wide and loud. Families crowded the water. He scanned every dark head, every white dress, and found none that were hers. He called her name. The waves swallowed it. Each minute he searched, she was out there alone, and Claire could be anywhere. He moved fast along the sand. Past a rental stand, two jet skis sat parked on a trailer, red and blue, hulls still wet. A worker rinsed them with a hose. Marcus grabbed his arm. "A woman in a white sundress. Black woman. Did she come by?" The worker pointed down the shore. "Walked that way. Maybe ten minutes." Marcus ran. The crowd thinned. The buildings stopped. At the far end stood an old hut, boards gray and split, roof sagging. His stomach dropped. Simone stood beside it, shading her eyes, calm, like she'd found something worth looking at. She was fine. She was alive. Then he saw the second figure in the hut's doorway. Claire. Gray hoodie, blond hair flat in the wind. She watched Simone the way a cat watches a bird. One hand stayed in her pocket. "Simone," Marcus said. "Come here. Now." Simone turned. "I was looking at the hut. Someone's been sleeping in there." She saw his face and stopped. "What?" "That's her," Marcus said. He stepped between them. "That's the one leaving the notes." Claire didn't move. "I told you," she said. "She's in the way." "You're done," Marcus said. His voice shook, then steadied. "I called the front desk before I came down. I gave them your name. I gave them the camera and the hoodie with my name on it. They called the police. They have your face from the hotel cameras." It was true. He'd done it on the stairs, phone pressed to his ear, before he knew Simone was gone. He'd almost forgotten in the panic. Claire's eyes flicked past him, up the beach. Two uniformed figures came toward them, moving quick across the sand. For the first time, her calm cracked. She stepped back into the hut's shadow. "You can't watch me from a cell," Marcus said. Claire looked at Simone one last time. Then she ran. She cut behind the hut and up the dunes. The officers broke into a sprint after her. Marcus pulled Simone against him and didn't let go. "You're squeezing too hard," Simone said. But she held on. They caught Claire at the top of the rise. Marcus watched them cuff her. The fear didn't leave all at once. But Simone was safe, and now the police had a name. The hunt was over. The questions were just starting.

The police car pulled away with Claire inside. Marcus walked Simone back to the hotel, his arm around her. But relief did not last. The meeting with Coastal Realty Group was in two hours, down on the sand. He still had to close the deal that brought him here. And his pitch was in pieces. Upstairs, he opened his laptop and swore. During the chaos, he had dumped everything in a drawer. His property maps lay creased. His printed numbers were out of order. Worst of all, the client's photo board had come apart. He had built it to sell the vision: beachfront shots, price tags, handwritten notes marked urgent and keep. Now the prints sat loose on a dark tray, taped crooked, half fallen. "You look like you're going to be sick," Simone said. She sat on the bed, still in her white dress. "I can't walk in like this. They'll think I fell apart." He pressed his hands flat on the desk. "They wanted the board. It sells the whole thing." Simone stood and came over. She looked at the mess of photos and papers. Then she picked up a beach print and held it next to a price tag. "Then don't rebuild the old one," she said. "Make it worse on purpose." Marcus frowned. "What?" "Leave the mess. The tape. The urgent notes." She tapped a crooked photo. "Tell them you pulled this together overnight because the properties move fast. Busy looks hungry. Perfect looks like you have nothing better to do." Marcus stared at the dark tray. For three years he had planned everything, down to her sundresses. He had never once asked her for a plan. He looked at her face and saw she meant it. "That's either brilliant or it ends my career," he said. "Pick fast," Simone said. "You've got an hour." He picked. They worked together on the floor. He sorted the prints by price. She arranged them tight and off-center, kept the handwritten tags, left the tape showing. It looked raw and alive, like a thing in motion. Marcus carried the board down to the sand. The client team waited under a cabana, pastel and bright against the water. He set the board on the easel. He did not apologize for it. He told them these properties sold in days, that he had rebuilt the pitch overnight to keep up. The lead agent studied the crooked prints. She leaned in close. Then she smiled. "This is the first pitch all week that felt like you actually wanted it," she said. "Send me the paperwork tonight." Marcus shook her hand. The deal was not signed. But the door was open, and the meeting was his. Walking back, he found Simone waiting by the cabana steps. He had come here to close a deal alone. Now he saw he could not do the rest of it without her, and he did not want to.