Maybach

The first time Nova Lawson noticed the black Maybach across from Sweetgum & Spine, she told herself it belonged to someone visiting the wine bar two doors down. By the fourth night, that excuse had worn thin. A driver sat motionless behind the wheel while another man occupied the back seat, mostly hidden behind glass dark enough to turn the passing streetlights into smears of gold. She could never see him clearly, but she could feel his attention whenever she stood behind the register.

Eleven days, we had appeared six of them. “You’re doing it again.”

Nova turned from the window to find Sadie-Rae standing behind the counter with a stack of returned mysteries balanced against one hip.“Doing what?”

“Pretending you aren’t staring at that car.”

Nova folded her arms. “I’m observing.”

“You’ve been observing the same creepy rich-man car for almost two weeks.”

When Nova looked outside again, her stomach tightened. The Maybach remained beneath the streetlight, the driver facing forward while the man in the back sat perfectly still. “He’s looking over here,” Sadie-Rae said.

“I know.”

“No, Nova. I mean he is looking directly at us.”

Nova immediately regretted admitting how closely she had been keeping track.

Sadie-Rae lowered the books. “Call the police.”

“And tell them a man has committed the crime of sitting in an expensive car?”

“Watching you.”

“That part is harder to prove.”

Nova loved every inch of Sweetgum & Spine, even when the plumbing acted possessed, online retailers undercut half their prices, and repair estimates piled beneath the register because she wasn’t brave enough to look at them twice. The bookstore had belonged to the women in her family for generations, and since her father’s death six years ago, keeping it alive had become equal parts inheritance and stubbornness. She refused to let some stranger sitting across the street frighten her out of it.

Nova looked through the window again. The man still hadn’t moved. Most people fidgeted, checked their phones, or glanced away once they realized they had been noticed. He did none of those things.

Instead, he slowly lifted one hand in a gesture too deliberate to be mistaken for a casual wave. It was acknowledgment, plain and unmistakable, and Nova felt a chill work its way down her spine as she realized he knew she had been watching him too. She stepped back from the window. “Okay.”

“Police?”

“Maybe.”

Before Sadie-Rae could celebrate, the lights flickered twice and half the bookstore dropped into darkness. “Oh, come on.”

“I’ll get the breaker,” Nova said.

Sadie-Rae turned fast. “No, you will not.”

“Why?”

“Because your stalker is sitting outside.”

“He is not my stalker.”

“You hear yourself, right?”

“You literally just counted the number of days he’s been watching you.”

Nova grabbed the flashlight from beneath the register. “Stay here.”

“That is exactly what women say five minutes before the documentary narrator tells us they were never seen again.”

Nova almost smiled, but the unease sitting in her chest wouldn’t let it last. She turned and headed toward the rear of the store. The narrow hallway beyond the children’s section led to the office, storage room, and an ancient electrical panel she had been promising herself she would replace as soon as money stopped being imaginary. She opened the breaker box and aimed the flashlight inside. “Please don’t electrocute me.”

A deep voice behind her said, “That would be inconvenient.”

Nova froze, every muscle in her body locking as she turned slowly toward the voice. A man stood at the end of the hallway. He was tall enough to make the narrow space feel smaller, broad through the shoulders beneath a dark wool coat that looked expensive even in the dim light. His black hair was brushed neatly away from his face, revealing sharp cheekbones, a strong jaw shadowed with the faintest trace of stubble, and eyes so dark they were almost unreadable from where she stood. Nothing about him looked careless, from the cut of his coat and the polished leather of his shoes to the unnerving stillness in his posture. Nova knew him instantly as the man from across the street, and her breath caught. “How did you get in?”

His gaze moved over her slowly, from the curls framing her face to the generous curve of her body, lingering on the fullness of her hips before returning to her eyes. The look was controlled, but not indifferent, and Nova felt a strange rush of heat beneath the fear twisting through her.“The rear door.”

“It was locked.”

“No,” he said calmly. “It wasn’t.”

Nova hated how certain he sounded. She raised the flashlight higher. “Get out.”

He didn’t move. Up close, he was somehow even more unsettling, not because he looked wild or openly threatening, but because he didn’t. Everything about him was controlled, the set of his shoulders, the steadiness of his breathing, even the way he looked at her as if every second of his attention was intentional. “You shouldn’t leave your rear door unlocked after dark.”

Nova stared at him. “You don’t get to break into my bookstore and then give me safety advice.”

“I didn’t break in.”

“You entered a locked building without permission.”

“The door wasn’t locked.”

“You keep saying that like it makes this better.”

Something almost like amusement touched his mouth. Nova’s grip tightened around the flashlight. “Who are you?”

He looked at her for a long moment. “Damian.”

“That’s not enough.”

“Damian Drăghici.”

The name meant nothing to her, but his face did. She had seen him across the street night after night, always watching, always waiting. “Why have you been following me?” Nova asked, keeping her voice low. “And the only reason I’m not screaming right now is because my little cousin is out there, and I’m not dragging her into whatever this is.”

“I haven’t been following you.”

Nova stared at him for a beat, lips parting slightly as if she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or curse. His eyes darkened. “I’ve been watching you.”

A chill moved down her spine. “That is not better.”

“No,” Damian said quietly. “I suppose it isn’t.”

Footsteps sounded from the front of the store. “Nova?”

Sadie-Rae.

Nova opened her mouth to answer, but Damian’s attention shifted toward the sound. For the first time since he’d stepped into the hallway, something broke through his unnerving calm, not fear, but a sudden, calculating alertness that sharpened every line of his face. Nova saw it and suddenly understood that whatever this man was, sitting across the street every night was probably the least frightening thing about him. “You need to leave.”

“I will.”

“Now.”

His gaze returned to hers and then he reached into his coat. Nova lifted the flashlight higher. “If you pull out anything that looks remotely murdery, I swear-”

Damian removed an envelope, cream paper with her name written across the front.

Nova Lawson.

In handwriting she recognized immediately. Her stomach dropped. “No.”

Damian stepped closer and placed the envelope on the small table beside her. Nova couldn’t look away from it. Her father had been dead for six years. She knew his handwriting, the loops, the slant, every careful capital letter. She looked back at Damian. “Where did you get that?”

His expression had gone completely serious. “From your father.”

Nova’s heart stopped. “That’s impossible.”

“I know.”

“He’s dead.”

“I know that too.”

Her voice shook now. “Then what the hell are you talking about?”

Damian’s eyes held hers. “Your father gave me that letter seven years ago.”

Nova’s fingers tightened around the envelope, but before she could find her voice, Damian stepped back toward the rear door. “He told me to give it to you when they started watching you.”

Nova’s blood went cold.“They?”

Damian paused.“The men who killed him.”

Then he disappeared into the darkness beyond the door. Nova stood frozen in the hallway, staring at the envelope bearing her dead father’s handwriting. From the front of the bookstore, Sadie-Rae called her name again. Nova barely heard her. Because beneath her name, written in smaller letters she hadn’t noticed at first, were five words.

Trust the man watching you.