Page 38 of Rich Little Liars

I watch it for a long time. Ten minutes. Fifteen. My reflection stares back at me from the black glass, pale and tense, and behind it the yard sits motionless. The shape doesn’t move. Doesn’t resolve into anything identifiable. Just exists. If I had the nerve to go take a look, I would do just that. But with the rattle of emotions I’ve been lately, I daren’t. It occurs to me that what’s outside could be the biggest threat imaginable, or just that – imagination.

This is what exhaustion does. What isolation does. It makes you see threats in garden furniture and fallen branches. It makes you stand at windows in the middle of the night cataloguing shapes that are probably nothing.

The scene remains empty. Nothing moves except branches swaying in a breeze I can’t feel from inside. I make dinner. Wash dishes. Move through the house in circuits that have become habit – kitchen to living room to hallway to kitchen again. Each time I pass a window, I glance out. Each time, I see nothing.

My eyes grow gritty with exhaustion. I should go to bed. Should stop this obsessive watching and try to get some sleep.

But I can’t ignore the feeling that something is coming. That these past two nights have been leading to something. That whatever has been leaving those shapes in my garden is building towards a moment I’m not ready for.

I’m in the spare room when I see it.

Not a shape – a person. Standing just outside the pool of light from my kitchen window, right at the edge where darkness thickens.

But why would someone be standing in my garden at one in the morning? Why would they just stand there, not moving, not doing anything?

The thought sends ice down my spine.

I stare at the shape, barely breathing, waiting for it to do something.

The shape doesn’t move.

Neither do I.

We stay like that for what feels like hours but is probably only seconds. Me at the window, frozen. The shape outside, motionless. A tableau of watching and being watched. My mind races through possibilities.

Could it be Richard? Come to check on me without wanting to disturb me by knocking? But why would he stand in the yard instead of coming to the door?

Could it be Caroline? Some misguided surveillance disguised as concern? But Caroline wouldn’t stand outside at midnight. Caroline would call a homeowners’ association meeting about suspicious activity, not engage in it herself.

Could it be whoever sent the notes? Whoever had my wedding ring and knows what happened that night? That feels closer to the truth. Feels like it fits the pattern of escalation I’ve been trying to ignore. Notes becoming physical presence. Warnings becoming threats becoming action.

The shape still doesn’t move.

But I feel it watching. Can sense the attention focused on my house, on my lit windows, on me standing here like an idiot making myself visible. I should step back. Should hide. Should do something other than stand here offering myself up as a target.

But I can’t move. Can’t look away. Because if I break eye contact – if that’s even what this is – then it becomes real. Then I have to acknowledge that someone is out there and someone has been out there multiple nights and is escalating from notes to presence.

My hands grip the windowsill. My breath fogs the pane in small clouds that disappear and reform with each exhale. How long has this person been standing there? How long have they been watching before I noticed? Have they been doing this every night, positioning themselves in different spots around my property, studying my patterns, learning my routines?

The notes. The ring.

Now this.

It’s all connected. It has to be. Someone closing in. Someone knows what I did and has been patient enough to wait, to watch, to let the fear build slowly instead of confronting me directly.

But why? What do they want? If they know about the fire, about Daniel, about everything that happened that night – why not just go to the police? Why this elaborate psychological torture?

Unless they want something else.

Something like personal justice.

The shape shifts. Just slightly. The smallest movement. A weight transfer from one foot to the other, maybe. Or an adjustment of posture, my eyes finally adjusting enough to see what’s really there.

But it’s enough.

Enough to confirm this is real. This is a person. This is happening.

A gasp escapes before I can stop it.