“How about this,” I said. “You stop following me. You stop threatening me. And you stop stealing things from me.”

Was that surprise in his eyes? Like one of those things I’d accused him of something he hadn’t done?

“You won’t like what’s going to happen if you don’t stop,” he said, already readying himself for another assault. His gaze unfocused.

But my anger was banking. More cars were driving down the street. I saw someone looking up at us from around the corner of the parking lot down below. A distant siren that probably had nothing to do with us.

“Leave me alone,” I said. “Or I’ll go to the police. Now, get out of here.”

I held Shovel Pig and my go-bag in one hand and the pepper spray in the other.

With difficulty, without another word, the man got up and staggered back down the hill, down the sidewalk. I’d torn his suit in the back. The white shirt beneath protruded like the inside of a stuffed animal.

My heartbeat was going to overwhelm me, so I steadied myself. Slowed myself down. Took some deep breaths. Watched the man disappear around the corner into the parking lot.

I started back toward my car, up the hill.

That’s when I heard it. The sound of someone on the other side of the fence. Someone shadowing me. I stopped walking. They stopped walking. I started up again, they started again. I kept walking. Stopping again would be a tell. I was shaky, not ready for more.

Maybe just a concerned neighbor? How long had he been there? Every instinct told me it was a man.

I kept walking. The car would be close. I could sprint to it if I needed to. I could unlock the door fast, could get behind the wheel fast. Remember to lock the door as soon as I was in.

But then, the sinister thing. The thing that truly unnerved me.

I could tell that a second person had joined the first. I heard a scuff of shoe, an intake of breath, a strangled choke.

I stopped. Frozen. Looking at the fence slats as if willing myself to see beyond them.

A weight fell to the ground. Like a body. It had to be a body.

Someone lit a match. Someone stood there, breathing.

And as I stood there, I smelled cigarette smoke. A thin spiral curled up above the line of the fence. I had a sense of a darkness, of a presence that was chilling in its silence. Its precision.

Fuck. I was immobilized like prey.

What had I gotten myself into?

I wrenched myself out of my fear. Whatever got me moving. Not just pinned there.

I made for my car, all discipline gone, Shovel Pig smacking into my side. Shambolic. In sheer, instinctual panic. I ran. I ran and did not look back and I got into my car and I shoved the key in the ignition and I roared out of there without my seat belt on.