My throat seemed to close as my hands grasped at the crumpled sheets, desperate to hold on to anything for protection. There was someone in my house.

The shuffling stopped, and so did Dusty’s barks, as if we were both listening for what would happen next. I still couldn’t see a thing, and as I gasped for breath, I felt for the hammer on the nightstand, only it wasn’t there. My hand swept into a water glass instead, knocking it off the table.

The glass landed on the hardwood floor with an awful clatter.

Before I could even think of moving, there was a creak and then a thunk. The sound of the front door shutting. Blood rushed to my head, sloshing around my brain. This was real. This was happening. Right now. I knew it was him, but I needed proof, I needed, for once, to see it for myself. Instinct taking over, I jumped out of bed and ran to the window.

I couldn’t make out a thing. The front lights had been turned off. I ran out of my bedroom and into the living room, toward the front door. It was unlocked, the dead bolt turned so I didn’t even have to twist it to know. I hadn’t imagined it. I hadn’t dreamed it.

Dusty whimpered as my heart beat mercilessly. I reached for the door. I knew what I needed to do, but as my hand touched the doorknob, I couldn’t do it.

Locking the door, I checked the dead bolt multiple times. Then I made sure every drape was shut, and I flicked on the lights. At first, I didn’t see anything, and I grabbed Dusty, pulling him to my body, trying to calm his little heartbeats – and my big ones.

Then there it was, as if waiting for me. A blight in the middle of the coffee table. A single sheet of paper, printed with that awful font.

The proof I craved and feared at the same time.

STOP DIGGING AND GO BACK TO BROOKLYN

It was thirty minutes between calling 911 and an officer arriving. Thirty minutes in which I sat in my bedroom closet with Dusty, back against the door, blocking anyone who dared try to come in.

Finally, the sound of a car pulling up, of wheels on gravel. A swift banging on the door. After peeking through the drapes to confirm, I let in the officer, a baby-faced guy in a uniform who didn’t look older than twenty-two. He tried unsuccessfully to calm me down as I talked him through what had happened.

McKnight got there fifteen minutes later, just after four a.m. He was bleary-eyed, his hair rumpled; I’d never seen him so off-kilter. ‘I’m sorry for waking you up,’ I said.

‘It’s my job,’ he said groggily. ‘Now, show me this threat you’ve received.’