Three days at her laptop, she thought. Three days going through patient records and thinking, thinking, thinking, and she still didn’t have any answers. Who would want to get under her skin? Who would be so sneaky and relentless about it? She wasn’t even sure herself that anything was going on, never mind had enough to convince anyone else. Strange instant messages. Whispers in a parking garage. What did that prove? Did she really want the police involved at this point, digging into her life on every level? What could they do? There was nothing to go on.

And that didn’t even take Hank into consideration.

After dinner on Saturday, they’d almost ended up at her apartment together, but she was aware of how distracted she was, still preoccupied with the whispers she thought she’d heard in the garage. She knew Hank didn’t understand. But she’d rationalized to herself that she was doing him a favor by not telling him. Figure out what, if anything, was going on. Then talk to him.

She’d trudged upstairs to her Back Bay apartment and fought back tears as she’d walked into her bedroom.

There, to her immediate disbelief, she found her bedroom curtains billowing in the evening breeze.

She was positive she hadn’t left the window open—but there was no sign of a break-in, nothing in her apartment missing, nothing disturbed. Her window was cracked, and she knew she hadn’t touched it. She never left her windows open when she wasn’t home.

She’d grabbed her phone and dialed the 9 for 9-1-1, but stopped. She was on her way out of town. She could add billowing curtains to the instant messages and whispers in the garage and try to figure out who, if anyone, might be obsessed with her. Do her own investigation from the safety and isolation of Shelter Island. Away from her possible stalker. Away from her sister. Away from her work. And, perhaps most of all, away from Hank.

If given half a chance, the media would dig their teeth into her stalker story and not let go.

With any luck, while she was away, whoever was trying to scare her would pull himself together and give up his campaign against her.

But breaking into her apartment—if it was her stalker, it was crossing the line. It couldn’t be explained away. It was black and white. A crime.

She referred to her stalker as “he” to herself and believed it was a man, but she supposed it could be a woman.

Or no one.

When she got back to Boston, she’d change her locks.