Her heart jumped before she realised it was just two young men. She didn’t recognise them, but they were chatting and laughing and she quickly determined they were no threat. They paid her little attention as they moved out of the lift and off towards the exit. Dani looked back to the small, enclosed and empty space in front of her.

She decided to take the stairs.

By the time she reached the sixth floor her heart was thudding in her chest and she was out of breath. Once inside her apartment, Dani quickly checked all the rooms from top to bottom. She’d rarely felt so spooked, but simply couldn’t shake the feeling of sinister eyes watching her wherever she went.

Finding nothing untoward inside, but still on edge, she went to the kitchen to make a mug of coffee. She put two heaped teaspoons into the cup and the liquid ended up thick and treacly. She hoped it contained enough caffeine to boost her low energy reserves for the next few hours.

As she sat down on the sofa in the lounge she took out her phone and checked through her missed calls and messages which had been steadily building through the afternoon. There was still nothing from Easton, and Dani was becoming increasingly agitated by that. Jason had texted to see how she was doing, and to say he would come around any time she wanted. Same old, then. She’d had two more texts and calls from him since then too, becoming more concise each time. The last text message said simply:

We need to talk

She called him back, hoping his need to speak to her urgently was because he wanted to talk to her about the case. Had there been a breakthrough? She knew she also needed to tell him about the note. She should have done so before now really, but had been too thrown by it.

The call went unanswered. She didn’t bother to leave a message.

Dani sat back and tried to get her jumbled thoughts into some sort of order. She couldn’t manage it. Mostly she tried to avoid thinking about how once again her life felt like it was at rock bottom. After two years on the sidelines, two years in which her life had been torn apart and she’d longed for the day when things would go back to normal, here she was, less than two weeks back at work, and now it looked like even her career might be taken away from her.

If that happened, would she have anything positive in her life at all?

A noise from the hallway made her jump and shook the melancholy thoughts away.