Chapter 8: The Photograph in the Apartment
Sarah's pulse quickened.
She turned the photograph over again.
There was no signature.
No fingerprint she could see.
Only the eight words written in neat black ink.
"Someone has been watching you much longer than Harvard."
For several seconds she simply stood in the middle of her tiny apartment.
The refrigerator hummed softly.
Traffic drifted past outside.
Everything looked exactly as it had that morning.
Yet nothing felt safe anymore.
She forced herself to breathe.
Then she did the one thing years of laboratory work had taught her.
She didn't touch anything else.
Instead, she took out her phone.
The first call wasn't to her family.
It wasn't even to Dr. Hendricks.
It was to Agent Michael Reeves.
Twenty-three minutes later, a government sedan pulled into the apartment parking lot.
Reeves arrived with Special Agent Lisa Chen.
Sarah met them outside.
"I didn't know who else to call."
"You called the right people," Reeves replied.
He slipped on a pair of blue nitrile gloves before entering the apartment.
Nothing appeared disturbed.
No broken lock.
No forced window.
No overturned furniture.
Lisa examined the front door.
"The lock wasn't picked."
Sarah frowned.
"I locked it when I left this morning."
Lisa nodded.
"I believe you."
She turned toward Reeves.
"Either someone had a key..."
"...or they were inside before she left."
The possibility settled over the room like ice.
Reeves carefully lifted the envelope.
"No return address."
He examined the paper.
"Expensive stationery."
"Not something bought at a grocery store."
Lisa photographed everything before collecting the envelope as evidence.
Then she picked up the photograph.
She studied it for several seconds.
"This wasn't taken with a phone."
"Professional camera."
"Long lens."
Sarah looked at the picture again.
She was sitting at her kitchen table.
Books stacked around her.
A mug of coffee beside her laptop.
She remembered that night.
It had been raining.
She had been revising a research paper until almost two in the morning.
She had never closed the curtains.
Because she lived on the third floor.
She had assumed no one could see inside.
She had been wrong.
Lisa walked toward the window.
She looked across the street.
Then farther.
Finally she pointed toward an older brick apartment building nearly two hundred yards away.
"If I had to guess..."
She narrowed her eyes.
"...the picture was taken from somewhere over there."
Sarah followed her gaze.
Dozens of windows.
Any one of them could have been watching.
Meanwhile, Dr. Patricia Hendricks was still on campus when her office phone rang.
"Professor Hendricks."
"This is Michael Reeves."
Her expression immediately changed.
"Has something happened?"
"I'm afraid so."
He briefly explained the photograph.
When he finished...
Patricia didn't speak for several moments.
Finally she whispered,
"I was worried about this."
Reeves straightened.
"What do you mean?"
"I didn't tell Sarah because I didn't want to distract her before graduation."
A pause.
"But this isn't the first time someone has shown unusual interest in her."
Back at the apartment, Reeves placed his notebook on the table.
"Professor Hendricks says there was another incident."
Sarah looked surprised.
"What incident?"
"I was hoping you could tell us."
Sarah searched her memory.
Then stopped.
"There was..."
"What?"
"About eighteen months ago."
She frowned.
"I thought it was nothing."
"Tell me."
She sat down.
"I kept finding fresh coffee on my lab bench."
Lisa looked up.
"Coffee?"
Sarah nodded.
"I always arrived first."
"No one else should have been there."
"But once every few weeks..."
"...there'd be a hot cup waiting."
"No note."
"No name."
Dr. Hendricks always assumed another graduate student left it.
Sarah never questioned it.
Reeves wrote everything down.
"Anything else?"
Sarah hesitated.
"There was a book."
"What kind of book?"
"A neuroscience textbook."
"I couldn't afford it."
"So I borrowed one from the library."
She smiled faintly.
"One morning..."
"...a brand-new copy was sitting on my desk."
"No receipt."
"No message."
"I asked everyone."
"No one admitted buying it."
Lisa slowly exchanged a glance with Reeves.
These weren't threats.
They were gifts.
Anonymous.
Consistent.
Personal.
At that exact moment, Mrs. Evelyn Carter received a call from Eleanor Whitmore.
"Evelyn."
"I've just spoken with Agent Reeves."
Mrs. Carter immediately understood.
"The photograph."
"Yes."
She closed her eyes.
"So it finally happened."
Eleanor frowned.
"You expected this?"
Mrs. Carter walked toward the window of her hotel suite.
"I hoped I was wrong."
"What aren't you telling me?"
A long silence followed.
Finally...
"Three years ago..."
Mrs. Carter spoke carefully.
"...Sarah wasn't the only student I evaluated."
Eleanor's heartbeat quickened.
"There were others?"
"Five."
"And?"
"One of them disappeared."
Across town, Richard Thompson unlocked the front door of his family home.
The house felt unusually quiet.
Marcus sat alone in the living room.
Emma was upstairs.
Linda hadn't returned.
Richard slowly removed his jacket.
Marcus looked up.
"Dad."
Richard nodded.
"We need to talk."
Marcus stood.
"No."
"You need to answer."
Richard sighed.
"I know."
Marcus's voice trembled.
"Did you ever love Sarah?"
Richard looked genuinely startled.
"What kind of question is that?"
"A simple one."
Silence.
Marcus waited.
Richard finally answered.
"Of course I loved her."
Marcus shook his head.
"No."
"You loved the idea of saying you had three successful children."
"You loved telling people how hard you worked."
"You loved being admired."
His voice broke.
"But I can't remember the last time you looked proud of her."
Richard had no reply.
Back at the apartment, Lisa completed her search.
"No hidden cameras."
"No listening devices."
"No signs of forced entry."
Reeves looked at Sarah.
"We're assigning temporary protection."
Sarah blinked.
"Isn't that a little extreme?"
"Normally?"
"Yes."
He held up the photograph.
"But whoever left this wanted one thing."
"What?"
"They wanted you to know they could reach you."
Sarah looked toward the darkening window.
For the first time in years...
Her apartment no longer felt like home.
Just then, Reeves' phone buzzed.
He answered.
After less than thirty seconds, his expression hardened.
"What happened?" Lisa asked.
Reeves slowly lowered the phone.
"The lab."
"What about it?"
"Someone broke into the neuroscience laboratory."
Sarah's heart stopped.
"My research..."
Reeves looked directly at her.
"They didn't steal your computer."
"They didn't touch the equipment."
"They only took..."
He glanced at the report.
"...one notebook."
Sarah's face turned white.
There was only one notebook she kept separate from everything else.
The notebook containing every handwritten idea she had never published.
Every theory.
Every failed experiment.
Every future direction.
Whoever had broken into the lab...
May you like
Had known exactly what they were looking for.
End of Chapter 8
