“Okay,” I said.
He studied my face, then squeezed my hand once, briefly, and let go. I picked up the teapot and walked back out to start the next round and did not look at him for a while after that.
The break before the third round came, and I needed air.
I told the guests two minutes and went down the hallway, through the back room, and out onto the alley. The cold hit hard and immediately, and I stood in my costume with my arms around myself and breathed it in. After the warmth and noise of the shop, it felt like surfacing—the alley quiet, the single streetlight at the far end casting its pale circle on the ground, jack-o’-lanterns glowing orange on the steps of the building across the way, the sky above the rooftops dark and clear and very Halloween.
I looked up at the sky for a moment, breathing in the cold, letting the noise of the evening fall away behind me. I looked back toward the street and my stomach lurched.
A man was on the opposite sidewalk under the light. Hands in his pockets. Still. He hadn’t been there a second ago—or he had, and I hadn’t seen him, which was somehow worse. He wasn’t passing through, wasn’t checking his phone, wasn’t waiting for anyone. He was just standing there in the dark, watching the lit windows of my shop with the patience of someone who had been there long enough to get comfortable.
Eric.
The cold I felt then had nothing to do with the October air.
He had positioned himself just inside the pool of the streetlight—not hidden, not announcing himself either, justpresent in a way that felt deliberate. Calculated. Like he wanted me to see him watching me. Like that was the whole point.
We looked at each other across the distance, and he didn’t move. Didn’t startle, didn’t shift, didn’t have the decency to look like a man caught somewhere he shouldn’t be. He just held my gaze from across the alley with a stillness that made my skin crawl, and I understood with a cold, clear certainty that he had been standing there for a while. That he had been waiting for exactly this—for me to come outside and find him.
Then, slowly, he tipped his chin at me. A single, deliberate nod. Like a promise.
Then he turned and walked away without hurrying, hands still in his pockets, disappearing around the corner as if he had all the time in the world, because as far as he was concerned, he did.
I stood on the landing until the sound of his footsteps had completely faded, my heart going hard in my chest, the anger and something colder underneath it sitting side by side in a way I hated. I took a deep breath and steeled my spine, because he did not get this night. There was a room full of people on the other side of that door waiting for me, and that was what tonight was. Not this.
I opened the door and walked back inside because screw him. This was my night, and he didn’t deserve any part of it.
“Sorry about that,” I told the guests, and smiled like I meant it, which by the time I reached the front of the room, I almost did. “Third round.”
The final clue cracked the case open the way I’d hoped—a gasp from the back row, a triumphant sound from someone who had been right all along and wanted everyone to know it, and then the room dissolving into the warm, satisfied noise of people who had just been genuinely surprised and were pleased about it. The doctor, to warm applause and considerable argumentfrom the guests who had been certain it was the niece right up until the last envelope.
Grandma had been right from the second round, and she simply sat with her hands folded on the table wearing a small, satisfied smile that said everything without saying anything. Grandpa patted her hand and looked proud. Nancy had suspected the chauffeur until the very end and was loudly revising her theory in real time, insisting she had always known it was the doctor. Lucy caught my eye across the room and pressed her lips together.
I said goodbye, thanked everyone, promised details for next month, and watched the room empty in happy clusters—costumes and coats and the last of the cookies wrapped in napkins and tucked into handbags. Hannah hugged me on the way out and whispered that it was the best evening she’d had in months. Grandma held my face in both hands and said nothing, which from her said everything. Grandpa squeezed my shoulder and looked around the shop one more time before he left.
The last guest left, trailing laughter behind her, and then the shop was quiet.
Jasper was across the room in a few steps, and he didn’t say anything at first—just took my face in both hands and looked at me, his thumbs resting lightly against my cheekbones, his eyes moving over my expression with careful attention. He knew something was wrong. The charcoal coat was back on now, the pocket watch chain catching the candlelight, and he looked exactly like who he was supposed to be tonight—a man who solved things, who showed up, who didn’t look away from difficult situations. The costume had been more accurate than either of us had planned.
“Hey,” he said quietly. “Talk to me. You were perfect tonight,” he said, before I could answer.
“Thank you.” I meant it more than the words covered. I looked around the room—the warm candlelight, the empty chairs still in their horseshoe, the blood red roses still dark and dramatic on the table, the cobwebs and the poison bottles and all of it—and felt the evening sitting in my chest in two distinct layers.
He tilted my face up gently. “Something happened.” It wasn’t a question. Something in his expression made it easier to say than I’d expected.
“Eric was in the alley tonight,” I said. “During the break before the third round. I went out for air, and he was standing on the opposite sidewalk in the dark. He was watching the shop. He’d been there a while, I think. He wasn’t passing through. He was waiting for me to come out and find him.”
Jasper’s eyes cut to the front window even though we both knew Eric was long gone. When his gaze came back to mine, it was focused and intent, and I could see the two things moving through him at once, neither one winning.
“How long had he been there?”
“I don’t know.” I kept my voice even. “Long enough to be comfortable. He didn’t look like someone who’d just arrived. He looked like someone who’d been standing there in the dark waiting to be seen.” I paused. “He nodded at me. Like he had every right to be there. And then he walked away. Slowly. Like he wanted me to watch him go.”
A muscle worked in Jasper’s jaw. His hands, which had dropped to my shoulders, tightened slightly. I could see him making deliberate choices about what to do with the anger—not suppressing it, just deciding where to focus it. He was controlled and careful and absolutely furious underneath.
“You came back inside,” he said finally. “And you ran the third round, and you nailed the reveal, and you said goodnightto every single person in that room.” He shook his head slowly, something fierce and warm in his expression. “God, Cara.”
“He didn’t get this night,” I said. “I wasn’t going to let him take it away.”
