Page 39 of He Sees You
"No." Every day. Every time I remove another predator from the world. Every time I protect someone who can't protect themselves. "Do you?"
"Sometimes. Mostly I dream about them. My therapist says it's my subconscious trying to process unresolved trauma."
"What do you dream?"
"That they're still alive. That they're coming for us." Her voice drops to almost a whisper. "That what happened to them wasn't an accident."
I'm silent for a long moment.
Juliette has always been too smart for comfortable lies.
"It was an accident," I say finally. "The investigators confirmed it. Faulty heating system."
"I know. I know. It's just... the timing. Right after that fight, after Dad—" She stops. We don't talk about that night.
The night before they died, when Richard went too far and I fought back for the first time.
When I promised him that if he touched Juliette again, I'd kill him.
He thought I was bluffing.
Boys don't kill their fathers, even adoptive ones. Even monstrous ones.
He was wrong.
"Get some sleep, Juliette."
"Cain? Be careful. With Celeste, I mean. She's more fragile than she seems."
"Everyone is."
After she hangs up, I move to my study.
The photo from Roy's camera is developed now, hanging to dry.
Celeste at her window, staring out at something beyond the frame.
She looks lonely.
Perfect.
Like she's waiting for something to shatter the glass and climb through.
I take out her manuscript—the real one, with all her deleted scenes and margin notes.
There's a particular passage she cut from chapter twelve, something Juliette probably deemed "too dark."
Her heroine is discovering gifts from her stalker:
Each present was a violation and a reverence, proof that he'd studied her like a holy text, finding meaning in details others overlooked.
She should have been terrified.
Should have called the police, installed cameras, bought a gun.
Instead, she displayed them.
These tokens of obsession became her treasures, evidence that someone found her worthy of such complete attention.
