Chapter Two

Safiya

W alking out of the hallway, I immediately felt it and my steps faltered.

A ripple.

The air, the atmosphere. My heart, my breath, my skin—they all reacted. In the short shadows, in the lengthening sunlight, something had shifted. My nerves tightened, and I glanced around the main living area.

Something was different.

Daybreak chased dawn. The hairs on the back of my neck whispered in warning, and the quietness of the house was too still. My gaze traveled across the impact glass that stood between me and the sunrise-kissed private oceanfront grounds.

The secular display of orange, pink, and aqua blues promised a perfect day, but I did not see beauty.

I saw hedges tall enough to conceal an armed intruder, trees with hidden cameras, and an unprotected beach with limitless boat access. All things I had been taught to look for. Except once you saw life from that angle, you never saw it any other way.

Drained and distrustful, I was tired.

It was too early to be this wary.

But this was all I knew now. Waiting was the language I spoke, and a colorful sunrise was nothing except a reminder of exhaustion. The kind in your bones, down deep, that no amount of sleep could alleviate. Not that it mattered.

Danger did not wait for fatigue, and the clock in the kitchen was ticking. I needed to focus.

With cool tiles under my bare feet, my skin soft from the shower, my hair still damp, I stilled next to the kitchen counter in the open-plan living area as my dress floated around my calves.

Then I closed my eyes, inhaled and focused.

Cool air conditioning. Fragrant guavas I had picked yesterday. The light lemon scent of a cleaning solution and the hint of salt air. But the one smell that would explain the ripple was not present.

I opened my eyes.

The pillows on the couch were undisturbed. The long curtains were halfway open and artfully draped the way I had left them. The locks on the front door were engaged. The security panel had no new alerts.

Everything was as I had left it before going to bed last night.

And yet…

My cell phone vibrated once.

I glanced down at the device I had taken to leaving on the bedroom charger all day but for some reason had grabbed this morning. The screen lit up with a new text.

No caller ID: Incoming weather.

My heart jumped, and my breath caught.

Rereading the coded text, knowing who it was, knowing what I was supposed to do but frozen in place, I stared for too many shortened breaths at those two words until the screen went dark.

Then I swiped across the phone and scrolled up to the five previous texts.

The first one that I had not deleted was from eight weeks ago.

No caller ID: How's the weather?

The next was dated five weeks ago.

No caller ID: How's the weather?

A demand from a month ago followed.

No caller ID: Weather update. Now.

Eight days ago, another came in.

No caller ID: I asked how the weather is.

The last one before this morning's was seven days old.

No caller ID: Answer.

I was supposed to reply to every text with a coded response, but I had not.

I had a million reasons why, but as I stood in an oceanfront house that did not belong to me with a name on a driver's license that was not mine, wearing a dress I had not bought, the ripple grew.

Incoming weather.

Tides shifted beneath my feet as if the sand and surf mere yards away on the other side of that impact glass were lapping at my toes, and the world tilted. Then all of a sudden, I was sinking without a life raft or a single breath to save myself.

Knowing there was no stopping what was coming, I tossed the cell phone on the kitchen counter and fled.

Unlocking and shoving open the heavy glass slider door, rushing out to the lanai, I stopped at the very edge of the warm travertine. Gulping the muggy South Florida humidity, staring at the incoming waves, fighting a certain shade of panic I thought I had left behind eight years ago, I almost missed it.

The tall hedge to my left shivered with a faint movement.