Chapter 4: The SUVs
By late afternoon, Gray Hollow felt wrong.
Elena noticed it first in the bakery. Customers came in as usual, but conversations carried a different edge. Someone mentioned unfamiliar cars near the old mill road. Someone else said two black vehicles had stopped at the gas station without anyone getting out for long.
Black SUVs did not belong in Gray Hollow.
Elena wiped down the counter with steady hands and kept her voice light while she packed cinnamon rolls into a paper box for a regular customer. Inside, her pulse was racing.
Marco finding her was one kind of danger.
Men in unmarked black vehicles were another.
After closing, she took the twins upstairs and locked every latch she had installed over the years. From the balcony, she could see a section of Main Street and the narrow turn toward the ridge. For a long time, nothing moved except the rain.
Then, just after dusk, two black SUVs rolled slowly past the bakery and continued toward the far end of town.
Elena’s fingers tightened on the railing.
This was not Marco’s style. When Marco came for something, he came directly. He knocked. He faced the door. He did not circle a town like a predator waiting for the right angle.
This felt like someone else’s hunt.
She brought the twins inside, drew the curtains, and sat on the edge of the bed with both children close. Mila asked if the big sad man was coming back. Leo said nothing, but his eyes kept drifting toward the window.
Elena kissed the tops of their heads and forced her voice to stay calm.
“Everything is fine.”
It was the second lie she had told that day.
The first had been at the door.
He came to the wrong house.
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If the SUVs meant what she feared, then Marco’s arrival was not the end of her hidden life.
It was the opening of something much worse.
