I only know I slept because the laptop battery died underneath my cheek.
When I jerked awake on the couch, my neck screamed, my mouth tasted like stale coffee, and the screen glowed black in front of me, reflecting a warped version of my face. The hum of the laundromat pressed up through the floorboards in a low mechanical lullaby, and outside my blinds the sky had shifted from ink to that thin gray that means parents are already packing lunches across Crescent Bay.
My phone buzzed on the coffee table, rattling against an empty mug. New Reddit notifications. New emails. One subject line read: You’re protecting predators now? Another: Don’t back down. We’ll do what the cops won’t. The words swam for a second before snapping into focus.
Somewhere beyond my second-floor windows, the town was stretching into another day—regatta flyers flapping on lampposts near the harbor, Prom Throwback posters peeling slightly on the community board outside the grocery store, the cliffs and their treacherous rock shelf hidden behind a postcard-blue bay on all the tourism brochures. Up here, in the stale-detergent air above the washers, my world had shrunk to pixels and pings.
“Mom?” Theo’s voice came from the doorway to his room, thick with sleep. “Why’re you on the couch?”
I scrubbed my face with my hands, feeling grit at the corners of my eyes. “Because grown-ups make bad choices too,” I muttered, hauling myself upright. Louder, I added, “Late work night. I’m up, I’m up. Go brush your teeth. We’re on the edge of late.”
He padded past in his dinosaur pajama pants, rubbing his eyes, hair smashed up on one side like a tiny mad scientist. His skin still smelled warm and faintly like the kids’ shampoo my mother buys in bulk. That smell sliced through the haze in my head sharper than caffeine.
I shoved my phone face-down, flipped the laptop closed, and forced my body into the narrow groove of our morning routine. Cereal into bowls, toast into the cheap toaster that likes to burn one side, lunchbox assembly. I spread peanut butter too thick, hand moving faster than my fogged brain, and had to wipe a smear off the counter with the sleeve of my sweatshirt.
Theo shuffled back in, backpack already on, chewing the edge of one strap. “Are people still mad at you on the internet?” he asked around the fabric.
My hand jerked on the knife, gouging the toast. “What makes you say that?”
“You did your ‘serious voice’ last night,” he said, dropping into his chair. “The ‘you guys’ voice. That’s when everybody online is being dumb, right?”
Heat crawled up my neck. I slid his plate in front of him and kissed the top of his head instead of answering. His hair brushed my lips, still damp from his hurried shower.
“Eat,” I said. “We have, like, seventeen minutes to get you to school before Mrs. Kaplan gives us that look.”
His nose scrunched. He mimed clutching pearls, eyes wide, and then dug into his cereal, milk sloshing. Routine. Muscle memory. If I moved through the motions fast enough, maybe the buzzing hive on my phone would stay out of his world for one more morning.
We made it out the door with twelve minutes to spare, which in Theo time meant victory. I locked the apartment behind us, metal deadbolt grinding, and started down the narrow outdoor stairwell that led to the parking lot. Damp salt air slid up the concrete steps, cooler than the laundromat’s breath, and somewhere down the block a car bassline thumped, muffled.
“Race you to the car,” Theo said, already swinging his backpack so it thumped off the railing.
“Hold up,” I started, but he was already hopping down the last few steps to the small landing that served as our doorstep, sneakers slapping.
His foot hovered inches above something gleaming on the concrete.
The object caught the weak morning light and threw it back in fractured shards. For a second my brain refused to name it. It was just shine, glass and curve in the gray.
“Whoa,” Theo breathed. “Cool flower.”
My stomach flipped. “Stop.”
The word came out too sharp. He froze mid-step, heel suspended over the thing on the landing. His eyes snapped up to my face.
I lunged past him, grabbing his backpack with one hand and hauling him backward, my other hand reaching for the gleam on the ground. The air felt thick, like I was wading instead of moving.
The glass petals were colder than I expected. Finer too. They looked exactly like the centerpieces from the yearbook photos of the 1997 prom—the ones I use as the podcast cover art, the same style Katie described finding on her porch every May. This rose lay on its side, stem parallel to the threshold of my home, a thin white card curled around it with black ribbon.
I swept it up fast, fingers closing around cold edges.
Pain lanced across my palm.
I hissed through my teeth before I could stop myself. One petal had a tiny jagged chip, a cruel little point. It drove into the soft skin just below my thumb, and warmth bloomed instantly, slick under my grip.
“Mom?” Theo’s voice climbed. “You okay? Did you step on it?”
“I’m fine,” I said too quickly. I folded my fingers tighter, crushing the rose and note into my bleeding hand, pressing the sharpness deeper rather than letting them slip. “It’s just… sharp. Cheap glass. Would’ve wrecked your sneakers.”
He leaned in, eyes bright, trying to see. I turned my body so my injured hand was away from him, sliding the rose and card into the pocket of my oversized hoodie in one motion. The petal scraped the fabric, leaving a faint dark streak.
“Can I see?” he asked. “Is it for you or for me? Maybe Nana left it.”
I clamped my wounded hand flat against my thigh inside the pocket, using the pressure to staunch the blood. My arm trembled.
“Pretty sure Nana doesn’t know how to get glass delivered to a laundromat landing before eight a.m.,” I said. “We’re going to be late. Move it.”
He frowned, suspicion flickering, but the prospect of tardy slips beat out curiosity. He hopped the last step, loping toward the parking lot. I followed, each heartbeat thudding against the glass in my pocket.
By the time we reached the car, my palm had turned clammy. I could feel the cut with every pulse: a hot line under the stickiness.
Theo buckled in and peered over. “Why are you holding your hand like that?”
I flexed my fingers minutely, testing. “I tore a hangnail last night,” I said. “Nothing exciting. You ready to beat the bell?”
He rolled his eyes but let it go. The seatbelt clicked, and I drove us through Crescent Bay’s morning.
The town unspooled around us: the harbor to the right, water a flat sheet of pewter under the clouded sky; the cliffs beyond, pale stone teeth guarding the bay; banners so bright they hurt my eyes, advertising the next charity regatta and the Prom Throwback gala, blown sideways by the breeze. The words blurred together: Legacy, Heritage, Remember When.
I kept my wounded hand pressed to my stomach, the hoodie darkening slowly. The glass in my pocket knocked lightly against my hip at every turn, a small, relentless reminder that someone had walked up to my door in the hours when I sat glued to a screen, convinced the danger was digital.
At school drop-off, I forced my fingers to uncurl long enough to squeeze Theo’s shoulder.
“You’re picking me up, right?” he asked, studying my face. “No Nana today?”
“I’m picking you up,” I said. My voice skated close to cracking. “Straight from the front door. Text me when you get out. No wandering.”
He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t wander.”
“You absolutely wander.” I leaned across the console and kissed his cheek, holding on a beat too long. He squirmed away with a mock-groan, but there was a small crease between his eyebrows when he got out.
I watched him until he disappeared past the glass doors, swallowed by the bright hallway light. The same family names lined the school’s foyer wall in engraved brass plaques, the same ones that sit on the police station donors’ board and the yacht club trophies. They gleamed in my mind even when I couldn’t see them.
When he was gone, the car felt cavernous.
I pulled into a side street, parked beneath a scraggly maple, and finally dragged the glass rose back out.
The petals caught the gray daylight and refracted it in sharp, pretty shards. Whoever made these knew exactly how to make something delicate look indestructible. A thin ribbon looped around the stem, holding a folded white card. My dried blood smeared one corner.
My fingers shook while I untied it.
Inside, in clean block letters that could have belonged to anyone and no one, the note read:
Stories have endings. Know when to stop recording.
A line of heat raced up my spine, stopping at the base of my skull. For a moment, the car vanished. I was back on the cliffs at midnight, listening to waves smash the rock shelf below the overlook, glass shards at my feet like petals stripped from a bouquet.
The roses on Katie’s porch. The shards by the fence up there. Now this one on my doorstep.
Whoever had been delivering their own private memorials was done staying at the edges of the frame.
I snapped a photo with my phone, hand quivering, then dug out Luz’s contact. For once, I didn’t hesitate before calling.
She picked up on the second ring. “Navarro.”
“It’s me,” I said. My voice sounded thinner than usual. “I woke up to a present.”
“What kind of present?”
“Glass,” I said. “On my landing. With a note telling me to stop recording.”
There was a brief pause, the sort where her brain shifted gears.
“You’re at home?” she asked.
“Dropped Theo. I’m in the car around the corner.”
“Good. Stay put. Don’t handle it any more than you already have. I’m ten minutes away.”
I glanced at the bloody cut on my palm and let out a humorless breath. “Bit late for that part.”
“Mara.”
“I’ll keep my hands in my lap and try not to contaminate the air,” I said, because sarcasm was easier than letting the tremor in my chest surface. “Just get here.”
###
Luz took the stairs to my apartment two at a time, the rubber soles of her boots thudding in a steady rhythm. I followed a step behind, my keys cold against my uninjured palm, the other hand tucked awkwardly into my sleeve.
The landing looked ordinary again. The concrete still had faint damp spots from last night’s drizzle, and someone had left a cigarette butt near the railing, probably a laundromat regular sneaking a smoke break. Only a tiny smear of red on the ground marked where the rose had rested.
Luz stopped just short of it, gaze flicking over every detail. She wore plain jeans and a dark jacket, her hair pulled back tighter than usual, a to-go coffee cup cradled in one gloved hand.
“You didn’t move anything else?” she asked.
“Just my sanity,” I said. “That’s in small pieces.”
She gave me a look that landed somewhere between exasperation and worry, then crouched. From her jacket pocket she produced a small evidence bag and a fresh pair of nitrile gloves, snapping them on with efficient little pops.
Watching her handle the rose felt like watching someone cradle an explosive. She used the coffee cup lid to nudge it off the paper towel I’d set it on after the car, then slid both rose and note into the plastic sleeve.
“Same style as the one you described from Katie’s porch?” she asked, studying it through the cloudy bag.
“Down to the way the petals curve,” I said. My throat tightened. “And the shards we found near the cliffs. I have photos if you want to compare.”
She sealed the bag, fingers firm. “I want everything. Photos, any messages you’ve gotten that reference endings or stopping the show.”
“That category’s… long,” I said. “You might need a bigger bag.”
She straightened and fixed her gaze on my hoodie sleeve. “Show me your hand.”
“It’s fine,” I said automatically. “Just a scratch.”
“Mara.”
I sighed and pulled my arm free, unpeeling the stained fabric from my palm. The cut wasn’t huge, but it was ugly, a thin red mouth along my lifeline, edges already puffy. Dried blood veined my skin.
Luz’s jaw flexed. She reached for a clean gauze pad and a small bottle from her pocket. “You grabbed it barehanded.”
“Theo was about to stomp on it,” I said. “I didn’t have time to workshop containment protocols.”
The liquid stung. I hissed and jerked instinctively; she tightened her grip, steadying my fingers.
“He saw it?” she asked.
“He saw a pretty flower,” I said. “Before I tackled it like a live grenade.”
Her eyes flicked toward my door, then back to my face. “So whoever left this was close enough to know you have a kid. To know what time you routinely come and go. That narrows down the list and makes me want to board up every window in this building.”
I tried a weak joke. “Good luck explaining that to Ms. Patel downstairs. She’d rather die than lose her ocean view.”
Luz didn’t smile. She taped the gauze down with more gentleness than her expression suggested. “I’m not kidding, Mara. Glass roses at the cliffs, on Katie’s porch, now on your doorstep. That’s escalation. They’re not whispering anymore.”
The hallway air smelled like detergent and the faint citrus from someone’s cheap cleaner, layered under the omnipresent salt that seeped into everything in Crescent Bay. For years, that mix meant home to me, a working-class pocket tucked under the town’s glossy surface. Right now it pressed in like fog.
“So what do you want me to do?” I asked. “Move? Stop going outside? Delete my RSS feed and pretend Juliet Reeves never existed?”
Luz exhaled slowly. “I want you to consider a break,” she said. “A real one. Stop releasing new episodes for a few weeks. Take your name off the Discord. Let me and the department chase the leads for once without you throwing them into a public bonfire.”
I barked out a laugh that scraped my throat. “Your department. You mean the one that lost the original case file and let Calder stand at a podium for twenty years calling it an accident?”
Her gaze sharpened. “You know I’m not Calder.”
“I know,” I said. The fight drained out of my voice, leaving something thinner. “But you also know what happens here. The same names show up on the PTA, the regatta sponsors, the school board minutes, the police rosters. Elliot’s dad donates a new scoreboard and everybody forgets the old reports.”
Luz looked past me, to the chipped paint of my door, the brass numbers hanging crooked. “And you think keeping the mic hot is the only thing stopping them from burying Juliet again.”
“I think,” I said slowly, “that whoever left that rose on my landing wants me quiet more than they want anything else right now. And every time I’ve watched this town circle the wagons, the people who got quiet stayed buried.”
Her shoulders lowered a fraction. “You have a kid,” she said. “This isn’t just about you and 1997 anymore. It’s about a fourth grader who nearly stepped on a threat some psycho left on his front step.”
Her words lodged in the space behind my ribs. Behind her, through the stairwell opening, I could see a sliver of the bay, little white triangles of sails already dotting the water near the marina as crews warmed up for another season of pretending Crescent Bay was just a quaint postcard town without bones under the waves.
“You think I don’t know that?” I said quietly. “You think his name isn’t the first thing that popped into my head when I read that note?”
Luz studied me for a long beat. “Then use that,” she said. “Use it to choose staying alive over staying on schedule. You don’t owe your listeners your life. You don’t owe them your kid.”
My hand tightened instinctively over the bandage.
Behind my apartment door, the mic sat on the kitchen table, cables coiled, waiting. The cassette with Juliet’s voice lay in my desk drawer, next to Theo’s permission slips and overdue bills. Tools and obligations, stacked together.
“I can’t promise a full stop,” I said finally. “But I can… slow. Rerun episodes. Focus on process, not new clues, for a while. Let you catch up.”
Her expression didn’t exactly soften, but some of the tension bled out of her shoulders. “I’ll take that over nothing,” she said. “In the meantime, I’m going to recommend a patrol car swing past here more often. And I want you to text me if you see so much as a new scratch on this door.”
I glanced at the door, suddenly hyper-aware of every mark: the old gouge where a previous tenant had tried to force the lock, the faint scuff at kid height, the hairline cracks in the paint.
“What if I’m already past the point of scratches?” I asked.
Luz held up the evidence bag, the glass rose glinting faintly inside. The note’s words ghosted through the plastic.
“Then we find out who decided they get to write your ending,” she said. “And we take the pen away.”
After she left, the hallway felt larger and emptier at once. The hum from the laundromat rose and fell like a tide, and downstairs someone cranked a radio, muffled pop music leaking upward.
I stood in the doorway of my apartment, staring at the spot where the rose had rested, and listened to the machines churn and the distant bass from the waterfront carry on. In Crescent Bay, the parties on the boats would keep going, the cliffs would keep watching, the rock shelf below would keep waiting.
The note’s words echoed in my head, in Juliet’s voice, in Theo’s, in my own.
Stories have endings.
I just didn’t know yet whether I had any say in how this one would be written—or what price I’d pay if I refused to stop recording.