The email arrived at 3:12 a.m., a time when only three kinds of people reach out: the desperate, the grieving, or the predatory. I wasn't sure which category I belonged in anymore.
My eyes burned from staring at the glow of my laptop screen. Another night without sleep, another night pretending the eviction notice taped to my refrigerator wasn't real. The deadline circled in red, mocking me.
Twelve days.
Twelve days until I had nowhere to go.
So when the notification chimed, I opened it out of reflex, expecting another rejection from a publisher or a reminder from my bank. Instead, I saw a name I recognized instantly.
ELENA HALDEN.
International bestseller. Vanished from the public eye after a mysterious accident two years ago. Her disappearance was a tabloid frenzy; theories ranged from suicide attempts to secret hospitalizations to being held prisoner by her own husband.
I knew her work. I'd idolized it.
Which is why the opening line of the email hit me like a blow:
"Mara Ellis, I need you to finish my book."
At first I laughed, because there was no way this was real.
But the more I read, the more the laughter died in my throat.
Elena explained that she could no longer write. That she'd followed my work somehow and believed I could complete her final novel. She offered a fee so large it didn't seem legal. Enough to solve every problem weighing on me. Enough to breathe again.
Then one last line:
"You must stay in my home while you work. I need you to understand the truth of the story."
A chill crawled up my spine. I told myself it was excitement. Or hope. Something positive. Anything but the gnawing sense that something about this offer felt… wrong.
But when you're drowning, you don't question the hand reaching out to you.
Even if it might pull you deeper.
I typed a shaky reply:
I accept.
I didn't sleep after that.
I took the train to Halden Estate two days later. The journey felt surreal empty stations, fog soaked fields, and the kind of silence that presses against your chest.
The address led me to the edge of a forest, where a long gravel road curled like a spine toward a house hidden beyond the trees. My driver refused to go farther.
"People say that place is cursed," he muttered. He wasn't joking.
I walked the rest of the way alone.
The house came into view slowly, like it was studying me before allowing me to see it fully. A sprawling, weather-worn estate sitting beside a lake the color of spilled ink. The windows were tall and dark, watching me with the same suspicion I felt toward them.
A man stepped outside.
He looked nothing like I expected Elena Halden's husband to look.
Adrian Halden was handsome in a haunted, exhausted way sharp jaw, hollow eyes, hair disheveled like he'd been running his hands through it for hours.
"Mara Ellis?" His voice was low, careful.
"Yes."
He studied me longer than felt necessary, then nodded once and extended his hand."I'm Adrian. Elena's husband."
His grip was cold.
"I'm here to work with her," I said, clutching my bag strap. "She asked me to"
Adrian's expression tightened. "There must be a misunderstanding."
My heart stuttered. "She emailed me. Personally."
"I sent the email."
The wind slipped cold fingers under my collar.
"What?"
"Elena can't email anyone." His voice quieted to a raw whisper. "She hasn't been able to for a longtime."
I wanted to ask what that meant, but a shadow moved behind an upstairs curtain, thin and unmistakably human.
Someone was watching us.
Before I could react, Adrian stepped in front of me as if blocking my view.
"You must be tired," he said. "Come inside. We'll talk."
He wasn't offering.
He was directing.
And something inside me whispered:
Turn back.
Right now.
Run.
But I followed him inside because I didn't have anything left to lose.
And because my name was already written on the contract waiting for me on the hallway table. A contract I signed with trembling hands.
A contract for a job that suddenly felt nothing like the one I agreed to.
A contract to finish a book for a woman I wasn't sure was alive enough to write anything.
Or worse
a woman alive enough to lie.