A shiver ran through me.
I reached for my phone, but my hands were shaking so badly that I nearly dropped it.
Then it rang.
The sound came from my hand.
At the last possible second, I silenced it.
The courtyard went completely still.
“What was that?” the woman asked suspiciously.
Footsteps followed.
Daniel was coming toward the door.
I hurried back into the dining room.
My heart was pounding so violently that I was certain everyone could hear it.
I grabbed my handbag and headed for the entrance.
“Are you leaving already?” the waiter asked.
“I’m feeling unwell. I need some air.”
At that exact moment, Daniel returned to the dining room.
His familiar smile had reappeared.
“What happened?” he asked.
I looked directly at him.
“Nothing. I just want to take a short walk.”
He moved toward me.
“I’ll come with you.”
“No.”
Even I was startled by the firmness in my voice.
Daniel’s brow tightened.
“Have I upset you?”
“No.”
He reached for my handbag.
“Let me carry that.”
I stepped away immediately.
“That won’t be necessary. I can manage.”
For the first time since we had met, his expression changed completely.
The warmth vanished.
For one brief second, I saw a stranger standing in front of me.
“You’re behaving rather strangely,” he said.
“I’m probably just exhausted.”
I left the restaurant.
But I did not go back to my hotel.
Instead, I turned into the nearest side street and crouched behind a parked car.
A few seconds later, the restaurant door opened.
Daniel came outside.
He studied the street carefully.
“Margaret!” he called.
There was no concern in his voice now.
Only irritation.
I held my breath.
Daniel walked a short distance, then took out his phone.
“She’s gone. Find her.”
An icy chill spread down my back.
But moments later, something even more disturbing happened.
A message from an unknown number appeared on my screen:
“Do not return to the hotel. Right now, you cannot trust even the person standing beside you.”
I read it once.
Then again.
Then a third time.
Who had sent it?
And how did that person know where I was?
I did not yet understand that whoever had tried to warn me knew far more about my life than any stranger should have known.
Chapter Three: The Woman I Was Afraid to Believe
I stared at the message again.
“Do not return to the hotel. Right now, you cannot trust even the person standing beside you.”
My hands had gone numb with cold.
I looked around carefully. Everything appeared ordinary: pedestrians passing by, taxis moving along the road, streetlamps glowing against the evening darkness.
But after what I had heard in the restaurant, every doorway seemed suspicious. I could not shake the feeling that someone was watching me from every corner.
I put the phone away and hurried in the opposite direction from the hotel.
A few minutes later, I noticed a small café with several customers inside. Being surrounded by other people felt safer, so I went in.
I chose a table against the far wall.
“Would you like some coffee?” the waitress asked.
I nodded.
“Yes. And a glass of water, please.”
As soon as she walked away, I took out my phone and tried to call Claire.
The signal was weak.
I tried again.
There was no answer.
That was when a woman who looked to be around sixty approached my table.
“Are you Margaret?”
I raised my head sharply.
“How do you know my name?”
The woman glanced over her shoulder before sitting down.
“Daniel told me about you.”
My breath caught.
“You know him?”
“Unfortunately, I do.”
She sat opposite me without asking permission.
“You need to listen carefully. Don’t be frightened, but whatever you do, do not go back to him.”
“Who are you?”
For a moment, the woman said nothing.
“My name is Ruth. A few months ago, Daniel approached me in almost exactly the same way.”
My stomach tightened.
“What do you mean, ‘the same way’?”
Ruth explained that he had introduced himself as a widower. He had spoken about grief, shared personal stories, and treated her with unusual attentiveness. He had become emotionally close to her astonishingly quickly.
Then, little by little, he began asking questions about her home, her savings, and her family.
“I believed he was simply trying to get to know me,” she said quietly. “Not until I discovered that he had been trying to get access to my documents.”
“What did you do?”
“I went to the police.”
I stared at her, still struggling to accept what I was hearing.
“Then why is he still free?”
“There wasn’t enough evidence.”
Ruth took out her phone.
Several photographs appeared on the screen.
In one, Daniel stood beside another woman.
In the next, he was outside the same restaurant where I had met him.
In the third, he was standing near the hotel where I had been staying.
“Your meeting with him was not accidental, Margaret.”
My fingers began to tremble.
“What are you saying?”
“He knew where you would be staying before he ever approached you.”
I thought back over our conversations.
Now I could see how quickly he had appeared, how perfectly timed every meeting had seemed.