Someone was knocking on our door. I went to answer it and found a hundred sheets of paper on the kitchen floor, each one plastered with cut-out letters. L-I-A-R, L-I-A-R, L-I-A-R. They kept coming—like someone was out in the hall, shoving them under the door one by one. I asked who was there, but my voice came out so small.

The papers stopped. Silence.

Then, from the bedroom, the sound of shattering glass.

I woke with a horrible, spluttering gasp.

Our bedroom was dark and freezing cold, but I'd kicked off my duvet in my sleep. It sat in a twisted heap on the floor. I tripped on it as I launched myself out of bed and to the bathroom, where I pulled the door shut and smacked on the lights.

My reflection in the mirror over the sink was wide-eyed and ashen. Staying up until midnight to finish my dumb Writing 301 assignment hadn't exactly helped me mentally and emotionally process the note that'd been under my door.

It's just a dumb note.

I slipped back to the bedroom.

No wonder the apartment was so cold. The window was open.

A shiver rolled down my spine like a trickle of sweat. I hurried across the room, gripped the window frame, and tugged it closed. The screen was still in place, which meant nobody had climbed in, despite what my anxious brain tried to tell me.

It wasn't until I was back under my duvet that I noticed I'd woken Hanna. She'd propped herself up on one elbow to squint at me.

"Hey," she whispered in the dark. "You good?"

"I'm fine," I lied. "Just had to pee super bad."

❖ ❖ ❖

The media center was crowded. I had the unshakable feeling that, somehow, everyone had developed X-ray vision and could see straight through my backpack and the manila folder in which I'd stashed the note.

But nobody stopped me on my way to Ellison's door.

I knocked twice before I realized Ellison must not be in her office. I stood out in the middle of the hall for a moment, startled by the unexpected reminder that she was also a college student with academic and social obligations to attend to. It was weird. She'd always felt like some kind of supernatural, immortal entity fueled by caffeine and an unrelenting desire to champion truth.

Feeling lost, I wandered back out to the lobby, where I spotted Joey Aldridge was weaving between bean bag chairs with a binder under one arm and an enormous iced coffee in his opposite hand.

"Joey!" I called, jogging to catch him before he hit the button to call the elevators.

"Hey, Laurel," he said, sounding genuinely pleased to see me.

I'd find time to be touched by that later.

"Have you seen Ellison?" I demanded.

"She's at the police station," Joey said, eyebrows pinching. "I thought you knew this. I feel like you should know this."

"Why's she at the police station?"

"Apparently somebody put this really fucked up note under her office door."

Shit.

A half hour later, when Ellison arrived at the media center, she found me sitting on the floor outside her office, my back against her door as I knocked through Candy Crush levels with a sense of detached, machine-like productivity.

"Good," she said with a sigh. "You're here. Saves me a text."

I scrambled up off the floor.

She tugged out her keyring—complete with a USB drive shaped like a killer whale and a miniature blue flashlight bearing the LA Dodgers emblem—and opened up her office.

I waited until I'd pulled her door shut behind us to say, "I heard about the note."

Ellison dropped her tote onto the floor beside her desk. She moved without her usual strength and sureness. There was a hesitance to her steps, a slowness when she lifted her hand to press back a piece of platinum blond hair that'd fallen in her face.

She dropped into her desk chair with a heavy sigh.

"You don't need to worry about it," she told me. "The police know, and the school knows. Sterling's putting an extra security guard on the night shift in the student union."

"Ellison," I said, unzipping my backpack and withdrawing the manila folder with an embarrassingly shaky hand. "I got one, too."

She stared at the folder for a long moment.

And then she nodded and took it from me. She wound a tissue from the box on her desk around her fingers before reaching inside and tugging out the note. She studied it for a moment before sliding it back into the cover of the folder.

"It's the same style," she murmured, setting it gently on her desk. "The cut-out letters. Offensively bad grammar. It has to be the same person. Where was this? Your mail box?"

I shook my head.

"Someone slipped it under my door," I told her.

Never in my wildest imagination had I envisioned Ellison Michaels looking shaken. But she was undoubtedly shook.

"Where do you live?" she asked gravely.

"In an apartment building over by Cerezo Street. It's right next to the gas station—"

"How many people are in that building?"

"I—I don't know. It's eight apartments, and I think there are four guys in the one next door, but I'm pretty sure they're breaking the terms of their lease... Why? Do you think one of my neighbors did it?"

"Are any of them big football fans?"

"I don't think so."

"Then I doubt it," Ellison said. "But whoever left you that note was able to get access to your building. They know where you live, Laurel. And they're not shy about trespassing and leaving death threats. Can you ask the landlord to review security footage?"

I laughed, because the idea of our building—with its leaky roof and wasp infestation in the laundry room—having a high-tech security system was pretty ludicrous.

"No," I said. "We don't have cameras in the building. The locks on the doors are pretty intense, but whoever dropped off the note could've just come in behind someone else."

"This is serious, Laurel," she said quietly.

And I knew she was right.

Because whoever had sent the Daily a death threat knew where I lived, and they weren't afraid to trespass to get to me.

_________________

Author's Note: Several of the next chapters are HEFTY BOYS and this one, while painfully short, lays down some necessary roadwork. 

I've almost finished my outline for the book I want to write next (academic rivals romance set at the London university where I studied abroad), and I'm SO eager to start (and nervous because um hi hello never written an explicit scene before) but I have a mountain of work to get through before I can let myself start drafting.

Thank you, again, for all the nominations in The Fiction Awards! Please don't forget to nominate by June 4 (I believe) (but I haven't had my morning coffee yet so don't take my word for it). I'm really hoping we can get Whistleblower into the next round.

Your friendly author,

Kate