The morning light comes through the windows in long, cold sheets, cutting through the ocean mist. Out beyond the glass, the water is a heavy slate-gray, rolling in slow, rhythmic swells against the dark jagged line of the shoreline. Above it all, the mountains sit locked under a thick crown of cloud.
I’m standing at the kitchen island, wrapped in an oversized knit sweater with a steaming mug of black coffee held tight between both hands. The penthouse is quiet in that hollow, echoing way it’s had ever since Locke has been gone. It’s a silence so dense, you can hear the wind scraping past the high-rise windows.
Two weeks.
Fourteen days of zero contact, fourteen days of looking at a dark phone screen and reminding myself that dark territory means radio silence.
The sharp, sudden chime
