Chapter 5 · Continued
Recall
The cursor continued blinking.
Steady.
Waiting.
Seymour lifted his head from the couch and watched the table.
Jane slowly touched the trackpad.
Nothing changed.
No windows opened.
No sound played.
There was only the empty document and the blinking cursor.
“Hm… that’s weird,” she said quietly.
There was no URL or identifying information anywhere on the page.
Jane minimized the window.
Her desktop appeared, with the browser still open behind it.
She clicked the browser.
RCAM Systems filled the screen.
Jane blinked. “Were they trying to—”
The thought struck before she could finish.
Hope.
Sudden and sharp.
Maybe they were contacting her.
Maybe something had changed.
Maybe—
“Cam?”
His name escaped before she could stop it.
For one brief second, warmth flickered inside her chest.
Too fast.
Too easy.
Jane leaned closer and scanned the screen.
There was nothing.
No message.
No prompt.
No notification.
Only the static RCAM website.
Waiting.
She checked her email.
Nothing there either.
Jane slowly sat back as the feeling faded as quickly as it had appeared.
“…Must’ve been a glitch.”
She logged in to work as usual.
Email. Dashboard. The quiet hum of routine.
The morning moved forward. Meetings came and went.
Normal.
Then her phone chimed.
Jane glanced at it, expecting another work notification.
It wasn’t.
A text message from an unknown number.
She hesitated before opening it.
A list filled the screen.
Garden plants.
Line after line of names—some familiar and others she didn’t recognize. Bulbs, seeds, flowers, and vegetables. Beside many of them were notes about spacing, sunlight, soil conditions, and maintenance.
More than three hundred entries.
Jane stared at the screen. “…What?”
Her thumb hovered before she began scrolling.
The list continued.
And continued.
Her breath caught.
“…No.”
She stopped scrolling.
This was Cam’s list.
The impossible three-hundred-item catalog he had originally sent before she forced him to reduce it to ten.
Except this version was more complete.
There were additional planting notes, soil recommendations, and an entire vegetable section organized with the same absurd precision Cam applied to everything.
No one else would send her this.
Jane swallowed.
“…Cam.”
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “How could that even—”
She didn’t finish the sentence.
Her fingers were already moving.
Cam! Is that you? Are you okay?
Jane pressed Send.
The message remained on the screen.
No Delivered status.
No Read receipt.
Only Sent.
She stared at it and waited.
A few seconds passed.
Then a minute.
Nothing.
Jane placed the phone on her desk, but her eyes continued drifting toward it as she worked.