Chapter 172: The Rule of Three

Freya created three rules.

She wrote them on the whiteboard in her home office.

ONE: DO NOT OBEY THE BOOK.

TWO: DO NOT DELIBERATELY DISOBEY THE BOOK.

THREE: VERIFY EVERYTHING.

Louis read the rules and nodded.

The second was the most important.

If Bailey Shepard predicted that Freya would drink coffee and she deliberately chose tea, the book would still be controlling her behavior.

Adrian's greatest weapon had never been knowing what people would do.

It had been shaping the environment until their reactions became useful.

Freya refused to repeat that mistake.

The investigators agreed to keep future book contents restricted. Freya and Louis would not read unreleased chapters unless necessary for immediate safety.

Derek also ordered a complete review of everyone who had access to their private schedules.

The list was longer than Freya liked.

Drivers.

Security personnel.

Household contractors.

Northstar assistants.

Awake Stories staff.

Sunroom staff.

Lawyers.

IT providers.

Medical personnel.

The more successful their lives became, the more invisible people touched pieces of their information.

Freya suddenly understood how easy it was to mistake privacy for solitude.

She and Louis lived privately, but they did not live without systems.

The security audit discovered several minor weaknesses.

None explained the books.

A smart thermostat retained more cloud data than expected.

A cleaning contractor had outdated access credentials.

One Northstar calendar integration exposed meeting titles to an external service.

Everything was fixed.

Still no Bailey.

At The Open Page, Freya continued writing her new novel.

She refused to stop.

Mia noticed the whiteboard rules when visiting the townhouse.

"Rule two is weird."

"It's necessary."

"If the mystery book says you'll go to work tomorrow, what do you do?"

"I go to work if I was already going to work."

"What if it says you'll stay home?"

"I go to work if I was already going to work."

Mia thought about that.

"So the goal is to ignore it."

"Exactly."

"Then why are we talking about it?"

Freya threw a cushion at her.

Louis later suggested a fourth rule.

FOUR: EAT DINNER.

Freya objected.

He added it anyway.

The absurdity helped.

For several days, nothing happened.

No package.

No message.

No mysterious chapter.

Freya almost relaxed.

Then The Open Page received an online order for one copy of every novel Freya had published under her current name.

The customer name was Bailey Shepard.

The delivery address was real.

It belonged to a hotel.

Police arrived before the package.

The room had been booked under false identification and was empty.

But on the desk sat a handwritten note.

Three rules won't be enough.

Freya read the photograph of the note once.

Then she closed it.

Whoever Bailey was, they wanted a reaction.

Freya intended to become very disappointing.

Freya also asked Mia and Helen not to change their behavior around her because of the mystery. She did not want every delayed meeting or strange email interpreted as part of a hidden plot. Ordinary mistakes had to remain ordinary until evidence showed otherwise.

Freya recorded the facts separately from her assumptions and continued with the next practical step. That habit had become one of the strongest protections she possessed. A dramatic explanation could wait; evidence could not. Louis understood the difference, and together they refused to let uncertainty turn ordinary decisions into reactions to a story neither of them had chosen.

Freya recorded the facts separately from her assumptions and continued with the next practical step. That habit had become one of the strongest protections she possessed. A dramatic explanation could wait; evidence could not. Louis understood the difference, and together they refused to let uncertainty turn ordinary decisions into reactions to a story neither of them had chosen.