"I could come with you." MG's smile was a little too eager. Lizzie recoiled.

"No, thanks."

"We're just getting a change of clothes," Josie said. "And we'll be together. We'll be back before you know it."

MG nodded. He knew he was being overbearing again. It was just that things had been going so well for him this morning that he thought maybe ... well, the luck was just staying on the comic book side of things. Landon had been a big help with getting MG out of the corner he had written himself into. Not so much help in getting him out of the friendzone with Lizzie.

"They'll be fine." Hope set her hand on MG's arm. She almost pitied him.

MG nodded. "Just be safe."

"We will."

Hope watched them pull out of the driveway, half-heartedly listening to MG and Landon get back into the story they were plotting out.

"What is it?"

Hope turned at the sound of concern in MG's voice, but he wasn't looking at her. He was looking at Landon. Her husband shook his head, not looking up from the phone in his hand.

"It's my boss."

"What?" Hope hurried to his side, peering at the text over his shoulder.

We need to talk about some of the more recent developments. Meet me down on set?

Hope couldn't explain it. Maybe a psychologist could - PTSD, paranoia, all strong contenders for whatever this feeling was - but what Hope would call it is a gut feeling. A gut feeling that something wasn't right. That even though she was looking at a perfectly innocuous text message on her husband's phone, he was in danger.

"I could stay and keep an eye on the house," MG said. Hope knew the house was code for her. "If you wanted to go."

"Don't go." Two sets of eyes turned to her but she doubled down. "Please. I have a bad feeling about it."

"Yeah. Okay." Landon didn't hesitate. He just nodded. "Let me call and let him know I can't make it, okay? And then we'll all stay here and wait for the twins. No one will go anywhere."

"Okay." It barely came out a whisper. She didn't know if she had anticipated having to put up a fight and was relieved at how easy it was or if the bad feeling was genuinely going away but it felt like a weight had lifted off her chest and she could breathe again.

Landon excused himself to make the call, and Hope headed to the guest bathroom under the guise of restocking towels. The truth was, she needed a minute to calm down and convince herself that she had overreacted. That Landon would call his boss and maybe they'd have the talk over the phone and everything would be fine. Maybe the talk was even good news. Maybe the network decided to overturn their stupid decision to put her husband's show on hold. Maybe they had come to their senses and realized that some random article making an unfounded accusation wasn't grounds to halt an entire production. Yeah. Maybe this was a good thing.

Hope was already feeling better as she pushed open the door. The feeling vanished immediately when she saw what was sitting on the counter. She would recognize that box anywhere she feared. She'd never felt anything like the panic that flooded her just by looking at it.

"No, no, no, no ..." Hope hurried to grab the thing and shove it back in the depths of the closet where it belonged. Maybe one of the twins had used this bathroom and accidentally taken it out not realizing what it was. She didn't need to panic yet.

And then she saw the note that fell to the floor.

Dearest Hope, you really should be more appreciate of my gifts. I love you, and I'm running out of ways to express the magnitudes of what I feel for you, XOXO

Hope shoved it back as deep in the box as she could. She knew denial wasn't a sustainable model, but for now, it would have to do. She just didn't want to deal with it today. Wasn't that enough?

She closed the closet door harder than necessary, backing out of the bathroom. She was halfway down the hallway before she realized.

That note wasn't there when the box first arrived. This was a new note. Someone had left it there. Someone inside her house.

Her breath caught in her throat. Had someone broke in while she and her friends slept? Or ... was it one of her friends?

"What do you mean?" Hope heard Landon's confused voice drift down the hall to her. "Your text. The one that said we need to talk?"

"I didn't send you any text, Kirby." His boss's voice was loud enough to hear without speaker phone. "Stop contacting me. It's really not doing you any favors."

Hope heard the telltale end of the call. She stepped out carefully. "What was that about?"

Landon shook his head, at a loss for words. "He had no idea what I was talking about. He said he didn't send a text."

"We all saw it." Hope furrowed her eyebrows. "We saw the text from him."

"Apparently it was a trick."

Hope swallowed heavily. In her house. Trying to lure her husband out. She thought about saying something about the note, about the stalker - the murderer, damn it - being in their house, but she couldn't risk it. She couldn't risk saying something if Landon had just as much access to the bathroom as anyone else.

There was really only one person Hope could trust with this.