Alright, this is the prologue for a novel I had an idea for. It basically involves three main characters, a model/writer, a stalker who's stalking her, and a journalist who's trying to figure out who the stalker is (the first two of which you meet here). First let me say that I'm new at this kind of story (I'm usually a fantasy/sci-fi kind of writer), and I was kind of unsure how to start something like this, so if you have any tips please give them! Second, criticism is great, as long as it's constructive. And third, I hope you enjoy (the little bit there is of) it.
Endgame
Prologue - Shattered Glass
Night had fallen over the secluded California beach, the full moon painting the sands sparkling silver. The ocean lapped silently against the shoreline without a hint of a wave. Stars twinkled overhead and owls hooted softly in the trees. When silence emerged, it was the kind that could make someone stop and listen. The darkness was peaceful, calming, the kind of night that Sarah di’Angelo was used to on the Forgotten Coast.
Her father had named the stretch of coastline when he’d purchased it in the late 70s for a sum of roughly half a million dollars. Over the passing decades, Robert di’Angelo had turned the empty five square mile stretch of forest and shore into his personal enclave. He’d built a sprawling three-story mansion along the beach and carved several different trails through the forest, along with a pair of vibrant gardens and a little one-room cabin next to where the Lambda River emptied into the Pacific. Once, when his ex-wife had threatened to take it from him, the billionaire media mogul had hired so many lawyers that she never even tried. Sarah remembered those days vividly; the divorce had happened right when she’d started middle school. She could remember her father’s face, tight with the worry of losing the only two things he cared about, his sanctuary and his daughter.
Which one did he care about more, that’s the question, she thought as she watched a particularly bright star wink down from the heavens. Even though they lived in the same house, it was as if she hardly knew the man that had raised her. He’d become so reclusive in old age that he refused to see anyone but her, and when they did meet it was as if she was talking to a different person.
I guess you’ll never know the answer to that question, she thought, and turned back to her spacious, roomy bedroom. No one would have guessed it the home of a model, with the minimalistic black-cherrywood paneling and furniture. Nothing was grand or overdone, instead opting for simplistic and rustic. The only visible piece of technology was the sleek silver laptop sleeping on her desk, behind its blank screen the beginning of a story that she’d been trying to write for the last seven years.
Sarah abruptly walked over and closed the lid, shaking her head and sliding the computer down into its drawer. For some reason she just didn’t feel right tonight. A few minutes passed as she undressed and slipped into bed, the digits on old clock-radio on her nightstand glowing a soft aquamarine. They read 12:35.
Outside the mansion, hiding in the brush that encroached upon the shoreline about a quarter mile down the beach, a telescopic lens watched the girl slide under the covers. A few clicks echoed through the night, breaking the peaceful silence and creating an ugly dissonance. Then the camera was stowed, and a shadow skittered up the beach so fast that any observer would have sworn it a phantom. It stopped more abruptly than should be possible anything natural, and then a rock was flying from its hand and towards Sarah di’Angelo’s window.
Sarah had almost fallen asleep when she heard the smashing glass break through the darkness and the alarm begin to blare. She jumped out of bed as quickly as she could and rushed to the window, but the phantom had already disappeared. The only evidence that it had ever existed was the rock lying amidst the rain of shattered glass, with a message written on it in something that looked suspiciously like lipstick.
Hello Precious.
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