I couldn’t stop staring at that message.

“They’ll come looking for it.”

The next morning, I filed a police report and handed over everything—the photos, the screenshots, and the smoke detector cover.

A week later, an investigator called me.

His first question made my blood run cold.

“Are you sure nobody else was staying at the property?”

I told him no. Just Mara and me.

There was a long pause.

Then he explained why he asked.

When officers searched the cottage, they found something hidden behind a false wall in a storage room.

Not one camera.

Not two.

Eight.

Every room in the house had been wired.

The living room.

The kitchen.

The hallway.

Even the bedroom.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

The footage wasn’t being stored locally.

It was being streamed elsewhere.

Someone had been watching guests in real time.

The host’s identity turned out to be fake.

The driver’s license used to register the property was forged.

The phone number was disposable.

By the time police arrived, whoever was behind it had disappeared.

No trace.

No fingerprints.

Nothing.

The cottage itself had been rented under a shell company that led nowhere.

A month later, the property was demolished after investigators finished collecting evidence.

No arrests were ever made.

No names were released.

Officially, the case remains unsolved.

But six months after everything happened, I received an envelope with no return address.

Inside was a single photograph.

A photo of Mara and me sitting by the fireplace on our first night.

The picture had been taken from inside the cottage.

From a place where no camera had been found.

On the back, written in black ink, were three words:

“We saw everything.”

I handed the photo to the police.

They never discovered who sent it.

And that’s why, to this day, I never stay in vacation rentals.

Because somewhere out there is a person who watched us.

A person who knows exactly where we were.

And maybe…

still knows where we are now.