The words are blurring, and I’m so sure I’m going to be sick, but I can’t be, I can’t because Bea Rochester is not in that lake, rotting away like Tripp said, she’s here, she’s right over my head, and oh my god.

I rush out of the closet, my feet skidding on the marble floor in the hallway.

Adele looks up and barks once, sharp, as I run for the stairs, the book still in my hand.

A code, the same one as the lock at the lake house.

Another closet, this one smaller, one I’ve never even paid attention to because I hardly ever come upstairs, and oh god, oh god, the thumps, those noises, transitional seasons, that asshole, it was her, it was Bea—

My hands shake so badly I can barely open the panel at the back of the closet, but I manage it, punching in the numbers even as a part of me says she won’t be in there. That this can’t be fucking real.

A whirring sound, a click, and I push the door open.

At first, I’m just surprised to see what a big room is behind the door. Like a hotel room, almost, decorated, cozy despite the lack of natural light. A big bed in the center.

And next to that bed, a woman.

Now I really think I will be sick.

Bea Rochester didn’t drown in the same accident that killed Blanche.

Bea Rochester never died at all.

Bea Rochester is standing right in front of me.

“Is he here?” she asks.

30

My head is spinning, and my stomach is still lurching.

Not help me, not who are you, but is he here?

I shake my head. “N-no. He’s at work, he…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Bea says, and holds out her hands to me.

After so much time spent looking at her pictures, seeing her here, in front of me now, is almost too surreal to fathom, and maybe that’s why I find myself crossing the space, putting my hands in hers.

“We have to get out of here before he gets back,” she says, and I nod even as I say, “Tripp.”

She frowns at me, confused.

“What?”

I shake my head, the shock turning my thoughts to a kind of thick, heavy sludge. “I talked to him today. Just a few hours ago, and he said he was there that night, that Eddie was there that night. It was him, wasn’t it? Eddie killed Blanche. Oh my god.”

The words come out a moan, and Bea grabs my shoulders. She’s smaller than I thought she would be, somehow, but strong, especially for a woman who’s spent so much time locked away.

Jesus, locked away. Locked up here. By Eddie.

“Jane,” she says, and I think of Eddie telling her about me, telling her my name, and want to scream, but there’s another sound.

The closet door opening.

PART X

EDDIE

31

Something has to give.

That’s been the one thought spiraling through my mind for the past few weeks, and it was still there as I parked the car in the garage, turned it off, stared through the windshield.

Tripp charged with Blanche’s murder, Bea locked away upstairs, and Jane …

Fuck, Jane.

Sighing, I opened the car door and headed into the house. It’s late, and the weather is shit, and I should’ve come home earlier, but I was waiting out Jane, hoping she’d already gone to bed.

I wanted to talk to Bea.

Bea would know what to do here, how to fix this. Even though I snapped at her the last time for suggesting that the situation couldn’t stand, I also knew she’d be the only one to get us out of it.

Opening the front door, the house felt too quiet and a little too cold, especially after the heat of outside, but I didn’t mind.

And then I saw it.

It looked like a goddamn tornado had torn through. Like it had been ransacked.

Jane.

I didn’t even remember going up the stairs. Just that I was there at the closet, opening the door.

It actually took me a minute to realize what I was seeing. That the doors were open. That Jane was in there.

That she and Bea were standing there together.

It felt enough like a nightmare or some kind of stress-induced hallucination that I just stared at them for the longest time. Bea, her face pale, Jane, nearly gray, her eyes huge in her face.

And even as I looked at them, my brain was trying to whir into motion, trying to explain, to fix this.

Too late, I saw Jane reach for the silver pineapple on the table by the door. One of those knickknacks from Southern Manors I’d taken from somewhere else in the house to put up here, trying to make it look nicer.

As it swung toward me, Jane’s face screwed up in fear and anger, I realized my mistake.

But Jane made a mistake, too.

The hit was too hard and badly aimed, crunching against the side of my face so that I immediately felt teeth break, tasted blood, the world just white-hot crushing pain.

Then darkness.

32

I really should’ve fucking known it.

My head ached, and as I opened my eyes, it seemed like they might explode out of my skull. There was a thick, heavy feeling in my stomach, and I turned my head to the side, suddenly afraid I was going to puke, but nothing happened. I just coughed and retched and wondered how the hell I didn’t see this coming.

Bea was always too smart for this to be a permanent solution. Hell, I was too smart for this to be a permanent solution. But that first night, I’d been freaking out and panicking, and this had seemed … okay, it had seemed insane even then, but I was improvising. It’s what I’d always done, made things up on the spot, adapted to my circumstances.

Usually it worked.

But this was Bea. This was my wife.

Of course it ended up like this, me on the floor, bleeding, missing several teeth—and Bea out there, somewhere, with Jane.

The thought caused a quick surge of panic, and I tried to sit up, but that wasn’t happening. I collapsed to the floor in the fetal position, staring blurrily at my own blood as somewhere downstairs, my wife and my fiancée … what, called the cops? Shared a glass of celebratory champagne?

Christ, I hoped it was one of those options, because anything else scared the fuck out of me.

* * *

It’s not like I went to Hawaii with the express purpose of seducing and marrying Bea Mason. I hadn’t known she’d be there—I’m not a stalker, for fuck’s sake. But I’d gotten good at spotting opportunities over the years, and that’s what seeing Bea Mason on that beach was.