Tripp had been so drunk he won’t have any idea what happened, won’t even remember he wasn’t on the boat, and everyone knew he and Blanche were having problems. Maybe he’ll luck out and they’ll assume Blanche fell or jumped in of her own accord, never finding her body there at the bottom of the lake. Maybe they will find it, see that hole in her skull, and think he murdered her.

Either one works for Bea.

And it all would have been just that easy had Eddie not come along and fucked it all up.

He’s in the house when Bea walks up the dock, his eyes going wide as he sees her. She doesn’t even think about how she must look, soaking wet, shivering even though it’s hot. All she can think is, Why is he here?

And that’s it—the moment she loses it all.

She should’ve been paying more attention to just how weird it was that he was there, to that panicked look on his face. Eddie never had handled being surprised well, and like a lot of men, he always thought he was smarter than he actually was.

Bea had always believed that a man who overestimates his intelligence is a man who can be easily manipulated. Turns out, he’s also a man who can be really dangerous.

Later, she wanted to tell him just how badly he’d fucked it all up, that she would’ve taken care of it, that she had taken care of it, just like she always did, but of course Eddie rushed in without thinking, just like always.

I stood there in the living room of the house Eddie built and I created, and I thought about that again, about what Jane had said.

He loved you.

That was it. That was the piece that made it all make sense. Why he didn’t call the police that night, why he didn’t just leave me to die upstairs. If all he wanted was the money, I had given him the perfect excuse to get rid of me and take it all. We hadn’t signed any kind of prenup because I’d wanted to prove to the world—mostly to Blanche—that I trusted Eddie more than anything.

He could’ve taken what I’d given him.

But he hadn’t.

And okay, yes, he’d met Jane, yes, he’d planned to marry her—but he still came up to my room, still talked to me, still made love to me.

All that time trying to figure out what the secret was, the key to unlock all of this, and it was that simple.

He loved me.

Jane was in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen now, her phone in her hand. “Bea, I know you’ve been through something horrible, and you’re probably in shock, but we have got to call the police. We can’t wait any longer. This is crazy.”

She looked back down at the phone, went to punch numbers in, and suddenly I was there, her wrist clutched in my hand, her bones so fragile underneath my fingers.

“Don’t,” I said, and in that moment, I saw the flash in her eyes that told me she understood what was really going on here.

I liked Jane, respected her even, but she was not going to fuck this up for me.

For us.

A thin, piercing alarm suddenly went off, startling both of us, and I dropped Jane’s wrist, looking up at the ceiling.

“What—” she started, but I already knew.

It was a fire alarm.

Without thinking, I ran for the stairs.

You idiot, you fucking idiot, I thought as I ran, because this was another thing that was like Eddie. The panic room didn’t open in case of fire because it was supposed to be a place you could go if there was a fire. Either Eddie didn’t know that, or he was betting that I would come and let him out.

And I was pretty sure it was the latter.

Jane was right behind me, yelling my name.

Upstairs, the smell of smoke was strong, gray wisps already snaking out beneath the door of the closet, and when I grabbed the doorknob, it was hot. So hot it burned, my skin stinging.

I yanked the door open to a blast of heat and smoke and pain, and somewhere behind me, Jane started to scream.

PART XIII

JANE

37

I haven’t been in a hospital since I was fifteen, when I broke my elbow trying to impress a guy on a skateboard. I’d hated the experience then and it’s not my favorite now.

I’m supposed to go home tomorrow, but where home is, I have no idea. The house in Thornfield Estates is gone, burned to the ground, and the new life I had tried to build is gone with it.

It probably says something about me that this is the part I’m fixated on, not the part where the man I was engaged to had locked his wife in a panic room for months. Weirdly, in a way, that part of the story was almost a relief. Everything that hadn’t quite added up, everything that had triggered my fight-or-flight instincts made sense now. Everything was clear.

And I know that for the rest of my life, I’ll see the look on Bea’s face as she charged up the stairs to save Eddie. No matter what I felt for him, it was never that. It never could’ve been that.

Just like Eddie never could have loved me like he clearly loved Bea.

When Bea had opened the panic room door, there’d been a whooshing sound, crackling, a blaze of heat that had sent me stumbling back, and instinct kicked in.

I ran.

Down the stairs, out the door, onto the lawn, falling into the grass, choking and gasping.

In the end, I’d done the thing I’d been doing all my life—I saved myself.

Which meant I’d left Bea and Eddie to die.

Sighing, I unwrap the Popsicle my nurse had sneaked me. Banana.

I’m lucky. Everyone says so. No burns, just smoke inhalation, which makes my throat and chest still ache, but given that the house is literally ashes, I got out pretty lightly, all things considered.

Except for the part where I’m homeless and adrift now.

I’m about to settle even deeper into self-pity when there’s a soft rapping at my door, and I turn to see Detective Laurent there.

“Knock-knock,” she says, and my heart leaps up into my throat, making me bite down on the Popsicle, the cold burning my teeth.

“Hi,” I say, awkward, and she gestures toward the plastic chair near my bed.

“Can we have a quick chat?”

It’s not like I can tell her no, and I’m guessing she knows that since she doesn’t wait for me to answer before she sits down.

Crossing her legs, she smiles at me, like we’re friends and this is just a fun bedside visit, and I try to make myself smile back until I remember that I’m supposed to be traumatized and upset.