“No to whatever it is you’re asking for. No to any deals, negotiations or exchanges of information. If you are in communication with the Rose Killer, if you have knowledge that would help catch a murderer, then volunteer it. That’s what people do. It’s called being a member of the human race.”

Shana finally looked at me. Her brown eyes were hooded, hard to read.

“You didn’t come all the way down here to tell me no,” she said flatly. “No is a phone call, not a personal visit. And you’ve never been one to waste your time, Adeline.”

“I came because I have a question for you.”

“So now you’re the one who’s going to negotiate?”

“No. I’m going to ask. Answer or don’t answer as you’d like. When did Daddy first cut you?”

“I don’t remember.” Her words were too automatic. I already didn’t believe her.

“When did he first cut me?”

Now she smirked. “Didn’t. You were just a baby.”

“Liar.”

She frowned, blinked her eyes.

“He did. I know he did. And I didn’t cry, did I? Or flinch or pull away. I just stared at him. I stared and that scared the shit out of him, didn’t it? That’s why I lived in the closet. Not to keep me safe. Not because our mother magically loved me more, and not because I was just the baby. I was stuck in that goddamn closet because he didn’t want me looking at him like that.”

“Seriously?” my sister drawled. “That’s what you’re angry about? Being stuck in a closet? Because take it from me, I got bigger things worth raging about.”

She started rolling up her sleeve to show me her collection of scars, ones my father, and even Shana herself, had inflicted over the years. Fat scars, thin scars, rolling pink lines, thin white streaks. All of which I’d seen before. All old news.

“I know your pain, Shana,” I said quietly. “I can’t feel it, but I know it. That’s my role. I’m our family’s conscience. I have been from the very beginning. That’s what scared Daddy so much forty years ago. He looked into my eyes, and instead of seeing the terror and anguish and misery he was accustomed to, he saw himself. Just himself. No wonder he kept me in a closet after that. It’s easy to be a monster. It’s much harder to see yourself as monstrous.”

“That doctor talk? Kind of thing you bill out by the hour? Because real people, we call that bullshit. Just so you know.”

“Good-bye, Shana.”

“You’re leaving already?” Then, as the silence dragged and the full meaning of my words sank in: “Seriously? You came down here . . . all the way down here . . . to, like, break up with me?”