“You killed him.”

He glared at me.

“Accident? He wanted . . . you to stop.”

“We were wrestling. Just wrestling!”

“Shana found you. Bending over him. Knee on his chest? Hands around his throat?”

“Shut up!”

“You . . . killed him. But she . . . went crazy. Grabbed the switchblade. You ran. She fell on Donnie instead.”

“She hacked off his ear!”

“She . . . covered . . . your crime.”

“Girl was fucking nuts.”

“Psychotic episode. You broke her. And no one . . .” My lungs finally expanded. A short tease of fresh air, wafting across my nose. I nearly sighed with pleasure. “No one was there . . . to put her . . . together again.”

“What’s done is done. I learned my lesson. Got out of Dodge. Went to New York and made something out of myself.”

“Charlie,” I murmured.

“Fuck off!”

“I used to study people . . . trying to understand how they experienced pain. But you must study them for . . . everything. Any kind of emotion. You . . . have none of your own.”

“Well, let’s hope I can fake success well enough, because by tomorrow morning, every news show is gonna want to interview me. How I survived my mother’s murder at the hands of the recently discovered Rose Killer. How your family, for the record, basically cost me everything. But those who taketh can also giveth back. I’m the foremost expert on Harry Day, not to mention the Rose Killer. First thing tomorrow, I’m getting in front of those cameras and I’m owning this case. Book deals, TV appearance fees, film rights. Mine. All mine. No more pretending for me. I’ll have it all, once and for all.”

“Your mother . . .”

“She was dying!” Charlie roared. “Did you see what the cancer had done to her? Did you? Worst fucking killer there is. I drugged her tea. She went to sleep. Thank God for small mercies.”

More air, creeping in, slowly but steadily. Could it reach down the short hallway into the master bath? Would it find my sister?

Charlie ripped off his mask, apparently confident in the air quality now, as well as impatient to get on with the main event. “Hair samples. Tuck ’em down your pants. Do it.”

I kept my bleary gaze on his. “She loved you.”

He frowned at me. “Course. I was a good son. I took care of her.”

“After killing her nephew . . . destroying her sister.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Long hair. Did you have long hair?”

“What?” He startled, blinking at me. I inhaled another deep breath.

“Did you . . . have long hair?”

“I had a mullet. It was the eighties. Why?”

I smiled. “You looked like a girl . . . from behind. That’s what Shana saw. Our mother bending over our father. I knew it.”

“You’re as nuts as she is.”

A new voice sounded. Quiet. Menacing. Pure Shana. “But not nearly so dangerous.”

• • •