“Didn’t give him anything from Dad. But we talked about . . . from time to time. I knew he was different. He could fool others. But never me. A beast always recognizes another beast.” She sighed heavily. “I had a box with Dad’s stuff. Kept it under my bed. Maybe Charlie took it afterward. I never thought to ask about my personal possessions after I was arrested. I never woulda been allowed to have ’em anyway.”

“But did you love him?”

She looked at me, her nose smashed, her eyes already swelling shut, her face a pulpy mess.

“Adeline,” she said seriously, “I don’t feel things like love. I can hate. And I can hurt. All the rest is a mystery to me.”

The water was up to her waist now. She reached down to the floor, picked up the knife she’d carefully selected and sharpened just hours ago.

“That’s not true,” I told her. “You love me.”

“But you are my sister,” she said, as if that should explain everything.

No more pounding. My condo, so quiet, as my sister handed the knife to me.

“I don’t know how.”

“Nothing to it.”

“Please . . .”

But my sister simply stared at me. Her last request, my one promise, as she lifted her pale forearm and held it out to me. This close, I could see thin white lines from previous blades. Like a road map, showing the way.

“Remember what I told you,” she said gruffly. “The instructions he gave to Mom. How to do it right.”

I remembered.

I found a thin blue vein, once again, picking my spot with care. Then, slicing down, slow and steady, while my sister’s arm trembled beneath me.

She sighed. Not even a gasp, but a genuine sigh, as if more than her blood was leaving her body. Maybe her rage. Maybe her pain. Maybe all those terrible appetites and horrible desires our father had beaten into her when she’d been too young to defend herself but still old enough to know better.

She raised her second arm. And I cut it, too. Then both arms slid down, into the bathtub, already turning pink as her life bled out into the water.

“I love you,” I whispered.

“She didn’t tell him that,” Shana mumbled. “Mom. Dad. She never loved him. But I did. But I did. . . .”

Her eyes drifted shut. Her head lolled back.

More sounds now. Knocking, pounding, Detective Phil shouting a final warning.

I checked my sister’s pulse. She was gone. No more prison cells for Shana Day. No more days left to dread. No more lives left to ruin.

One last task. I crossed to the bathroom door. Unlocked it. Least I could do given the state of D.D.’s shoulder.

Then, shedding my own clothes. Removing the silk bathrobe that hung on a hook near the tub.