“Slit her wrists,” Adeline said, a statement, not a question. “The price for her help. She’s already gone. I checked before unlocking the door.”

“Taking up where your family left off?” D.D. asked harshly. She was pissed off. She wasn’t sure why. The Rose Killer was dead, Shana Day clearly beyond help. The worst was over, and yet D.D.’s heart was still pounding, and she felt furious about the whole damn thing.

Standing before her, Adeline swayed slightly. The shock, adrenaline crash. The doctor placed a steadying hand on the edge of the tub. “Charlie killed those women,” she whispered.

“We know.”

“You’ll find hair. In my bedroom. Samuel Hayes. But not his fault. Charlie brought the strands to incriminate him.”

“We know that, too. Charlie targeted Hayes to be his fall guy. Except then Hayes literally fell. Off a ladder. Guy’s wheelchair bound. No way he did this.”

Adeline smiled wanly. “Good. In my closet, behind the bureau, in a cutout in the floor . . . Charlie left behind mason jars. Victims’ skin. Trying to mess . . . with my head. It worked.”

“For God’s sake, sit down!” D.D.’s temper broke. “Seriously, Adeline. If you’d simply told us when you’d discovered the video cameras . . . Instead, you broke your sister out of prison, putting yourself, not to mention the whole fucking state, in danger. When, if you’d just given us twenty-four more hours . . . We figured it out. Everything that happened thirty years ago, let alone what Charlie has been doing now. The whos, the whats, the whys, the hows; we know it all. You didn’t have to do this, Adeline. You didn’t.”

“But I did.”

“Adeline.” D.D.’s gaze narrowed. Beside her, she could sense Phil’s growing concern. The doctor’s face was very pale. Dangerously pale.

“Please tell Superintendent McKinnon I’m sorry.”

“Self-defense,” D.D. muttered. “Mitigating circumstances, your own psychotic break. Plenty of ways to justify what happened today.” She took a step closer to Adeline. Then another, searching for marks on the doctor’s exposed wrists. “What matters is that Charlie is dead, and your sister can’t hurt anyone anymore. Adeline? Adeline?”

The woman went down. Sank, really, to her knees. D.D. shot forward, trying to grab Adeline’s shoulder with her right hand, but the floor was too slippery. She didn’t catch the doctor as much as help ease her down, half-propped against the tub. In a pool of blood. So much blood, especially considering Shana’s slit wrists were inside the bathtub . . .

D.D. closed her eyes. “Oh, Adeline. What did you do?”

“What I had to. There isn’t enough nurture to overcome this nature, D.D. Just ask my adoptive father. He tried so hard, and still . . . here I am.”