“That I would have, but I couldn’t very well kill Lord Ducharme’s favorite whore, could I?” Matthews set his feet and adjusted his grip on the knife. “But now that that’s done with, he won’t care if you have an accident, or disappear.”

Time slowed in the moment that Matthews lunged for me. I waited so that I could move away from the knife and grab his wrist.

But Nettie jumped in front of me, and the sharp blade slid into her flesh.

We were silent as we took in the horror of what had happened. Matthews’s face froze. AG stood and then stumbled back to the couch.

Nettie looked down at the knife in her chest and the blood leaking out over the handle, and then at her father.

I held my hand in front of Matthews and said, “Don’t pull it out—you’ll cause more bleeding. We’ll call nine-one-one!”

Nettie’s knees buckled. I caught her before she fell, and I remembered catching Ford as he fell. Her eyes were fixed on her father’s and she said, “I love you, Daddy.”

He screamed “Nettie!” and grabbed her hand.

Wilcox came running into the house then and saw the dying girl. “Nettie!”

He reached for her and I handed her into his thin arms. “Nettie,” he said. “I love you.”

She smiled as she looked at him and then I saw the light fade in her eyes, as it had faded in Ford’s, in Daisy’s, and in Average Joe’s. I knew she was dead before I checked for a pulse, but I was saying, “No, Nettie, no!”

Matthews wailed, “My beautiful girl! My beautiful baby!” He fell to his knees and began keening, a sound that tore through me, the sound of a father’s anguish, while AG sat and stared in shock.

I said, “It’s not her time,” and then I ran outside, down the street to the truck. I flung open the passenger door and grabbed the woven shroud. I was already back in the house when Wil, still weak, staggered with the girl’s body.

I spread the cloth on the floor and said, “Set her down on it.”

When Wil did this, I told Matthews, “I’m going to take the knife out now and she’ll bleed. Then we’ll wrap her and she’ll come back, like Wil came back. All right?”

Matthews finally noticed his former employer. “You’re alive?”

“Alive enough. Say yes.”

“Yes, do it!” Matthews said. “Please do it.”

I braced myself and pulled the knife out of Nettie’s chest. Blood gushed from the wound, and I tried to be swift and gentle as I wrapped Nettie in the soft, fragrant while cloth.