If they’re there, I tell myself, I’ll take my medicine.

But I see nothing and no one as I pull up. And I feel relieved to have a few minutes alone to gather my thoughts.

Inside, the house feels as lonely as the cemetery without Grendel here.

I once again make a circuit, checking every door and window. I peek into every closet.

I’m tired of being freaked in my own house. And everywhere I go.

I think about going to Preston’s house and bringing Grendel back home, but what if I’m stuck in the police station a long, long time? I know Grendel is well taken care of. It’s best to leave him where he is.

Once I know the place is secure, I go to the kitchen and check the knives. There is one missing from the block on the counter. And it isn’t in a drawer or the dishwasher.

Or anywhere.

The house is still turned upside down from Madeline searching for the manuscript. I make a halfhearted attempt to clean. As I do it, the task feels Sisyphean. Will the cops just be in here later tearing the place up again, looking for evidence to use against me?

Looking for that knife?

No matter. I clean up. I try to be useful. And distract myself.

I go down the hall to my office. That is the biggest mess. I already had too many old student papers and stories piling up around the edges of the room. Emily used to make me toss them when a year had passed. I’ve grown completely lax at doing that. I’m not sure I’ve gone through the papers and tossed the old ones out in five years. And when Madeline went tearing through the house, looking for her manuscript, she did a number in here. Papers are strewn everywhere. It looks like a tornado hit.

I begin on my desk, start pushing the piles of papers into stacks. I’ve been digging through piles for ten minutes when something catches my eye.

Some typewritten pages, about ten of them—a short story.

And it’s called “My Best Friend’s Murder: A Brief Sequel,” and there’s no date on it.

But I know who wrote it. Who else could be the author?

And she must have left it here for me to find the night she knocked me out and stole the novel manuscript.

I start reading. And it’s excellent, just like her thesis. Just like everything she wrote. I fall into the story immediately. It’s about a young woman returning to the town where she attended college after an extended absence. The description of the town is dead-on for Gatewood, and I’m flipping to the second page when I hear something at the front of the house and look up.

I listen.