“I’ll do what I can tomorrow,” he says, still not really looking at me. “But you stay away, you hear? Just lie low. And don’t talk to anybody on campus. Especially students.”

I push the door open, feel the blast of cold wind. I pull my coat tighter around me and reach back, extending my hand to Preston before I shut the door. “Thanks.”

He mumbles his reply. “Sure.” But he doesn’t reach for my hand.

I shut the car door, and he backs out, the headlights sweeping over me in the driveway.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Grendel greets me with a series of barks.

I still step inside cautiously, like I think the place is laced with land mines. For all I know, Madeline is back, waiting for me. Ready to deal with me in whatever way she sees fit.

Maybe the same way she killed Sophia Greenfield.

I go through the house, moving quickly, checking every room and closet. I even go into the bathroom and pull the shower curtain back, but find nothing except grime. I let out a breath.

And I remind myself to get a dead bolt installed on that basement lock.

It feels like it’s been three years since Bowman came to the door and started asking me about the book, but it was just that morning. I go back out to the kitchen, Grendel at my feet, sniffing my shoes and trying to make sense of the unfamiliar scents on me.

“That’s what jail smells like,” I say.

I haven’t even taken my coat off. I’m hungry and tired, worn-out from being questioned by friend and foe alike. The bottle of Rowan’s Creek remains on the counter. I never put it away after the night of the book launch. Its presence makes it just too easy.

I pour a healthy shot. I hope it will calm me.

I lift the glass toward Grendel, toasting him. “Buddy, I think you’re my closest friend these days. Here’s to you.”

My soulful confession doesn’t seem to move him, so I throw the shot back, enjoying the burn as it goes down. The warmth passes through me, and I take my coat off and hang it over a kitchen chair. Grendel yawns and shuffles back out to his perch in the living room.

No one likes to drink alone, but it appears I have no choice. I swallow another shot, and as that one burns through me with less intensity, I try to look ahead. Without the possibility of going to campus to teach, the days stretch ahead of me like a desert. It’s true that in the days and weeks and months after Emily and Jake died, I did a horrible job as a professor. I showed up unprepared. I turned assignments back late or not at all. I took up space in the classroom but wasn’t actually there.