Madeline didn’t just hit and run. She hit and ransacked.

And I think I know exactly what she was looking for.

I go down the hall to our spare room, the one I used as an office when Jake was little and I needed to lock myself away to attempt to get any work done. Each step jars my head, makes the pain throb. The office is a cluttered mess. Overflowing with books, stacks of old student papers. Everything I should have been dealing with for the past five years but haven’t.

It’s also where—

The desk drawers hang open, gaping like the mouths of dead fish. The closet door stands wide, having vomited its papers all over the worn carpet. Inside the closet is a chest, one Emily received from her grandmother as a wedding present. It’s stuffed with old quilts, Emily’s baby book, and her First Communion outfit. A lock of hair from when she was two.

And underneath all of that, hidden in a place I thought no one would ever bother to look . . .

The chest lid is closed. The lock broke a year after we were married, but is it possible Madeline passed it by?

I fling the lid open, look inside. Everything is there, everything in its place. Unlike the rest of the house, the chest appears to be untouched.

My heart sinks. Why put this one spot back in order unless you wanted to send a message, a giant middle finger to me?

I dig to the bottom, moving aside the musty heirlooms. In a matter of seconds, my hand scrapes against the bottom of the chest, my nails hitting the cedar. I move the pile one way and then the other.

I could sit here all day, moving shit around. But I know.

I know for damn sure.

Madeline found her handwritten manuscript.

She took it back.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

A couple of hours pass. And nothing happens. No doom lands on me as a result of Madeline having the book. I walk Grendel, looking over my shoulder the whole time, expecting Preston to show up and fire me. Or my publisher to call, saying I’m ruined.

My head thumps, but nothing happens.

Maybe Madeline fears her own exposure. Maybe she plans to come back to try to pressure me one more time.

Maybe she has something more diabolical and dangerous in mind.

Maybe I’m driving myself crazy over nothing.

And I am driving myself crazy. I pace the house. I check my phone.