Ivy’s voice was calm and eerie, disassociated and furious, all at once. How had they missed this, the rocket fire burning in this woman’s soul, as they talked and played with her day in and day out?

“You have no idea what it was like for me, growing up without you. I want you to know. I want you to understand.”

“You told me you had a great childhood. You said—”

“In my mind, maybe. It was hell. I was alone. Abandoned. Stuck in that jack hole of a place they have the audacity to call an orphanage, because the foster care people didn’t want me in the system.”

“Why not? What was wrong with you?” Ethan asked.

“Nothing was wrong with me,” she answered, voice rising, edging closer, her eyes narrowed. “Nothing has ever been wrong with me. I was made this way. Made by you, Mom.”

Her voice rang through the room now, bouncing off the books.

“I didn’t make you, Ivy. I took you in when you showed up in town, friendless, alone. You came in from the rain, sat dripping at my table in Starbucks, looking for all the world like a drowned kitten, knowing I would take pity on you and take you in. I introduced you to my friends, to my family. I allowed you in my world. I shared my life with you, willingly, happily. And how do you repay me? By drugging my husband, murdering my child, kidnapping a stranger and burning her to death, and trying to destroy my life? You’re sick. Sick and twisted and your soul is black.”

“I didn’t burn her to death. I strangled her first. She was expendable, a means to an end. But yes, you’re right. My soul is black. It’s the same color as my mother’s.”

“You’re insane.”

Ivy laughed. “That I’ve known for a long time. Other people saw it immediately, and cast me aside. Not you. I find it amusing that you of all people never, ever guessed. You are so stupid. So vacuous. You’re incapable. You’re empty. You and your silly, embarrassingly bad little books. Even Ethan thinks your ‘work’ is shit.”

“Not true,” Ethan said, but Sutton talked over him.

“At least I’m earning an honest wage. What do you actually do, Ivy? You’re certainly not a stockbroker, like you claim. All those business trips, all the stories you told about things you did on the road, the places you saw, the people you met. All lies, aren’t they?”