“Not crazy,” she says, her gun now a divining rod, pointed at her greatest threat—Adam. “Just tired. Tired of working so hard and giving so much while everyone else just takes. If you had anything to give, you’d understand. But you don’t. You’re too wrapped up in your ‘poor me, my wife slept with another man’ pity party.”

The way Kristen is talking removes any doubt that this is going to end badly for me and for Adam. But only if I let it.

“I actually do understand,” I say.

She swivels her attention to me.

“How is that, Detective?”

No one can really understand deranged. However, I know that a crazy person can be manipulated just as easily as anyone.

“You’ve been through a lot,” I tell her. “Connor told me. I know that you had struggles with infertility.”

She gives me a hard stare but says nothing.

“I know you did all of this because you wanted a child. Didn’t you, Kristen?”

Her eyes flutter. “I know you saw Connor,” she says. “He’s a liar too.”

“Kristen,” Adam says, “put down the gun. This isn’t going to work.”

His voice is a rasp, choked with what I think is genuine emotion.

Kristen looks at me, then over to Adam.

“Don’t you think I know that?” she asks. “Don’t you think that I knew almost from that first night at the cabin that this would fall apart? I should never have gotten involved with you, Adam. You made me do all of this. You talked me into this, you bastard.”

And just like that, she fires the gun into Adam’s chest. He gasps and puts his hand over the growing red pool on the shirt I admired when I first arrived. He seems stunned. Even though Kristen has been aiming a loaded gun at him, it dawns on me just then that Adam thought he was invincible. In his perfect marriage. His job. His plot with Kristen. Now that’s all gone. He slumps silently downward onto that thick black-and-white rug, which is now splattered with blood. He doesn’t say a word.

Kristen’s still watching him when I pull out my own gun and fire.

She goes down, her fingers still gripping her weapon. Her eyes are open and staring into the room, but I know that my shot has killed her. I went hunting with my father when I was young. I know the confused, frightened look of a buck when the life force ebbs from him. Kristen Moss is that animal now.

The smell of gunfire fills my lungs. I’ve never fired my weapon at another human being. Tears come. I glance around the room like a caged animal. I’ve been trained for this all of my career. I know what to do. I kick the gun from Kristen’s hand and go to Adam, who is making horrific guttural sounds.