‘I can handle it,’ I said. It was hard to imagine another month of sitting in my cottage, alone, but I didn’t know where else to go. Perhaps the absence of Vera and John, the hole they’d left in this place, and in me, was tether enough for now.

‘Do you miss her?’ Rachel asked, her lips pressing together.

‘Desperately,’ I confessed. ‘You?’

Rachel took another sip of wine – a gulp, almost – before answering. ‘I’ve been missing her a long time. I don’t think I’ll ever stop, actually. It’s just horrible, that it all had to happen like it did.’

For a moment, I wondered if Rachel blamed me, just like I blamed myself. If I was the enemy to her now, the reason her estranged friend was dead.

But she smiled again, and I pushed the thought out of my mind. Rachel had encouraged me to stay. She had invited me over.

She took another sip – her glass was already almost drained. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever forgive her, you know.’

I gulped. ‘For killing John?’

Rachel laughed bitterly. ‘God, no,’ she said. ‘He deserved it.’

He didn’t, my mind practically screamed. We were all so terribly wrong.

‘For attacking you,’ Rachel said.

My chest seized up, and the glass felt slippery in my hand.

Her eyes narrowed. ‘I mean, she did attack you, right? That’s what Maggie said.’

‘Yes,’ I said weakly. ‘Yes, she did.’

‘Vera was never good at knowing who to trust,’ Rachel said. ‘If she hadn’t cut me out of her life, if she hadn’t turned on you … if she’d leaned on her friends instead of lashing out in anger, maybe none of this would have happened.’

She stood suddenly. ‘I have some cheese and olives in the fridge. Should I make up a plate?’

‘Yes,’ I said. I needed a moment to collect myself, to push Vera’s pleading eyes out of my mind, to pray that one morning, they wouldn’t be the first thing I saw upon waking.

‘Where’s the bathroom?’ I asked.

‘First door on the left,’ Rachel said as she turned on her heel and headed to the kitchen.

Dusty followed me as I made my way down the hall. There was a door on the right and one on the left, and one at the end of the hall – probably Rachel’s bedroom, the only door that was shut.

I closed the bathroom door behind me, leaving Dusty to wait in the hall like he always did. Her bathroom was decked floor to ceiling in all-white tile. Vera’s blood, crimson against white, flashed into my mind, and I shook my head forcefully, trying to get the images out of my brain.