A butcher knife, waiting patiently in its dusty butcher block for years and years, left by the last owner, made itself known to me, and now I grabbed its handle. She heard its small ting when I drew it out of its slot. She looked at me. When she understood what was on my mind, she stood up and faced me, shaking. She kept staring at the knife as if unable to comprehend its meaning. “What—” she said. “What—” She could not finish the sentence.

She shook her head at me. “No, Bonnie. No. I told other people, you know. I told everyone. They’ll—they’ll know where to look. They’ll come find you . . .” Her voice stuttered off, her face pale and waxy.

“Why can’t you leave me alone!” I said in a crescendoing scream—again, I heard it happen outside myself, inside a movie—and I rushed at her, and the knife ran into her belly, and it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I had imagined it, the clothes and flesh giving way under the blade with a satisfying, wet sound, the sound of steel meeting soft sponge, so I drew it out and did it again, both of us falling forward, hunching over, and the hot blood ran over my hand, making the knife slippery, but I kept at it, and I was on the fourth jab when she slumped to her knees and fell to the floor, grabbing at my arms as she went, and then she was yelping, hollering, but it was coming from another place, somewhere behind me.

Rita was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, looking down on it, my work. Her forearm was in a thick white bandage, wrapped neat as a pin. She was back in Mrs. Roper clothes, a blue muumuu and beads, the red curly wig sitting atop her head.

I dropped the knife when I saw her. “You,” I said. And then I blacked out.

When I came to, I was in the bedroom of Apartment 101. I had been bathed, and I was wearing Stanley Roper’s pajamas. Outside it was nighttime. The air in the room was chilly and stale, like a tomb. I was alone.

I winced as I climbed out of bed—I had a cut or abrasion on my rib cage that had been bandaged—and limped first into the bathroom and then out to the living room. I expected to find Rita, but each room was dark. Everything was still arranged as I remembered.

The kitchen of the apartment yawned in front of me. No one there, either. I flipped on the light and got a saucepan down from the cupboard. I pulled milk from the fridge and made myself a cup of hot cocoa. As I poured it into a mug, I saw that my fingernails were stained brown underneath, and I picked at them. Sienna flakes dropped all over the counter. I stood there, spaced out, digging for a while.

As I finished my cocoa and went to wash the mug in the sink, I saw the note on the counter. Dear Stanley, it started.