“Again, so clever.” She’s a cat, and I am a half-dead mouse she’s keen to play with. “You’re both a delight and a disappointment. Yes, it was Joe. And how much everyone loved Caroline. She was always nipping at my heels. So I got rid of her. Our pretty homecoming queen.”

And then she grimaces. Blink and you’d miss it. But I don’t.

I can’t help the laugh that bubbles from me. “It drives you crazy that you needed her to become you. That that’s your biggest book. It’s still all about Caroline.”

“Fuck Caroline,” she spits with such ferocity the tiniest bit of foam forms at the corner of her mouth. “I made her so much more interesting in death than she ever would have been in life. Me. My name will live on forever as one of the greatest mystery writers of all time. Up there with Christie. And Doyle. And James fucking Patterson. And Caroline will be just another dead girl.”

Her ego completely unchecked for the first time, my true grandmother appears before me. The monster who made my mother by way of relief. Maura’s cold, unrelenting drive for fame, validation, vindication at any cost, the polar opposite of my mom’s selflessness, her empathy, her need to help. I am my mother’s daughter. I will carry her with me always, because I am who she made me.

And Maura can go to hell.

But first, I still have unanswered questions.

“How did you get Joe to take the fall? He says he did it.”

“Joe’s sweet. Dumb but sweet.”

Sweet is the last word I would use for Joe Bedecki, but I don’t dare interrupt Maura. She’s a few feet away now.

“I let Joe know that Grace would serve as my next inspiration if he didn’t drop his appeal, play the part of the guilty pervert for the media. A nice, regular payment into his commissary fund twice a year makes it go down a bit easier. Least I can do.”

“So generous.”

“I don’t like your tone.”

She flinches. I seize the moment, yanking the dumbwaiter door up. The dark maw belches stale air, a hollow whistle hinting at two stories of free fall.

“It’s a dead end, dear,” Maura sneers. “You forgot to call the compartment.”

“No, I didn’t,” I say as Maura lunges at me, teeth bared in a snarl. I grab her by the wrists, twist her around with all my strength.

And I push her into the shaft.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The house sighs a final agonal breath. Leaving silence.

I hold the air in my lungs. I don’t make a noise. I listen. For grunts or groans. Maura hissing and spitting about a broken hip or legs.

Nothing.

A wail, high-pitched and formless, rips from my throat.

I want my mom.