My eyes burn, my cheeks stinging from hot tears, my sinuses seizing to the point of pain. It hurts to cry so hard. I curl into the fetal position on the shining hardwood floors and let go.

Weeks of shoving deep down the wild roar of feelings. Months, if I’m honest. I was numb long before my mom died. Telling myself, head down, forge forward, the only way out is through.

I am through, and I am alone.

Utterly and completely alone.

Sorrow is replaced with hollow, horrifying existential terror. The empty, creaking house settles on me like a cement cloak.

I have to get up. I will not bury myself here.

I manage to get my good leg under me, rise to my knees, and stumble to a stand. It’s a blur thumping down the stairs, staggering to the front door. But I manage it, flinging the door open…to find myself face to face with Reama the superfan. Will this hell never end?

Only she looks different. Corporate, in an ill-fitting blazer-and-pant set.

Then I realize there’s a gun in her hands.

“Are you okay?” Her eyes dart behind me, sweeping the foyer and rooms beyond.

“No,” I say. The most honest I have been in a long time. I am not okay. I might never be okay again.

“Why do you have a gun?” I croak. “Why are you here?”

Reama softens infinitesimally. “It’s my job. I’m an FBI agent. Suzanne woke up and called me. After I heard what happened with the Vann boy, I figured you weren’t safe. Where is she?”

I point vaguely in the direction of the hall. “I pushed her into the dumbwaiter shaft,” I say. And when Reama’s eyebrows arch up, I have to explain. “She tried to kill me.”

“I believe you,” Reama says. “I believe she killed a lot of people.”

“You knew?”

“Suspected. Strongly. Now I know.”

“Was pretending to be Maura’s biggest fan like some kind of sting?”

“No, I actually am a fan,” she says darkly. “How do you think I knew her books well enough to spot the patterns? Wait on the porch.”

I am happy to be out in the fresh early-morning air. I stay there, shivering in my tattered vintage ballgown, until police lights flash into the drive. Heavy-footed, droopy-lidded officers stomp into the house. Paramedics arrive, and someone bandages up my leg. “You’ll need to go to the hospital for stitches,” they say. A gurney bumps up the porch steps and is wheeled inside. My phone is still dead, a digital brick stuck in what is now a crime scene, so I can’t call anyone. But Amber, Bronte, Gabriel, and Mrs. Escano soon arrive, thanks to this tiny town and the power of word of mouth.