“This supposed group you’re blathering on about doesn’t exist, because of course it doesn’t. It couldn’t. But if it did, what good would hitting me with that word vomit do?” Faith no longer wore the sad and despondent expression of a mourner. She looked and sounded pissed. “You need to be smarter and a hell of a lot more careful.”

Not the first time Gabby had heard that. “Right . . .”

“Why would you make your family a target after you just moved them out of the firing line? Do you want Liam to go to prison?”

“I don’t . . .” Good Lord. What was she supposed to say? Gabby had no idea about the etiquette or proper response to being sideswiped by a near stranger who might also be a killer.

“You sound paranoid. No one will believe you and your stories about phantom deadly groups, so stop.” Faith hesitated as if waiting for a response. “Do you understand me? Yes or no? Say something.”

Gabby decided to give her one. “Okay.”

“You caused this. You shamed Jessa into helping you. You wrapped up all her insecurities and fired them back at her. Your judgment wore her down. Got her talking about being a better person, as if she needed your permission to exist.” Faith held out an arm. “Now look where we are.”

They’d separated from other people, but Gabby finally got the point. Most of the haze had cleared, and in its place . . . clarity. “You’re one of them. Part of the group.”

Faith rolled her eyes. “Do you not know what ‘stop’ means?”

Gabby willingly shouldered part of the blame for Jessa’s death, but the vast majority went to someone else. The person with the knife and the person who’d sent him there. “Did you know Earl was going to have Jessa killed?”

“Earl? What does he have to do with this?”

“I thought he . . . you know . . . the other . . .” Gabby couldn’t rein in her babbling response.

“Why are you crediting a man for any of this?”

“Retta said her co-leader, and I . . . Oh, God.” Gabby’s stomach flipped. A queasy feeling swept over her. She wanted to throw up and run and wake up and have all of this be a nightmare she could wash away with a scalding hot shower. “You. The co-leader. That’s you, not Earl.”

“If the group existed, it would exist because of me. Because of me going to Retta after a terrible case, a life-changing case, knowing she would listen because she’d buried her murdered best friend years before.”

“Excuses.”