Jane crosses his legs and folds his hands on top of his knee. “I expected to die first,” he says.

Hurt scribbles more on his pad. “Dramatic,” Kateri answers.

“Is it?” Jane asks.

“You helped Pearl escape after she was attacked,” Kateri says, and he nods. “Did you sign Sparrow Annie out of Mercy Hospital?”

“Yes,” he says.

She runs her finger along the smooth edge of the jawbone on the table. “Where did you get the bones?” she asks.

He motions out the window, and she knows the woods are full of bones. Off trail you might stumble on the entire skeleton of a deer, a bear. You can buy pelts and bleached, preserved skulls in some trading shops. Mounted antlers, a completely taxidermied fox.

“She wanted to throw them off her trail. If it looked like she was dead, she’d get farther,” he says. “She planted the bones, the shoes, the bracelet. She thought they’d catch Kyle and she’d be gone.”

“Why help her at all?” Kateri asks.

“It wasn’t about her,” Jane says. “I wanted—” he begins, and stops to cough, a deep, dry, burning rattle in his chest. “I wanted to set Shannon free,” he says.

“From his mother,” Hurt fills in. “From the secret kid and the paranoid TV screens.”

“Yes,” Jane says.

“Why, though?” Kateri asks.

His cheeks color, the redness out of place on his pale skin. “I was quite fond of Shannon,” he says. His mannerisms are genteel, his voice soft.

“Did you kill the cop?” Kateri asks. “In order to get to the girl?”

His face falls, then, and he rubs his fingers along his brow, shading his eyes. Then he sweeps his hair off his forehead with his fingers, blinks, looks Kateri in the eye when he answers. “I didn’t see another choice,” he says. “I regret that. The cop had nothing to do with this. You can arrest me,” he says, and Hurt laughs a little at his permission. “But you need to arrest Bear Miller as well,” he says.

Kateri is about to answer when Hurt asks, “Why?”

“He sent the kid to attack her,” Jane says. “He paid Kyle Metzger to kill Pearl.”

“Why?” Kateri asks.

“You’ll have to ask Miller,” Jane says.

“Miller is dead,” Hurt answers.

Jane smiles slightly.

“Hiring a hit man to kill someone is capital,” Hurt says. “So is killing a cop.”

“I already have a death sentence,” Jane says.

Kateri perks up, alert, the second time he says it. She watches his face, the way the sun through the kitchen window catches his blue eyes. His skin is sallow, his upper lip sweaty. He folds his hands, and his fingers are like bones, laced together.

“What do you mean?” she asks. She narrows her eyes and cocks her head, listening.

“I’m dying,” he says, and looks her in the eye. His eyes are sharp, the brightest thing about him. “Do you want the details on how and why? I don’t have anything to lose,” he says, suddenly fired up. “I couldn’t get to Birdie any other way. I’m sorry for that.”