“My brother must have disarmed it before he ran out. The door was wide open. He must have cut me free, too.” She couldn’t breathe, the memories were fresh pain. She clawed at her neck, searching the detective’s face for help. What was happening? Had Dakota changed his mind about killing her at the last minute? Or maybe he never intended to hurt her or Sam, only Nigel.

“Get out.” The nurse took one look at Winnie, casting a disdainful look at Detective Abbot. He started to say something but clearly thought better of it, glancing at Winnie before heading out of the room. Winnie reached for the nurse, unable to catch her breath, her hands grabbing at air.

“She’s having a panic attack,” she heard someone say. And then there were more people, and then there was nothing. When Winnie woke, her sister was sitting in the chair the detective had occupied.

“Shelly,” she said, struggling to sit up. “How’s Samuel?”

Shelly looked ten years older than the last time Winnie had seen her. Her mouth was curved in an ugly line, and the rest of her looked almost loose at the seams.

“He’s worried about you, but other than that, he’s doing as well as you can expect.”

Winnie relaxed back into her pillow. There were a dozen questions cueing up in her brain and she was too foggy to organize them. “Dakota…” she said.

Shelly’s pinched features twitched and then her mouth sagged open to release the rest of the story. Winnie tried to piece it together between her sister’s sobs.

“Wait… Shelly…are you saying they haven’t caught him?” Winnie felt like her stomach was about to pay a visit to her throat.

“N-n-no…” Shelly was dry-heaving now. “He killed that woman and then, and then he…ran.”

“Ran where…? Did he cut me free?” Winnie was starting to cry now. “He killed Nigel. Where is he, Shelly?”

Shelly stood up and came to sit on the edge of the bed, taking Winnie’s hands in her own. They cried together for a few minutes, just holding hands, before her sister said, “They don’t know, Pooh Bear. When the police arrived, he was already gone, the front door was wide open like he ran out pretty fast…”

“But the neighbors… Mr. Nevins must have seen him…”

“Your neighbor—” Winnie could hear the distaste in Shelly’s voice when she said those two words “—heard the gunshots, the ones that killed Nigel and the Russel woman. Initially he thought it was fireworks from kids in the park. He called the police and I guess he made a noise complaint to them about it. Then he went about his business.”

To Winnie that sounded exactly like Mr. Nevins; the nosy, self-righteous busybody. Shelly was put off by the fact that he didn’t follow the first call with an investigation. That’s what she would have done.