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“I won.”

“Won what?”

“The Penley. The Penley Prize. Random House is going to publish Stitching the Sky Closed.” Now that Barbara has passed on her news, she begins to cry. “I’m going to dedicate it to Olivia. God, I wish she were alive to know.”

“Barbara, that’s so wonderful. There’s a cash award, too, right?”

“Twenty-five thousand dollars. But it will be the advance against royalties, that’s what the email I got said, and poetry books never sell many copies.”

“Don’t tell that to Amanda Gorman,” Holly says.

Barbara laughs even though she’s still crying. “Not the same thing. Her poems, like the one she read at the Inauguration, are optimistic. Mine are… well…”

“Different,” Holly says.

Barbara has given her some of them to read, and Holly knows them for what they are: a kind of coping mechanism. An effort for Barbara to reconcile her good and generous heart with the horror she experienced in an elevator the previous year. The horror of Chet Ondowsky. Not to mention the horror of finding her friend in a cage with her face smeared in blood and two dead bodies nearby.

Holly has seen more, experienced more—she was, after all, in that cage—and has no poetry as a safety valve; the best she ever managed was (let’s face it) pretty bad. But she has started enjoying horror movies again, and those harmless scares might be a start. She knows some people would consider that perverse, but it really isn’t.

“You have to call Jerome,” Holly says. “First Jerome, then your folks.”

“Yes, right away. But I’m glad I talked to you first.”

“I’m pleased that you did.” More than pleased, actually.

“Do you know anything more? About… the business?”

That’s what Barbara calls it these days: the business.

“No. If you’re talking about their… I don’t know… their descent, we may never know it all. It’s good we were able to stop them when we did—”

“You,” Barbara says. “You stopped them.”

Holly knows there were a lot of people involved, from Keisha Stone to Emilio Herrera at the Jet Mart, but doesn’t say so.

“In the end, it’s probably pretty prosaic,” she says. “They stepped over a line, that’s all, which made it easier the next time. And the placebo effect played a part. His mind was crumbling, and in a way, hers was, too. They would have been caught eventually, but probably not before they did it again. Maybe more than once. Serial killers start to speed up, and it was happening to them. Let’s just say all’s well that ends well… as well as could be, maybe.”

It would certainly be nice to think so, she thinks.

“I’d rather talk about your big prize. Are you the youngest ever to win it?”

“Yes, by six years! The letter said they found my essay refreshing. Can you believe that shit?”

“Yes. Barb, I can believe it. And I’m so happy for you. Now go on and make the rest of your calls.”

“I will. I love you, Holly.”

“I love you, too,” Holly says. “So much.”

She puts the phone back on its charger and heads to the kitchen to refresh her coffee. Before she can get there, the office line starts ringing. She hasn’t answered that one since the end of July, just let the phone robot pick up, or the service. Most of the calls have been requests for interviews, several from tabloids with big money attached. She listens to the messages but has answered none of them. She doesn’t need their money.

Now she stands by her desk, looking at the office phone. Five rings and it will go to the robot. It’s already on number three.

Just when you think you’ve seen the worst human beings have to offer, Holly thinks, and There’s no end to evil.

This is the call, she thinks. This is the one I’ve been waiting for.

She can pick it up and go on with the business of investigating. That means touching evil, of which there is no end. Or she can let it go to voicemail, and if she does that, she’s not just blue-skying the idea of retirement; she really means to pull the pin and live on her riches.

Four rings.

She asks herself what Bill Hodges would do. But there’s a more important question—what would Bill want her to do?

Halfway through the fifth ring, she picks up the phone.

“Hello, this is Holly Gibney. How can I help?”

August 14, 2021–June 2, 2022