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She didn’t expect the dismissal.I can tell.

“Regardless, it was the right kind of mistake.”

“You’re deluding yourself.There’s no such thing.”

“I guess we’ll see about that.”

She lets that sit.Then lifts her head, gaze steady.“So what does that get me—a reduced sentence?”

“I don’t do reduced sentences.”

She shifts in the chair.The straps hold.

“I see you now.Not the villain, exactly.The liar.The bystander.”

The wind snaps harder across the bluff.Her hair moves.She doesn’t.

“I was once in Ava’s place,” I say.“You want to know what saved me?”

She acts like she couldn’t care either way.It’s very convincing.

“It wasn’t the cops.Wasn’t a teacher.Wasn’t a neighbor.It was luck.One window of escape and a long enough run.And people like you—people who ‘didn’t know what to do’—stood in the way the entire time.”

I stand.Move behind her.Place my hands on the chair handles.

She tenses.Then relaxes.Like it doesn’t matter either way, like she’s tired of waiting and she’s grown impatient.

“I’m not going to kill you.Not today.”

“That’s a shame,” she says.“Your eggs were runny and your bacon was burned.Who wants to live like this?”

“That’s the point, my dear.”

“And you’re sure I can’t convince you otherwise?You’re not exactly the kind of company I like to keep, if given the choice.”

I grab the chest strap and pull it as hard and as tight as I can manage, until breathing for her takes effort.

Then I turn the chair back toward the house.We move in silence—two people bound by a mistake neither one of us is done making.

Halfway there, she speaks.

Only two words.

But they change everything.

I keep pushing.

But I shouldn’t have brought her back inside.

16

Marlowe

He wheels me into the sunroom like I’m a guest with mobility issues and nowhere else to be.

Straps still on.Curtains still open.Light everywhere.

It’s beautiful.