Page 117 of He Sees You

This time it’s Juliette:

On my way. ETA 2 hours. Bringing surprises and a guest.

A guest? I show the text to Cain, who frowns.

"She should have asked first."

"She's Juliette. She doesn't ask, she informs."

I save my manuscript and stretch, vertebrae popping like bubble wrap.

Patricia's ring catches the afternoon light, sending rainbow refractions across my laptop screen.

I've been wearing it for two days now, and it already feels like part of my hand.

Or maybe I'm becoming part of it—another Lockwood woman tainted by the family's darkness.

No. Not tainted. Transformed.

I think about Patricia wearing this ring while she watched Cain and Juliette suffer.

Did it sparkle when she struck them?

Did the diamonds catch the light as she signed documents authorizing the sale of children?

How many tears have reflected in these stones?

Now it's mine, and it will witness a different kind of violence.

The necessary kind.

"You should eat," Cain says from the doorway.

"I should finish."

"The book or the planning?"

"Both. The book needs to be perfect. Our alibi depends on it."

"How so?"

"Who would be stupid enough to publish their actual crimes as fiction? It's hiding in plain sight. Plus, Juliette will have the timestamp. Proof I was writing during some of the killings."

He crosses to me, reads over my shoulder. I let him see the words, the barely disguised truth of our story.

"You're writing about killing your father."

"I'm writing about justice. Publishers will call it dark romance. Readers will call it twisted. We'll call it prophecy."

"And after? When it's published and people read about a daughter who murders her father on her wedding night?"

"They'll call it fiction. Because surely no one would be bold enough to publish their actual crimes. It's the perfect cover. My confession disguised as creativity."

He kisses the top of my head. "You're brilliant."

"I'm practical and hungry."

I follow him to the kitchen, where he's made venison stew.