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More plastic people, in and out the front door. And now Dad too, heading toward Jet on the drive, carrying a plate with a sandwich.

He handed it over. ‘Made this for you. Found a loaf in the freezer,’ he said, as though that made the bread safe, separate from the murder somehow, behind the freezer door.

Jet’s stomach growled, a new song, now her head had gone quiet. She took a bite.

‘It’s the good cheese,’ Dad said with a small smile. ‘Not the low-sodium stuff. Figured you were allowed that now.’

Jet matched his smile. ‘Won’t be my kidneys that kill me after all.’ She took another bite. He’d been liberal with the mayonnaise too.

‘I bet that’s good.’

He was right, Jet already on to the second half.

‘You warm enough?’

She nodded. She’d put a coat on over Luke’s sweats. Finally found some shoes too, the Birkenstocks from the closet.

Another two non-plastic people emerged from the front door: the chief of police and Mom. A look passed between them before they broke apart, Mom walking briskly toward Jet and Dad.

‘You eating now?’ she said before Jet could ask her anything.

‘I was hungry.’

‘Dinnertime soon,’ she sniffed.

‘Yeah, Mom. I think it’s probably OK if I don’t stick to standard mealtimes. I’ll be dead in a week.’

Mom flinched, closing her eyes. ‘Jet, please. Please. I’m going to ask you one last time.’

‘You already asked me one last time in the hospital parking lot.’

‘It’s not too late to change your mind. We can go back and Dr Lee can –’

‘– I made my decision, Mom. There is no going back.’

‘Jet, please.’ Eyes wide and begging, a cliff edge of more tears.

Jet couldn’t see her mother cry again, and she couldn’t keep saying the same thing. So she said something else instead, wanted to know what that look between her mom and the chief had meant.

‘Was anything missing?’ she asked, gesturing toward the house. ‘Or out of place?’

Mom shook her head. ‘No, don’t think so. Everything looks normal.’

Jet chewed the air and chewed her thoughts, now she was finished chewing her sandwich.

‘So they weren’t in the house to steal something,’ she thought aloud. ‘Or maybe they were, and I came home early and surprised them. But they hit me three times. Just once would have been enough for a thief to get away, if that was the motive. And why take my phone?’

‘Let the police worry about all that,’ Mom said. ‘It’s their job.’

Jet looked over at the cops: at Jack Finney and Chief Lou speaking to Detective Ecker, standing around an unmarked car.

‘It’s their job,’ she said. ‘But it’s my life. I have to do this. It has to be me.’

‘Jet, don’t you –’

Jet wasn’t listening, spoke over her mom.

‘– And they didn’t just hit me until I was in-inca-in –’ Fuck, another hole in her head.

‘Incapacitated?’ Dad offered.

‘Right.’ Jet blinked her thanks. ‘I was down and out after the first two hits. But the blood spatter shows that they then leaned over me, hit me a third time. Which doesn’t seem like they were just trying to get away. Seems like they wanted to make sure. That they wanted me dead.’

‘Excuse me.’ Mom covered her mouth, stumbling away around the side of the house, toward the backyard.

‘I’ll go after her,’ Dad said, taking the empty plate from Jet.

‘Wait, Dad. You also thought nothing was missing from the house, right? Checked everything?’

‘Yes.’

Jet took a long breath, allowed the thought time to grow, winding through all the broken parts.

‘If nothing is missing, that means they didn’t find the weapon at our house, that it wasn’t op-op–’

‘– Opportunistic.’

Jet nodded. ‘Doesn’t that mean it was something they brought with them?’

Dad studied his feet.

‘And if they brought the murder weapon with them’ – Jet paused, not long enough to lose the budding thought – ‘that means they came here with one purpose. It wasn’t a stranger. It wasn’t a robbery gone wrong. It was someone I know. And they came here to kill me.’

Dad ran one hand over his stubble, pulling his mouth open, a silent scream.

‘Who would want to kill me, Dad?’

His eyes filled. ‘I don’t know, baby girl.’

A car door slammed, breaking the moment, and an engine turned over.

Detective Ecker was pulling away.

‘Wait!’ Jet waved her hands, running ahead to cut him off, rapping her fist against his hood.

The engine cut out, car door opened again. Detective Ecker’s face, a new crease between his brow.

‘What?’ he asked, stepping out.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m working … on your case.’

‘So am I,’ Jet said. ‘And I’d say I’m slightly more motivated to find the killer. Seeing as they – well – killed me.’

The detective stared at her, waiting for more.

‘Help me, and I can help you.’ She folded her arms. ‘How many murders have you solved?’

‘A fair few,’ he grunted, crease deepening.

‘This is my first,’ she said, hands up. ‘First time being murdered also. Newbie. But I’m a quick learner.

Adaptable skill set. Almost got a law degree, by the way.

’ Jet clapped. ‘So, if you’ve solved a fair few murders, then you’ve already worked out that if nothing is missing from the house, then this wasn’t a – Dad,’ she yelled suddenly, ‘what’s that word again? !’

‘Opportunistic!’ he called.

‘An opportunistic murder. It wasn’t a stranger robbing the house and I interrupted them. The killer brought the murder weapon with them. They came here with the intent to kill me. Someone who knows me.’

Detective Ecker screwed his mouth.

‘We aren’t ruling out any possibilities just yet.’

Cop speak for: You’re right, Jet, and you’re amazing at this.

‘OK, well, I am,’ she said. ‘I’m on a pretty tight deadline here, bud.’

Jack had wandered over; the chief too, listening in.

‘My Apple Watch,’ Jet said. ‘You haven’t looked through it yet, I only just gave you the code. Do you have it?’

Detective Ecker hesitated. ‘It’s in the car.’

‘Can I look through it with you?’ she asked. ‘I mean, it is mine?’

Ecker looked back at Chief Jankowski and Sergeant Finney.

‘Then you can take it and do whatever cop things you want to do with it, I promise,’ Jet said.

‘I just need to see.’ She glanced down at his wrist. A gold expensive-looking thing.

‘Looks like you don’t own one. I’m Gen-Z – n-no offense.

But I know my way around an Apple Watch pretty well.

I’ll find you the good stuff. Let me help you. Please.’

The detective checked with the other two cops.

Chief Lou shrugged. ‘Can’t see the harm in it. We’d tell her anything we find anyway.’

The detective sighed. He circled around and popped the trunk, coming back a few moments later with a small black device in his hands. Jet’s watch. He handed it to her, drawing close to look over her shoulder.

‘Don’t delete anything,’ he breathed in her ear.

‘I won’t,’ Jet replied. The device asked for her passcode and she typed it in: 0709.

‘So,’ she said, ‘I was thinking, you have an estimated twenty-minute range for the time of the attack from those witnesses.’

The detective looked over at Jack. Oops, might have gotten him in trouble there.

‘But if we’re going to be asking for alibis, shouldn’t we know the exact time it happened, the very minute? This thing tracks my heart rate when I wear it. Won’t it show us the exact moment I …’

Jet trailed off, swiping a notification away: Yep, she was aware she hadn’t closed her activity rings the past couple of days, give her a break. She thumbed onto the small gray square with a red outline of a heart.

It brought up today’s data: no heartbeats, Resting Rate at 0 beats per minute. Only because she hadn’t worn the watch, but it felt pointed somehow, mocking.

Jet swiped to yesterday’s data, starting the day at midnight.

Nothing. No beats. Was that because they’d taken the watch off her when she arrived at the ER?

Or was some of it true: Had she been in cardiac arrest as Friday turned into Saturday?

She’d almost died, right here, somewhere in this blank data.

Jet swiped again, back to Friday, to Halloween, and the graph filled with white lines, the daily dance of her heart.

‘The doorbell camera shows you getting home at 10:39 p.m.,’ the detective said, leaning closer. ‘So it’s after th–’

‘– It’s here,’ Jet said, cutting him off.

Tracing the white line with her finger. A peak out of nowhere, a white tower rising above the rest of the day, 158 beats per minute.

And then a drop. Sharp. All the way down that tower, to 56 bpm.

‘My heart rate rose, maybe when I heard the footsteps. The first blow. The second, when I realized what was happening. Then I must have lost consciousness here.’ Jet thumbed the line to bring up the exact time.

‘10:46,’ Ecker read it over her shoulder.

Jack removed his notebook, scribbled something down.

‘10:46,’ Jet repeated. ‘That’s when it happened.’

‘Any messages?’ Jack piped up now, his pen ready and waiting. ‘That thing shows your texts, doesn’t it?’

Jet didn’t wait for permission from Ecker, searching for the green message app.

‘I think it would’ve only picked up any messages I got while I was still here, on the WiFi.

Anything after that, the watch would have been out of range from my iPhone, wouldn’t receive.

Yep, just two texts. One from my mom at 10:48 p.m.’ Jet sniffed, eyes running ahead of her. ‘You wanna do the honors, Detective?’

He cleared his throat, read aloud: ‘ We will be back later now. Have to take the chairs back to the hotel because you wouldn’t do it. ’

Jet looked up at the cops. ‘I don’t think that’s a strong enough motive for murder, do you? The chair thing?’

None of them smiled. Come on, she was the one dying; they could at least pity-laugh.

‘The other text?’ Ecker asked as Jet backed out into the menu of messages.

A blue dot next to the contact name.

Ecker stiffened beside her, leaning closer still. ‘Who’s that? Who’s Don’t Pick Up ?’