In Chap­ter 32, Blomkvist arrives in Alingsås late at night after secur­ing a rental car in Göte­borg. Mean­while, Bublan­s­ki con­tacts Modig late to dis­cuss rev­e­la­tions from Björ­ck­’s report about Lis­beth Salan­der, involv­ing her wrong­ful com­mit­ment to an asy­lum. The next day, they plan to meet Björ­ck in Små­dalarö. Con­cur­rent­ly, Berg­er is pre­oc­cu­pied with per­son­al con­cerns as she awaits a call from Blomkvist, feel­ing trou­bled by undis­closed mat­ters.

In mid-May 2002, the shock­ing news of Bre­itwieser’s illic­it activ­i­ties in the art world is broad­cast­ed on tele­vi­sion while he is incar­cer­at­ed in a Swiss jail. The sen­sa­tion­al tale reach­es the pub­lic fol­low­ing his mother’s police inter­ro­ga­tion, dur­ing which she admits to destroy­ing the paint­ings, lead­ing to a media fren­zy over the unprece­dent­ed crime involv­ing a moth­er-son-girl­friend dynam­ic. As Bre­itwieser learns the extent of the sit­u­a­tion through TV reports, he grap­ples with his mother’s vague admis­sions about their destruc­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly her cryp­tic state­ment that “there are no paint­ings, and there nev­er were.”

Var­i­ous media out­lets esti­mate the val­ue of the stolen art­work, with fig­ures rang­ing from $1 bil­lion to over $2 bil­lion, a num­ber that over­whelms him con­sid­er­ing he had always min­i­mized his collection’s worth to under thir­ty mil­lion dol­lars. He feels doomed by the pos­si­bil­i­ty of need­ing to reim­burse such an insur­mount­able amount. In jail, he choos­es to decline all inter­view requests, remain­ing silent about his ordeal. While his moth­er faces impris­on­ment, his girl­friend, Anne-Cather­ine, is still free but has a tri­al ahead, adding to his despair.

Over­whelmed with sad­ness and feel­ing the crush­ing weight of soli­tude, Bre­itwieser attempts to take his own life using den­tal floss. For­tu­nate­ly, a guard inter­venes, plac­ing him on sui­cide watch and pre­scrib­ing anti­de­pres­sants. Despite this, thoughts of Anne-Cather­ine begin to occu­py his mind, ignit­ing a desire to rekin­dle their roman­tic con­nec­tion as a rea­son to keep liv­ing. Unable to com­mu­ni­cate direct­ly due to restric­tions imposed by the author­i­ties, he mails her let­ters packed with apolo­gies and dec­la­ra­tions of love, but he receives no reply.

In a sur­pris­ing turn, Bre­itwieser’s father reach­es out, break­ing an eight-year silence with a heart­felt let­ter of sup­port. This rekin­dles a rela­tion­ship that had long been lost, and his father’s vis­its become a source of com­fort, help­ing him adjust to prison life. Inmates intro­duce him to new skills, and he finds him­self grow­ing increas­ing­ly accli­mat­ed to his sit­u­a­tion. As prepa­ra­tions for his tri­al begin, it becomes evi­dent that the con­se­quences of his actions will extend beyond the Swiss bor­ders, lead­ing to poten­tial tri­als in mul­ti­ple coun­tries. On Feb­ru­ary 4, 2003, he is escort­ed to the court­room in Gruyères, where he faces the daunt­ing task of defend­ing him­self against a back­drop of pub­lic scruti­ny.

In Chap­ter 32 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Saint begins her day by tak­ing the first bus of the morn­ing, jour­ney­ing along­side tired shift work­ers, their heads droop­ing as they try to catch a few more min­utes of sleep. The bus rolls over a gray road, weav­ing through fields of brown wheat that sprawl like a car­pet only half-formed after being yanked away by divine hands. Along the way, pylons stand as a makeshift army, with a fad­ed water tow­er punc­tu­at­ing the bar­ren sky.

Upon reach­ing Chester­wood, she trans­fers bus­es. The dri­ver seems unusu­al­ly curi­ous, watch­ing her close­ly from his rearview mir­ror as she con­tem­plates the uncer­tain future ahead. As she trav­els fur­ther, the land­scape shifts, flat­tened grass­land and salt-col­ored grav­el emerg­ing along the road. Even­tu­al­ly, the bus slows to a crawl, its gear­box grum­bling and sus­pen­sion bounc­ing uneven­ly.

Saint exits the bus far from civ­i­liza­tion, and the dri­ver hes­i­tates before dri­ving away, his eyes lin­ger­ing on her until she’s wrapped in the hill­side’s embrace. Fol­low­ing the straight road, she enters a sprawl­ing wood­land, ref­er­enc­ing her map repeat­ed­ly to ensure she fol­lows the right path.

She encoun­ters a warn­ing sign that reads “Cau­tion Min­i­mum Main­te­nance Road,” indi­cat­ing the risks of pro­ceed­ing fur­ther. Strolling down the grassy twin tracks, she observes the fields around her: tight­ly rolled bales of crops, a trac­tor enveloped in mud, and the dense wood­lands ahead that beck­on her to slow down as pos­sum haw leaves tum­ble into a gul­ly, their bright red berries con­trast­ing with the sur­round­ing shad­ows.

As she splash­es through a cold stream, Saint finds her­self amongst the wildlife—deer in the dis­tance, rac­coons, and watch­ing ravens over­head. At the first hint of rain, she peers through the canopy of leaves that flick­ers with the shift­ing light.

Even­tu­al­ly, she spots a soli­tary house, its tim­ber face weath­ered and worn, with a cor­ru­gat­ed steel roof and sev­er­al dilap­i­dat­ed out­build­ings near­by. Each struc­ture tells the sto­ry of neglect—a rusty trac­tor, a decay­ing shack—yet it is the sight of a navy steel van inside the largest barn that stirs dread with­in her.

The atmos­phere thick­ens with ten­sion as she hears a noise and spins around, only to find a fox squir­rel climb­ing a beech tree. With her heart rac­ing, she approach­es the porch and paus­es, lis­ten­ing intent­ly. In her bag lies her sling­shot and her grandfather’s gun, her only means of defense in this uncer­tain set­ting.

Wait­ing ai

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

32
On the rare occa­sion that I went out—like to my agent and friend Cade’s house
for a din­ner party—the secu­ri­ty team would sweep through the house before I
arrived to make sure there was no alco­hol or any drugs, even Tylenol, there. No
one at the par­ty was allowed to drink until I left. The oth­er guests were all very
good sports about it, but I sensed that the sec­ond I left was when the real par­ty
start­ed.
When some­one want­ed to date me, the secu­ri­ty team who answered to my
father would run a back­ground check on him, make him sign an NDA, and even
have him sub­mit to a blood test. (And my father said I couldn’t see the
pho­tog­ra­ph­er I had been dat­ing ever again, too.)
Before a date, Robin would tell the man my med­ical and sex­u­al his­to­ry. To be
clear: this was before the �rst date. The whole thing was humil­i­at­ing, and I know
the insan­i­ty of this sys­tem kept me from �nding basic com­pan­ion­ship, hav­ing a
fun night out, or mak­ing new friends—let alone falling in love.
Think­ing back on the way my father was raised by June and the way I was
brought up by him, I had known from the jump that it would be an actu­al
night­mare to have him in charge. The thought of my father tak­ing over any
aspect of my life had �lled me with fear. But tak­ing over every­thing? It was just
the worst thing that could pos­si­bly ever hap­pen to my music, my career, and my
san­i­ty.
Pret­ty quick­ly, I called the weird-ass lawyer the court had appoint­ed for me and
asked him for help. Incred­i­bly, he was all I real­ly had—even though I hadn’t
cho­sen him. I had been told that I couldn’t hire any­one new, because my lawyer
had to be court-approved. Much lat­er, I would come to �nd out that was
bull­shit: I didn’t know for thir­teen years that I could’ve got­ten my own lawyer. I
felt that the court-appoint­ed lawyer didn’t seem eager to help me under­stand
what was going on, or to �ght for my rights.
My moth­er, who is best friends with the gov­er­nor of Louisiana, could have
put me on the phone with him, and he would have told me I could get my own
lawyer. But she kept it a secret; instead, she got a lawyer for her­self just so she
could get o� on �ght­ing with my dad, like she did when I was younger.
At var­i­ous times I pushed back, espe­cial­ly when my father took away access to
my cell phone. I would be smug­gled a pri­vate phone and try to break free. But
they always caught me.
And here’s the sad, hon­est truth: after every­thing I had been through, I
didn’t have a lot of �ght left in me. I was tired, and I was scared, too. After being
held down on a gur­ney, I knew they could restrain my body any time they
want­ed to. They could’ve tried to kill me, I thought. I start­ed to won­der if they
did want to kill me.
So when my father said, “I call the shots,” I thought, This is too much for me.
But I didn’t see a way out. So I felt my spir­it retreat, and I went on autopi­lot. If I
play along, sure­ly they’ll see how good I am and they will let me go.
And so I went along with it.
After I’d mar­ried Kevin and had my kids, Feli­cia was still there a lit­tle bit; I had
always adored her, but once I stopped tour­ing and start­ed work­ing less, we fell
out of touch. There was some talk of Felicia’s com­ing back on board for the
Cir­cus Tour, but some­how I nev­er did have her as my assis­tant again. I lat­er
learned that my dad told her I didn’t want her to work for me any­more. But I
nev­er said that. If I had known she want­ed to do some­thing for me, I nev­er
would have told her no. With­out my knowl­edge, my father was keep­ing her from
me.
I nev­er saw some of my real­ly close friends ever again—still haven’t, to this
day. It made me shut down psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly even more than I had before.
My par­ents had some old friends from home come vis­it me to make me feel
bet­ter.
“No, thanks,” I said.
I mean, I loved them to death, but they had kids now, and they’d moved on
with their lives. Their com­ing to see me felt more like sym­pa­thy than like a social
call. Help is good, but not if it’s not asked for. Not if it doesn’t feel like it’s a
choice.
It’s di�cult for me to revis­it this dark­est chap­ter of my life and to think about
what might have been di�erent if I’d pushed back hard­er then. I don’t at all like
to think about that, not what­so­ev­er. I can’t a�ord to, hon­est­ly. I’ve been
through too much.
And, when the con­ser­va­tor­ship hap­pened, it was true that I had been
par­ty­ing. My body couldn’t phys­i­cal­ly take that any­more. It was time to calm
down. But I went from par­ty­ing a lot to being a total monk. Under the
con­ser­va­tor­ship, I didn’t do any­thing.
One day I was with the pho­tog­ra­ph­er, dri­ving my car fast, liv­ing so much.
And then all of a sud­den I was alone, doing noth­ing at all, not even always
allowed access to my own cell phone. It was night and day.
In my old life I’d had free­dom: the free­dom to make my own deci­sions, to set
my own agen­da, to wake up and decide how I want­ed to spend the day. Even the
hard days were my hard days. Once I gave up the �ght, in my new life, I would
wake up each morn­ing and ask one ques­tion: “What are we doing?”
And then I would do what I was told.
When I was alone at night, I would try to �nd inspi­ra­tion in beau­ti­ful or
trans­port­ing music, movies, books—anything to help blot out the hor­ror of this
arrange­ment. Just as I had when I was a lit­tle girl, I’d look for oth­er worlds to
escape into.
It seemed like every request went through my father and Robin. They
decid­ed where I went and with who. Under Robin’s direc­tion, secu­ri­ty guards
hand­ed me prepack­aged envelopes of meds and watched me take them. They
put parental con­trols on my iPhone. Every­thing was scru­ti­nized and con­trolled.
Every­thing.
I would go to sleep ear­ly. And then I would wake up and do what they told
me again. And again. And again. It was like Ground­hog Day.
I did that for thir­teen years.
If you’re ask­ing why I went along with it, there’s one very good rea­son. I did it
for my kids.
Because I played by the rules, I was reunit­ed with my boys.
It was an ecsta­t­ic expe­ri­ence get­ting to hold them again. When they fell asleep
next to me that �rst night we had back togeth­er, I felt whole for the �rst time in
months. I just stared at them sleep­ing and felt so, so lucky.
To see them as much as pos­si­ble, I did every­thing I could to appease Kevin. I
paid his legal bills, plus child sup­port, plus thou­sands more a month so the kids
could come along with me on the Cir­cus Tour. With­in the same short peri­od of
time, I appeared on Good Morn­ing Amer­i­ca, did the Christ­mas-tree light­ing in
Los Ange­les, shot a seg­ment for Ellen, and toured through Europe and
Aus­tralia. But again, the ques­tion was nag­ging at me—if I was so sick that I
couldn’t make my own deci­sions, why did they think it was �ne for me to be out
there smil­ing and wav­ing and singing and danc­ing in a mil­lion time zones a
week?
I’ll tell you one good rea­son.
The Cir­cus Tour grossed more than $130 mil­lion.
Lou Taylor’s com­pa­ny, Tri Star, got 5 per­cent. And I learned, after the
con­ser­va­tor­ship, that even when I was on hia­tus in 2019 and mon­ey wasn’t
com­ing in, my father paid them an extra min­i­mum “�at fee,” so they were paid
hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars more.
My father got a per­cent­age, too, plus, through­out the con­ser­va­tor­ship, about
$16,000 a month, more than he’d ever made before. He pro�ted heav­i­ly from
the con­ser­va­tor­ship, becom­ing a mul­ti­mil­lion­aire.
My free­dom in exchange for naps with my children—it was a trade I was
will­ing to make. There is noth­ing I love more—nothing more impor­tant to me

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

CHAPTER 32
“He’d been over­served,” Patri­cia said breath­less­ly into the tele­phone
receiv­er, eyes wide, voice full of aston­ished inno­cence. “And he was
doing how men do at a par­ty, talk­ing big, show­ing off. I didn’t mean
to get so far away from my hus­band, but he just kept sort of push­ing
me far­ther and far­ther away.”
Patri­cia stopped and swal­lowed, caught up in her own
per­for­mance. She pulled Francine’s driver’s license out of her pock­et
and turned it over in her hand. She heard Mrs. Greene lis­ten­ing hard
on the oth­er end of the line.
“When he kind of got me over in a cor­ner,” she con­tin­ued, “he told
me, real low so no one else could hear, that years ago he’d got­ten
angry at the woman who did for him. She’d stolen some mon­ey, I
think, I wasn’t real clear on that point, Detec­tive. But he said he
‘fixed her.’ I def­i­nite­ly remem­ber that. Well, I didn’t under­stand what
he meant at first and I said I’d have to ask her about it when I saw
her again, and he said I wouldn’t be see­ing her again, unless I went
up in his attic and looked inside his suit­cas­es. Well, I couldn’t help it,
it just sound­ed so absurd, and I laughed. I don’t need to tell you how
men get when you laugh at them. His face turned red, and he
reached into his wal­let and pulled out some­thing and stuck it in my
face and said if he was lying then how did I explain that. And,
Detec­tive, that’s when I got scared. Because it was Francine’s driver’s
license. I mean, who car­ries around a thing like that? If he hadn’t
hurt her, then where did he get it?” She paused, as if lis­ten­ing. “Oh,
yes, sir. He put it right back in there. He’d had so much to drink he
might not even remem­ber show­ing it to me.”
She stopped and wait­ed.
“You think that’ll work?” Mrs. Greene asked.
“They don’t have to get a war­rant or any­thing like that. All they
have to do is stop by his house and ask to look inside his wal­let. He’ll
have no clue it’s in there, so of course he’ll show them. Once they see
it, they’ll ask for per­mis­sion to search his attic, he’ll refuse, they’ll
leave some­one with him while they go get a war­rant, and then they’ll
find Francine.”
“When?” Mrs. Greene asked.
“The Scrug­gs are hav­ing an oys­ter roast this com­ing Sat­ur­day out
at their farm,” Patri­cia said. “It’s six days away but it will be crowd­ed,
it will be pub­lic, peo­ple will be drink­ing. It’s our best chance.”
Patri­cia didn’t know how she’d get into his wallet—she didn’t even
know if he car­ried one—but she’d keep her eyes open and stay on her
toes. Kitty’s oys­ter roast start­ed at 1:30. If she got it into his wal­let
ear­ly enough, she could call the police that after­noon; they could
even come to the oys­ter roast and ask to see inside his wal­let there,
and this could all be over in less than a week.
“A lot could go wrong,” Mrs. Greene said.
“We’re run­ning out of time,” Patri­cia said.
It was already the end of the month. That night was Hal­loween.
—
The door­bell start­ed ring­ing around four on Hal­loween evening, and
Patri­cia oohed and ahhed over an end­less stream of Aladdins and
Jas­mines and Teenage Mutant Nin­ja Tur­tles, and fairies in tutus
with wings bounc­ing up and down on their backs.
She had fun-sized But­terfin­gers and small box­es of Sun-Maid
raisins for the chil­dren, and Jack Daniel’s for their fathers, who stood
behind them, red Solo cups in hand. It was an Old Vil­lage tra­di­tion:
moms stayed home and gave out can­dy on Hal­loween while dads
took the kids trick-or-treat­ing. Every­one kept a bot­tle of some­thing
behind their front door to top off what­ev­er the dads were drink­ing.
The dads got pro­gres­sive­ly loud­er and hap­pi­er as the shad­ows got
longer and the sun went down on the Old Vil­lage.
Carter wasn’t among them. When Patri­cia had asked Korey if she
want­ed to go trick-or-treat­ing she’d been treat­ed to a with­er­ing glare
and a sin­gle con­temp­tu­ous snort. Blue said trick-or-treat­ing was for
babies so, Carter said, if nei­ther of his chil­dren want­ed him to take
them, he’d go right from the air­port to his office and get ahead on
some work for Mon­day.
Around sev­en, Blue came down­stairs, opened the dog food cab­i­net,
and took out a paper shop­ping bag.
“Are you going trick-or-treat­ing?” Patri­cia asked.
“Sure,” he said.
“Where’s your cos­tume?” she asked, try­ing to reach him.
“I’m a ser­i­al killer,” he said.
“Don’t you want to be some­thing more fun?” she asked. “We could
put some­thing togeth­er in just a few min­utes.”
He turned and walked out of the den.
“Be back by ten,” she called as the front door slammed.
She had just run out of But­terfin­gers and giv­en the first box of
raisins to a deeply dis­ap­point­ed Beav­is and Butthead when the
phone rang.
“Camp­bell res­i­dence,” she said.
No one answered. She fig­ured it was a prank call and was about to
hang up when some­one inhaled, wet and sticky, and a ruined voice
said:
“…I didn’t…”
“Hel­lo?” Patri­cia said. “This is the Camp­bell res­i­dence?”
“I didn’t…,” the voice said again, dazed, and Patri­cia real­ized it was
a woman.
“If you don’t tell me who this is, I’m going to hang up,” she said.
“I didn’t…” the woman repeat­ed. “…I didn’t make a sound…”
“Slick?” Patri­cia asked.
“I didn’t make a sound…I didn’t make a sound…I didn’t make a
sound,” Slick bab­bled.
“What’s going on?” Patri­cia asked.
Slick hadn’t called—not to apol­o­gize for aban­don­ing her, not to see
if she was all right—and that was all the evi­dence Patri­cia need­ed to
know that Slick had told James Har­ris she was break­ing into his
house. Slick was why he had come home ear­ly. As far as she was
con­cerned, Slick could go hang.
Then Slick began to cry.
“Slick?” Patri­cia asked. “What’s wrong?”
“…I didn’t make a sound…” Slick whis­pered over and over, and
goose­flesh crawled up Patricia’s arms.
“Stop it,” she said. “You’re scar­ing me.”
“I didn’t,” Slick moaned. “I didn’t…”
“Where are you?” Patri­cia asked. “Are you at home? Do you need
help?”
Patri­cia couldn’t hear Slick wheez­ing into the ear­piece any­more.
She hung up and dialed her back and got a busy sig­nal. She thought
about not doing any­thing, but she couldn’t. Slick’s voice had scared
her, and some­thing dark stirred in her gut. She grabbed her purse
and found Korey on the sun porch, eyes glued to the TV, which was
show­ing a com­mer­cial for Bounce Gen­tle Breeze dry­er sheets.
“I have to run out to Kitty’s,” Patri­cia said, and real­ized that lies
came eas­i­er the more she told them. “Can you get the door?”
“Mm,” Korey said, not turn­ing around.
Patri­cia sup­posed that was yes in sev­en­teen-year-old lan­guage.
The Old Vil­lage streets were packed with a parade of kids and
par­ents, and Patri­cia wove through them too slow­ly. The fathers
looked pleas­ant­ly loaded, their steps get­ting heav­ier, their dips into
the can­dy bags becom­ing more fre­quent. She couldn’t imag­ine what
had hap­pened to Slick. She need­ed to get to her house. She crawled
through the crowds at fif­teen miles per hour, pass­ing James Harris’s
house with its two jack‑o’-lanterns flick­er­ing on the front porch, then
turned up McCants and hit the brakes.
The Cantwells lived on the cor­ner of Pitt and McCants, and every
Hal­loween they filled their front yard with fake corpses hang­ing from
the trees, Sty­ro­foam head­stones, and skele­tons wired to their
shrub­beries. Every half hour, Mr. Cantwell emerged from the cof­fin
on the front porch dressed as Drac­u­la, and the fam­i­ly per­formed a
ten-minute show. The Wolf­man grabbed at the kids in front; the
Mum­my stum­bled toward lit­tle girls who ran away shriek­ing; Mrs.
Cantwell, wear­ing a fake warty nose, stirred her caul­dron full of dry
ice and offered peo­ple ladles of edi­ble green slime and gum­my
worms. It end­ed with all of them danc­ing to “The Mon­ster Mash”
fol­lowed by mass can­dy dis­tri­b­u­tion.
The crowd around their house spilled off the side­walk and blocked
the street. Patricia’s face twitched. Was it just Slick? What about the
rest of Slick’s fam­i­ly? Some­thing was wrong. She need­ed to go. She
took her foot off the brake and rolled onto the edge of the
Sim­mons­es’ front yard on the far side of McCants, flash­ing her lights
to make peo­ple clear the way. It took her five min­utes to get through
the inter­sec­tion, and then she picked up speed as she head­ed to
Cole­man Boule­vard, and hit fifty on John­nie Dodds. Even that wasn’t
fast enough.
She pulled into Creek­side and wove around trick-or-treaters as fast
as she dared. Both cars were parked in the Paleys’ dri­ve­way.
What­ev­er had hap­pened had hap­pened to the entire fam­i­ly. A
flick­er­ing white can­dle sat on a kitchen stool on the front porch. Next
to it sat a bowl of pam­phlets embla­zoned with orange type read­ing:
Trick? Yes. Treat? Only Through the Grace of God!
Patri­cia reached for the door­bell and stopped. What if it was James
Har­ris? What if he was still inside?
She tried the han­dle and the latch popped and the door swung
silent­ly open. Patri­cia took a breath and stepped inside. She closed
the door behind her and stood, eyes and ears strain­ing, lis­ten­ing for
any sign of life, look­ing for a sin­gle tell­tale detail: a drop of blood on
the hard­wood floor, a pic­ture knocked askew, a crack in one of the
dis­play cab­i­nets. Noth­ing. She crept down the front hall’s thick
run­ner and pushed open the door to the back addi­tion. Peo­ple
start­ed scream­ing.
Every mus­cle in Patricia’s body snapped into action. Her hands
flew up to pro­tect her face. She opened her mouth to scream. Then
the scream­ing dis­solved into laugh­ter and she looked past her hands
and saw Leland, LJ, their old­est, Greer, and Tiger sit­ting around the
long din­ner table halfway across the room, their backs to her, all
laugh­ing. Greer was the only one fac­ing Patri­cia.
She caught sight of Patri­cia and stopped laugh­ing. LJ and Tiger
spun around.
“Ohmy­gosh,” Greer said. “How’d you get in?”
A Monop­oly board sat in the mid­dle of the table. Slick wasn’t
there.
“Patri­cia?” Leland said, stand­ing, gen­uine­ly baf­fled, try­ing to
smile.
“Don’t get up,” she said. “Slick called and I thought she was home.”
“She’s upstairs,” Leland said.
“I’ll just pop right up,” Patri­cia said. “Keep play­ing.”
She left the room before they could say any­thing and went up the
car­pet­ed stairs fast. In the upstairs hall she didn’t have a clue which
way to go. The door to the mas­ter bed­room sat ajar. The bed­room
light was off but the mas­ter bath­room light was on. Patri­cia walked
in.
“Slick?” she called soft­ly.
The show­er cur­tain rat­tled and Patri­cia looked down and saw Slick
lying in the tub, her lip­stick smeared, her mas­cara run­ning down her
face in trails, her hair stick­ing out in clumps. Her skirt had been torn
and she only wore one dan­gling sand dol­lar ear­ring.
Every­thing between them evap­o­rat­ed and Patri­cia knelt by the
bath­tub.
“What hap­pened?” she asked.
“I didn’t make a sound,” Slick rasped, eyes wide with pan­ic.
Her mouth moved sound­less­ly, strain­ing to form words. Her hands
opened and closed.
“Slick?” Patri­cia repeat­ed. “What hap­pened?”
“I didn’t…,” Slick began, then licked her lips and tried again. “I
didn’t make a sound.”
“We need to call the ambu­lance,” Patri­cia said, stand­ing up. “I’ll go
get Leland.”
“I…,” Slick said, and it trailed off to a whis­per. “I didn’t…”
Patri­cia walked to the bath­room door and heard hol­low flail­ing in
the tub behind her, and then Slick rasped, “No!”
Patri­cia turned around. Slick gripped the edge of the tub with both
hands, knuck­les white, shak­ing her head, her sin­gle sand dol­lar
ear­ring flop­ping from side to side.
“They can’t know,” she said.
“You’re hurt,” Patri­cia said.
“They can’t know,” Slick repeat­ed.
“Slick!” Leland called from down­stairs. “Every­thing all right?”
Slick locked eyes with Patri­cia and slow­ly shook her head back and
forth. Patri­cia eased out into the bed­room, eyes still on Slick.
“We’re fine,” she called back.
“Slick?” Leland said, and from his voice Patri­cia could tell he was
com­ing up the stairs.
Slick shook her head hard­er. Patri­cia held out one hand, then
raced to the hall and head­ed off Leland at the top of the stairs.
“What’s hap­pen­ing?” he asked, stop­ping two steps below her.
“She’s ill,” Patri­cia said. “I’ll sit with her and make sure she’s okay.
She didn’t want to break up your par­ty.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Leland said. “You didn’t need to
come all this way. We’re right down­stairs.”
He tried to take a step but Patri­cia moved to block him.
“Leland,” she said, smil­ing. “Slick wants you to have fun with the
chil­dren tonight. It’s impor­tant to her that they have…Christian
asso­ci­a­tions with Hal­loween. Let me han­dle this.”
“I want to see how she is,” he said, slid­ing one hand up the
ban­is­ter, let­ting her know he was going to go right through her if
nec­es­sary.
“Leland.” She dropped her voice low. “It’s a female prob­lem.”
She wasn’t sure what a female prob­lem meant to Leland, but his
body sagged.
“All right,” he said. “But if she’s real­ly not well, you’ll tell me?”
“Of course,” Patri­cia said. “Go back to the kids.”
He turned and went back down­stairs. She wait­ed until he passed
into the addi­tion, and then sprint­ed back to the bath­room. Slick
hadn’t moved. Patri­cia knelt beside the tub, leaned for­ward, and got
her arms around Slick. She stood, pulling Slick up with her, amazed
at how weak her legs were. She helped her out of the tub, one foot at
a time.
“They can’t know,” Slick said.
“I didn’t say a word,” Patri­cia said.
She took off Slick’s one ear­ring and laid it on the bath­room
counter.
“The oth­er one’ll turn up,” she reas­sured her.
Patri­cia locked the bath­room door, then pulled Slick’s sweater over
her head and unfas­tened her brassiere. Slick’s breasts were small and
pale and the way she was hunched over, the way her ribs stuck out,
the way her breasts hung life­less, she remind­ed Patri­cia of a plucked
chick­en.
She sat Slick down on the toi­let and put her fin­gers in the waist of
her skirt. It was torn down the back so there was no need to unzip it.
The tear went right through the suede, not down the seam. Patri­cia
didn’t know what was strong enough to do that.
As she start­ed to pull off her skirt, Slick recoiled, pulling her hands
up over her groin.
“What’s wrong?” Patri­cia asked. “Slick, what’s wrong?”
Slick shook her head back and forth, and Patricia’s heart hitched.
She focused on keep­ing her voice steady and slow.
“Show me,” she insist­ed, but Slick shook her head faster. “Slick?”
“They can’t know,” Slick moaned.
She took Slick’s thin wrists and pulled them away. Slick resist­ed at
first, then went slack. Patri­cia pulled her skirt down. Slick’s panties
were torn. She pulled them off, lift­ing Slick’s but­tocks. Slick clamped
her thighs closed.
“Slick,” Patri­cia said, using her nurse’s voice. “I need to see.”
She pried Slick’s knees apart. At first, Patri­cia didn’t know what
was com­ing through Slick’s sparse, blond pubic hair, and then she
saw Slick’s abdom­i­nal mus­cles con­vulse and a run­nel of black jel­ly
oozed out of her vagi­na. It smelled rank, like some­thing lying rot­ten
on the side of the road in sum­mer. And it kept com­ing, an end­less
ooze of fetid slime pool­ing in a quiv­er­ing black pud­dle on the toi­let
seat lid.
“Slick?” Patri­cia asked. “What hap­pened?”
Slick met her eyes, tears trem­bling along her low­er lids, and she
looked so haunt­ed that Patri­cia leaned for­ward and embraced her.
Slick stayed stiff in her arms.
“I didn’t make a sound,” Slick insist­ed.
Patri­cia sprayed enough air fresh­en­er in the bath­room to make her
eyes burn, and then she ran the show­er. She took off her blouse and
helped Slick back into the tub, hold­ing her under the hot, strong
spray. She cleaned the make­up off Slick’s face with a wash­cloth,
rub­bing until Slick’s skin turned pink, then used as much soap as she
could to clean between Slick’s legs.
“Bear down,” she told Slick over the spray. “Like you’re going to
the bath­room.”
She saw the last remain­ing black drops fall into the water, stretch
into ten­drils, and swirl down the drain. She used an entire bot­tle of
St. Ives sham­poo to wash Slick’s hair, and when they were fin­ished
the bath­room smelled steamy and flo­ral. She dried her­self and put
her top back on while Slick stood naked and shiv­er­ing, and then she

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

32
I real­ly should’ve fuck­ing known it.
My head ached, and as I opened my eyes, it seemed like they might explode out of my skull. There
was a thick, heavy feel­ing in my stom­ach, and I turned my head to the side, sud­den­ly afraid I was
going to puke, but noth­ing hap­pened. I just coughed and retched and won­dered how the hell I didn’t
see this com­ing.
Bea was always too smart for this to be a per­ma­nent solu­tion. Hell, I was too smart for this to be
a per­ma­nent solu­tion. But that first night, I’d been freak­ing out and pan­ick­ing, and this had seemed …
okay, it had seemed insane even then, but I was impro­vis­ing. It’s what I’d always done, made things
up on the spot, adapt­ed to my cir­cum­stances.
Usu­al­ly it worked.
But this was Bea. This was my wife.
Of course it end­ed up like this, me on the floor, bleed­ing, miss­ing sev­er­al teeth—and Bea out
there, some­where, with Jane.
The thought caused a quick surge of pan­ic, and I tried to sit up, but that wasn’t hap­pen­ing. I
col­lapsed to the floor in the fetal posi­tion, star­ing blur­ri­ly at my own blood as some­where
down­stairs, my wife and my fiancée … what, called the cops? Shared a glass of cel­e­bra­to­ry
cham­pagne?
Christ, I hoped it was one of those options, because any­thing else scared the fuck out of me.
It’s not like I went to Hawaii with the express pur­pose of seduc­ing and mar­ry­ing Bea Mason. I hadn’t
known she’d be there—I’m not a stalk­er, for fuck’s sake. But I’d got­ten good at spot­ting oppor­tu­ni­ties
over the years, and that’s what see­ing Bea Mason on that beach was.
Not just an oppor­tu­ni­ty.
The oppor­tu­ni­ty.
I hadn’t known who she was, ini­tial­ly. I didn’t exact­ly keep up with the home décor indus­try, but
the girl I was trav­el­ing with, Char­lie, did.
“Holy shit,” she’d said as we’d been sit­ting by the pool.
I’d looked up from my phone to see a woman walk­ing by in a deep pur­ple one-piece, a flow­ered
sarong around her waist. She was pret­ty and petite, and even from a dis­tance, I caught the sparkle of
dia­monds in her ears, but I didn’t think any­thing about her real­ly war­rant­ed a “Holy shit.”
“What?” I’d asked, and Char­lie had thumped me with a rolled-up mag­a­zine.
“That’s Bea Mason,” she’d said, and when I’d just stared at her, she’d rolled her eyes and said,
“She owns South­ern Manors? It’s, like, huge? I got that ging­ham skirt you like so much from there.”
I had no idea what skirt she was talk­ing about, but I smiled and nod­ded. “Oh, right. So, she’s a big
deal?”
“To women, yeah,” Char­lie said, then wrin­kled her nose. “But I won­der why she’s stay­ing here?
This isn’t even the nicest resort on the island. If I had her mon­ey, I’d be at the Lanai.”
And that’s when Bea Mason sud­den­ly got a lot more inter­est­ing to me.
Char­lie had mon­ey. Lots of it. None of it was real­ly hers, I guess, more her family’s, but she was
still com­fort­ably loaded. Which meant that Bea Mason must have even more.
“It’s her com­pa­ny?” I asked, look­ing back at my phone, keep­ing my tone casu­al.
“Oh yeah,” Char­lie said as she reached to pick her daiquiri up off the near­by table. I could smell
the sug­ary straw­ber­ry scent of it from my chair. “She’s super inspir­ing. Built it up from this lit­tle
inter­net busi­ness to a mas­sive thing in like five years. Self-made mul­ti­mil­lion­aire. There was an
inter­view with her in For­tune that my dad sent to me, and I was like, ‘Goals.’”
I’d looked up from my phone then, and caught a glimpse of Bea walk­ing away.
It wasn’t just the mon­ey. The mon­ey was a big part of it, sure, but I liked that idea—that she’d
made some­thing out of noth­ing. And while Char­lie ordered anoth­er drink and went back to her
mag­a­zine, I’d done some googling.
The South­ern Manors web­site had been charm­ing, if a lit­tle cloy­ing, and the pic­tures of Bea had
proven that she was as attrac­tive as I’d guessed. Not in the same showy way Char­lie was, for­ev­er
Insta­gram ready, but in a sub­tler, classier way.
Learn­ing her net worth added a cer­tain sheen to things, too, of course.
Two hun­dred mil­lion dol­lars. That’s what Google said, although I knew those things weren’t
always accu­rate. Charlie’s dad was sup­posed to be worth fifty mil­lion, but most of that was tied up in
real estate and trusts. Char­lie was even on an allowance. A gen­er­ous one, def­i­nite­ly, but it wasn’t
exact­ly carte blanche.
“I’m gonna go up to the room for a bit,” I’d told her, stand­ing up from my chair and stretch­ing,
let­ting her gaze slide over my bare chest, my abs. I’d been up ear­ly to hit the gym, a chore, but a
nec­es­sary one.
“Want com­pa­ny?” she’d purred, and I’d been sure to grin at her, chuck­ing her under­neath her chin.
“No, because I’m gonna nap, and I won’t sleep if you’re around.”
She’d liked that, and caught my hand, press­ing a kiss to the tips of my fin­gers before shoo­ing me
off. “I’ll be up in a bit, then. Rest up.”
I’d gone back to the room, but I hadn’t napped. Instead, I’d thrown most of my things back in my
bag.
I was good with peo­ple, fig­ur­ing them out, pre­dict­ing what they’d do, and I had a hunch Char­lie
was on to some­thing with the Lanai. Bea Mason hadn’t stopped to sit at our pool, after all, just
walked through.
And I was right, I learned lat­er. She’d just been check­ing out our pool area because she was try­ing
to get an idea of what kind of bathing suit prints were pop­u­lar among, as she put it, “nor­mal women.”
Look­ing back, that prob­a­bly should’ve been a hint, too.
At the time, I just pat­ted myself on the back for guess­ing cor­rect­ly.
I wish I could say there was some spe­cial trick to doing the kinds of things I do, some kind of

The pro­vid­ed text con­tains Chap­ter 32 from The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall by Anne Bron­të. This chap­ter, titled “Com­par­isons: Infor­ma­tion Reject­ed,” delves into the social and per­son­al dynam­ics among the char­ac­ters, focus­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly on the rela­tion­ships and char­ac­ter growth.

The chap­ter opens with reflec­tions on Esther Har­grave, not­ing her devel­op­ment into a fine girl despite her con­strained social envi­ron­ment. The nar­ra­tive voice, pre­sum­ably Helen’s, express­es a deep bond with Esther, fear­ing for her future based on her own dis­il­lu­sion­ing expe­ri­ences with mar­riage and soci­etal expec­ta­tions.

The nar­ra­tive then shifts to a heart­felt con­ver­sa­tion in the gar­den between Helen and her friend Mil­i­cent, where they dis­cuss their children’s futures and the impor­tance of mar­ry­ing for love rather than wealth or sta­tus. Mil­i­cent con­fides her wor­ries about her sis­ter mar­ry­ing for the wrong rea­sons, urg­ing Helen to influ­ence Esther against such a deci­sion. This con­ver­sa­tion under­scores the theme of wom­en’s lim­it­ed choic­es and the impact of mar­riage on their well-being.

Next, the nar­ra­tive moves inside, where Helen encoun­ters Mr. Hat­ter­s­ley and lat­er, Mr. Har­grave. Hat­ter­s­ley reveals his affec­tion for his wife Mil­i­cent, albeit shown through a prob­lem­at­ic lens of dom­i­nance and sub­mis­sion, high­light­ing the com­plex­i­ties with­in mar­i­tal rela­tion­ships and the era’s gen­der dynam­ics. The fol­low­ing inter­ac­tion with Mr. Har­grave expos­es anoth­er lay­er of social inter­ac­tion, where he hints at pos­sess­ing sig­nif­i­cant but dis­tress­ful infor­ma­tion he wish­es to share with Helen, empha­siz­ing issues of trust, rep­u­ta­tion, and the bur­dens of know­ing poten­tial­ly harm­ful secrets.

Through­out the chap­ter, the dia­logue and inter­nal reflec­tions explore themes of love, mar­riage, gen­der roles, and the social expec­ta­tions placed upon indi­vid­u­als, espe­cial­ly women, in the 19th-cen­tu­ry British soci­ety. The char­ac­ters grap­ple with their desires, oblig­a­tions, and the soci­etal norms that dic­tate their lives, pro­vid­ing a rich tapes­try of emo­tion­al and moral com­plex­i­ties that are cen­tral to Bron­të’s work.

Over­all, this chap­ter paints a detailed pic­ture of the inter­per­son­al dynam­ics and soci­etal pres­sures with­in the sto­ry, offer­ing insights into char­ac­ter devel­op­ment and the­mat­ic depth that define *The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall*.