In Chap­ter 22, Salan­der uses Super­in­ten­dent Skiöld’s iden­ti­ty to access the police crim­i­nal reg­is­ter and search­es for Alexan­der Zalachenko, who is not list­ed. Salan­der is con­tact­ed via ICQ by Plague, who knows she’s using the Skiöld iden­ti­ty. A tense exchange ensues in which Plague offers help, and Salan­der deflects inquiries about her actions and motives. The chap­ter high­lights Salan­der’s iso­la­tion and the com­plex web of rela­tion­ships she nav­i­gates.

In this chap­ter titled “Chap­ter 22, All the Col­ors of the Dark,” the pro­tag­o­nist, referred to as Saint, finds Chief Nix fish­ing at a frozen lake on a chilly morn­ing. She silent­ly joins him, moti­vat­ed by her con­cern for Patch, who is her only con­nec­tion now. Over a drink of cof­fee spiked with brandy, Nix acknowl­edges the need to check on Mrs. Macauley—a char­ac­ter men­tioned to be strug­gling with drug issues.

Saint is obser­vant of Nix’s physique, par­tic­u­lar­ly his rolled-back sleeves reveal­ing his dark hair-cov­ered arms. There’s a local whis­per that Nix is the most eli­gi­ble man in Mon­ta Clare, yet he seems to remain unat­tached, which brings her some sense of sat­is­fac­tion. Their con­ver­sa­tion turns seri­ous when Saint express­es her anx­i­ety about Patch’s fate; she fears she will be unable to cope if he is indeed dead. Nix, exud­ing con­fi­dence, assures her that she will man­age, though hints at her lack of sleep and the light burn­ing steadi­ly in her home.

Saint refrains from reveal­ing the extent of her efforts to find Patch, includ­ing the exhaus­tive map­ping of names and address­es she pro­cured from a sym­pa­thet­ic Cedar Rapids police offi­cer. She has been mon­i­tor­ing var­i­ous hous­es, try­ing to uncov­er leads.

The dia­logue shifts to Cal­lie Mon­trose, a girl who is linked to Nix. Saint inquires about Callie’s vis­it to Nix pri­or to her dis­ap­pear­ance, to which Nix remains eva­sive, empha­siz­ing that it’s a mat­ter between him and the girl. When pressed fur­ther, he admits that even after her death, the mat­ter stays between them. He also acknowl­edges Cal­lie’s father, a police offi­cer, refer­ring to him as a good but bro­ken man, thus draw­ing par­al­lels to Mrs. Macauley and per­haps Saint her­self.

Final­ly, Nix prods Saint about her faith, ask­ing her to pray for her friend and sur­ren­der the rest of her bur­dens to him. Although reluc­tant, she agrees, stand­ing up and promis­ing, albeit insin­cere­ly, to let go of her wor­ries as she walks away. The chap­ter blends themes of loss, despair, and the thin thread of hope, reflect­ing the char­ac­ter’s inner tur­moil against a back­drop of cold iso­la­tion.

In Chap­ter 22, Phoebe dri­ves the Mer­cedes to the Break­ers alone, reflect­ing on the nature of hap­pi­ness as she pass­es grand man­sions and the prepa­ra­tions for a wed­ding that is about to be called off. She grap­ples with the con­cept of ful­fill­ment, ques­tion­ing what a per­son lacks when they seem­ing­ly have every­thing. As she approach­es the altar, it becomes evi­dent that she car­ries a dif­fi­cult truth: Lila will not be show­ing up for her wed­ding to Gary.

When Phoebe speaks to Gary, she con­veys the news gen­tly, rec­og­niz­ing the sto­icism in his response. Gary nods in res­ig­na­tion, embody­ing a sense of emo­tion­al defeat. Phoebe feels the weight of her words as she announces to the crowd that “Lila and Gary will not be get­ting mar­ried today,” rehears­ing the act of speak­ing hard truths aloud. The guests mur­mur, some puz­zled by the expense of their atten­dance for a non-event. Mean­while, Lila is described as being at the hotel, prepar­ing to leave for Cana­da, adding a mys­te­ri­ous lay­er to her absence.

Once the crowd dis­pers­es, Phoebe and Matt find each oth­er. Their inter­ac­tion sig­ni­fies an emo­tion­al reck­on­ing. Phoebe asserts her deci­sion not to return to St. Louis, reveal­ing her desire to leave Matt and embrace her own dreams. She wish­es to live in a nine­teenth-cen­tu­ry man­sion and write, express­ing inten­tion rather than res­ig­na­tion. As they nav­i­gate their feel­ings, Matt responds with con­cern and gen­tle humor about their aca­d­e­m­ic lives, high­light­ing the bit­ter­sweet nature of their con­ver­sa­tion.

Despite the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion, there is a moment of lev­i­ty when Phoebe opens a bot­tle of cham­pagne, prompt­ing a toast. They share a bit­ter­sweet joy in this impromp­tu cel­e­bra­tion, find­ing com­fort in the taste of good cham­pagne and a shared con­nec­tion amidst the change. As they toast to Mat­t’s emo­tion­al vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, Phoebe rec­og­nizes a new sense of self and the small changes that make a big dif­fer­ence in life. She rel­ish­es the moment, a blend of sor­row, lib­er­a­tion, and the bit­ter­sweet taste of pos­si­bil­i­ty.

Wait­ing ai

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.

22
Those �rst few months after Jay­den came home were a blur. I got a dog. Feli­cia
came in and out of my life.
While I was preg­nant with Jay­den, I’d dyed my hair black. Try­ing to get it
blond again, I turned it pur­ple. I had to go to a beau­ty salon to have them
com­plete­ly strip my hair and make it a real­is­tic shade of brown. It took for­ev­er to
get it right. Near­ly every­thing in my life felt like that. To say the least, there was
some chaos: the breakup with J and going on the rough Onyx tour, mar­ry­ing
some­one who no one seemed to think was a good match, and then try­ing to be a
good moth­er inside of a mar­riage that was col­laps­ing in real time.
And yet, I always felt so hap­py and cre­ative in the stu­dio. Record­ing for
Black­out, I felt so much free­dom. Work­ing with amaz­ing pro­duc­ers, I got to
play. A pro­duc­er named Nate Hills, who record­ed under the name Dan­ja, was
more into dance and EDM than pop; he intro­duced me to new sounds and I got
to stretch my voice in di�erent ways.
I loved that no one was over­think­ing things and that I got to say what I liked
and didn’t like. I knew exact­ly what I want­ed, and I loved so much of what was
o�ered to me. Com­ing into the stu­dio and hear­ing these incred­i­ble sounds and
get­ting to put down a vocal on them was fun. Despite my rep­u­ta­tion at the time,
I was focused and excit­ed to work when I came in. It was what was going on
out­side the stu­dio that was so upset­ting.
The paparazzi were like an army of zom­bies try­ing to get in every sec­ond.
They tried to scale the walls and take pic­tures through win­dows. Try­ing to enter
and exit a build­ing felt like being part of a mil­i­tary oper­a­tion. It was ter­ri­fy­ing.
My A&R rep, Tere­sa LaBar­bera Whites, who was a moth­er, too, did what she
could to help. She put a baby swing at one of our stu­dios, which I thought was a
real­ly sweet ges­ture.
The album was a kind of bat­tle cry. After years of being metic­u­lous, try­ing to
please my mom and my dad, it was my time to say “Fuck you.” I quit doing
busi­ness the way I always had before. I start­ed doing videos on the street myself.
I would go into bars with a friend, and the friend would just bring a cam­era, and
that’s how we shot “Gimme More.”
To be clear, I’m not say­ing I’m proud of it. “Gimme More” is by far the worst
video I’ve ever shot in my life. I don’t like it at all—it’s so tacky. It looks like we
only spent three thou­sand dol­lars to shoot it. And yet, even though it was bad, it
worked for what it was. And the more I start­ed going and doing things myself,
the more inter­est­ing peo­ple start­ed notic­ing and want­i­ng to work with me. I
wound up ran­dom­ly �nding real­ly good peo­ple, just by word of mouth.
Black­out was one of the eas­i­est and most sat­is­fy­ing albums I ever made. It
came togeth­er real­ly fast. I would go into the stu­dio, be in there for thir­ty
min­utes, and leave. That wasn’t by design—it had to be fast. If I stayed in one
place for too long, the paparazzi out­side would mul­ti­ply like I was a cor­nered
Pac-Man being chased by ghosts. My sur­vival mech­a­nism was to get in and get
out of stu­dios as fast as pos­si­ble.
When I record­ed “Hot as Ice,” I walked into the stu­dio and there were six
gigan­tic guys in the room with me, sit­ting there. That was prob­a­bly one of the
most spir­i­tu­al record­ing moments of my life, being with all those guys qui­et­ly
lis­ten­ing as I sang. My voice went the high­est it had ever gone. I sang it two times
through and left. I didn’t even have to try.
If mak­ing Black­out felt good, life was still tear­ing at me from every di�erent
direc­tion. From one minute to the next, every­thing was so extreme. I need­ed to
have more self-worth and val­ue than I was able to con­jure back then. And yet,
even though it was a very hard time in just about every oth­er way, artis­ti­cal­ly it
was great. Some­thing about where I was in my head made me a bet­ter artist.
I felt an excit­ing rush mak­ing the Black­out album. I was able to work in the
best stu­dios. It was a wild time.

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 22
Patri­cia didn’t want to talk that night, and Carter had the good sense
not to push it. She went to bed ear­ly. Carter thought noth­ing was
wrong? Let him wor­ry about Korey and Blue. Let him feed them and
keep them safe. Down­stairs she heard him go out and bring back
take-out Chi­nese for the kids, and the buzzing rise and fall of A
Seri­ous Con­ver­sa­tion fil­tered up from the din­ing room. After Korey
and Blue went to bed, Carter slept on the den sofa.
The next morn­ing, she saw Des­tiny Taylor’s pic­ture in the paper
and read the sto­ry with numb accep­tance. The nine-year-old had
wait­ed until it was her turn in the bath­room of her fos­ter home, then
took den­tal floss, wrapped it around her neck over and over, and
hanged her­self from the tow­el rack. The police were inves­ti­gat­ing
whether it might be abuse.
“I’d like to speak to you in the din­ing room,” Carter said from the
door to the den.
Patri­cia looked up from the paper. Carter need­ed to shave.
“That child killed her­self,” she said. “The one we told you about,
Des­tiny Tay­lor, she killed her­self just like we warned you she would.”
“Pat­ty, from where I’m stand­ing, we stopped a lynch mob from
run­ning an inno­cent man out of town.”
“It was the woman whose trail­er you came to in Six Mile,” Patri­cia
said. “You saw that lit­tle girl. Nine years old. Why does a nine-year-
old child kill her­self? What could make her do that?”
“Our chil­dren need you,” Carter said. “Do you see what your book
club has done to Blue?”
“My book club?” she asked, off bal­ance.
“The mor­bid things y’all read,” Carter said. “Did you see the
video­tapes on top of the TV? He got Night and Fog from the library.
It’s Holo­caust footage. That’s not what a nor­mal ten-year-old boy
looks at.”
“A nine-year-old girl hanged her­self with den­tal floss and you
won’t even both­er to ask why,” Patri­cia said. “Imag­ine if that was
your last mem­o­ry of Blue—hanging from the tow­el rod, floss cut­ting
into his neck—”
“Jesus Christ, Pat­ty, where’d you learn to talk this way?”
He walked into the din­ing room. Patri­cia thought about not
fol­low­ing, then real­ized that this wouldn’t end until they’d played out
every sin­gle moment Carter had planned. She got up and fol­lowed.
The morn­ing sun made the yel­low walls of the din­ing room glow.
Carter stood fac­ing her from the oth­er end of the table, hands behind
his back, one of her every­day saucers in front of him.
“I real­ize I bear some of the respon­si­bil­i­ty for how bad things have
got­ten,” he said. “You’ve been under a great deal of stress from what
hap­pened with my moth­er, and you nev­er prop­er­ly processed the
trau­ma of being injured. I let the fact that you’re my wife cloud my
judg­ment and I missed the symp­toms.”
“Why are you treat­ing me like this?” she asked.
He ignored her, con­tin­u­ing his speech.
“You live an iso­lat­ed life,” Carter said. “Your read­ing tastes are
mor­bid. Both your chil­dren are going through dif­fi­cult phas­es. I have
a high-pres­sure job that requires me to put in long hours. I didn’t
real­ize how close to the edge you were.”
He picked up the saucer, car­ried it to her end of the table, and set
it down with a click. A green-and-white cap­sule rolled around in the
cen­ter.
“I’ve seen this turn people’s lives around,” Carter said.
“I don’t want it,” she said.
“It’ll help you regain your equi­lib­ri­um,” he said.
She pinched the cap­sule between her thumb and fore­fin­ger. Dista
Prozac was print­ed on the side.
“And I have to take it or you’ll leave me?” she asked.
“Don’t be so dra­mat­ic,” Carter said. “I’m offer­ing you help.”
He reached into his pock­et and pulled out a white bot­tle. It rat­tled
when he set it on the table.
“One pill, twice a day, with food,” he said. “I’m not going to count
the pills. I’m not going to watch you take them. You can flush them
down the toi­let if you want. This isn’t me try­ing to con­trol you. This
is me try­ing to help you. You’re my wife and I believe you can get
bet­ter.”
At least he had the good sense not to try to kiss her before he left.
After he was gone, Patri­cia picked up the phone and called Grace.
Her machine picked up, so she called Kit­ty.
“I can’t talk,” Kit­ty said.
“Did you see the paper this morn­ing?” Patri­cia asked. “That was
Des­tiny Tay­lor, page B‑6.”
“I don’t want to hear about those kind of things any­more,” Kit­ty
said.
“He knows we’ve gone to the police,” Patri­cia said. “Think of what
he’s going to do to us.”
“He’s com­ing to our house,” Kit­ty said.
“You have to get out of there,” Patri­cia said.
“For sup­per,” Kit­ty said. “To meet the fam­i­ly. Horse wants him to
know there are no hard feel­ings.”
“But why?” Patri­cia asked.
“Because that’s how Horse is,” Kit­ty said.
“We can’t give up just because the rest of the men sud­den­ly think
he’s their pal.”
“Do you know what we could lose?” Kit­ty asked. “It’s Slick and
Leland’s busi­ness. It’s Ed’s job. It’s our mar­riages, our fam­i­lies.
Horse has put all our mon­ey into this project he’s doing with
Leland.”
“That lit­tle girl died,” Patri­cia said. “You didn’t see her, but she was
bare­ly nine.”
“There’s noth­ing we can do about it,” Kit­ty said. “We have to take
care of our fam­i­lies and let oth­er peo­ple wor­ry about theirs. If
someone’s hurt­ing those chil­dren, the police will stop them.”
She got Grace’s machine again, then tried Maryellen.
“I can’t talk,” Maryellen said. “I’m right in the mid­dle of
some­thing.”
“Call me back lat­er,” Patri­cia said.
“I’m busy all day,” Maryellen said.
“That lit­tle girl killed her­self,” Patri­cia said. “Des­tiny Tay­lor.”
“I have to run,” Maryellen said.
“It’s on page B‑6,” Patri­cia said. “There’s going to be anoth­er one
after this, and anoth­er after that, and anoth­er, and anoth­er.”
Maryellen spoke qui­et and low.
“Patri­cia,” she said. “Stop.”
“It doesn’t have to be Ed,” Patri­cia said. “What were the names of
those oth­er two police detec­tives? Can­non and Bus­sell?”
“Don’t!” Maryellen said, too loud. Patri­cia heard pant­i­ng over the
phone and real­ized Maryellen was cry­ing. “Hold on,” she said, and
sniffed hard. Patri­cia heard her put the phone down.
After a moment, Maryellen picked it back up.
“I had to shut the bed­room door,” she said. “Patri­cia, lis­ten to me.
When we lived in New Jer­sey, we came home from Alexa’s fourth
birth­day par­ty and our front door was stand­ing wide open. Some­one
broke in and uri­nat­ed on the liv­ing room car­pet, turned over all our
book­cas­es, stuffed our wed­ding pic­tures in the upstairs bath­tub and
left it run­ning so it backed up and flood­ed the ceil­ing. Our clothes
were hacked to shreds. Our mat­tress­es and uphol­stery slashed. And
in the baby’s room they’d writ­ten Die Pigs on the wall. In feces.”
Patri­cia lis­tened to the line hum while Maryellen caught her
breath.
“Ed was a police offi­cer and he couldn’t pro­tect his own fam­i­ly,”
Maryellen con­tin­ued. “It ate him alive. When he was sup­posed to be
at work he parked across the street and watched our house. He
missed shifts. They want­ed to give him a few weeks off, but he
need­ed the hours, so he kept going in. It wasn’t his fault, Pat­ty, but
they sent him to pick up a shoplifter at the mall and the boy lipped
off and Ed hit him. He didn’t mean to, it wasn’t even that hard, but
the boy lost some of the hear­ing in his left ear. It was one of those
freak things. We didn’t come down here because Ed want­ed
some­place qui­eter. We came down here because this was all he could
find. Ed used up all his favors get­ting trans­ferred.”
She blew her nose. Patri­cia wait­ed.
“If any­one talks to the police,” Maryellen said, “they’re going to
fol­low it back to Ed. That boy he hit was eleven years old. He will
nev­er find anoth­er job. Promise me, Patri­cia. No more.”
“I can’t,” Patri­cia said.
“Patri­cia, please—” Maryellen began.
Patri­cia hung up.
She tried Grace again. The machine was still pick­ing up so she
called Slick.
“I saw it in the paper this morn­ing,” Slick said. “That poor girl’s
moth­er.”
Patricia’s heart unclenched.
“Kit­ty is too fright­ened to do any­thing,” Patri­cia said. “She’s buried
her head in the sand. And Maryellen is in a bad posi­tion because of
Ed.”
“That man is evil,” Slick said. “Look how he twist­ed us up like
pret­zels and made us seem like fools. He knew exact­ly how to get
Leland’s trust.”
“He says he got that mon­ey he put into Gra­cious Cay from Ann
Sav­age,” Patri­cia said. “But that’s dirty mon­ey if I’ve ever seen it.”
“I know, but he’s Leland’s busi­ness part­ner now,” Slick con­tin­ued.
“And I can’t accuse him of this kind of thing with­out cut­ting my own
family’s throat. We’ve been there before, Patri­cia. I’m not going back
there again. I will not do that to my chil­dren.”
“This is about children’s lives,” Patri­cia said. “That mat­ters more
than mon­ey.”
“You’ve nev­er lost your house,” Slick said. “You’ve nev­er had to
explain to your chil­dren why they have to move in with their
grand­moth­er, or why you have to take the dog to the pound because
food stamps don’t cov­er dog food.”
“If you’d met Des­tiny Tay­lor you wouldn’t be able to hard­en your
heart,” Patri­cia said.
“My fam­i­ly is my rock,” Slick said. “You’ve nev­er lost every­thing. I
have. Let Destiny’s moth­er wor­ry about Des­tiny. I know you think
this makes me a bad per­son, but I need to turn inward and be a good
stew­ard to my fam­i­ly right now. I’m sor­ry.”
Grace’s machine picked up again when she called back, so Patri­cia
got her purse and went over to her house, step­ping out into the blast
fur­nace of the day. By the time she rang Grace’s bell, sweat was
already seep­ing through her blouse. She let the echoes of the chimes
die inside the house, then rang again. The door­bell got loud­er as Mrs.
Greene opened the door.
“I didn’t know you were help­ing Grace today,” Patri­cia said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Mrs. Greene said, look­ing down at Patri­cia. “She’s
feel­ing poor­ly.”
“I’m sor­ry to hear that,” Patri­cia said, try­ing to step inside.
Mrs. Greene didn’t move. Patri­cia stopped, one foot on the
thresh­old.
“I’m just going to say hel­lo for a quick minute,” Patri­cia said.
Mrs. Greene inhaled through her nos­trils. “I don’t think she wants
to see any­one,” she said.
“I’ll only be a minute,” Patri­cia said. “Did she tell you what
hap­pened yes­ter­day?”
Some­thing con­fused and con­flict­ed flick­ered through Mrs.
Greene’s eyes, and then she said, “Yes.”
“I have to tell her we can’t stop.”
“Des­tiny Tay­lor died,” Mrs. Greene said.
“I know,” Patri­cia said. “I’m so sor­ry.”
“You promised you’d get her back to her moth­er and now she’s
dead,” Mrs. Greene said, then turned and dis­ap­peared into the
house.
Patri­cia stepped into the cool, dark house. Her skin con­tract­ed and
broke out in goose pim­ples. She’d nev­er felt the air con­di­tion­ing
turned this low before.
She walked down the hall, into the din­ing room. The over­head
chan­de­lier was on but it only seemed to make the room dark­er.
Grace sat at one end of the table in slacks and a navy turtle­neck
beneath a gray sweater. The table was cov­ered in trash.
“Patri­cia,” Grace said. “I’m not up to see­ing vis­i­tors.”
She had straw­ber­ry jam clot­ted in the cor­ner of her mouth, and as
Patri­cia came clos­er she saw it was a scab crust­ed around a split lip.
“What hap­pened?” she asked, rais­ing her fin­gers to the same place
on the cor­ner of her own mouth.
“Oh,” Grace said, and made her face look hap­py. “The sil­li­est thing.
I was in a car acci­dent.”
“A what?” Patri­cia asked. “Are you all right?”
She’d just seen Grace last night. When had she had time to get in a
car acci­dent?
“I ran to Har­ris Teeter this morn­ing,” Grace said, smil­ing. It
cracked the scab and Patri­cia saw wet blood gleam­ing in the wound.
“I was back­ing out of my space and backed right into a man in a
Jeep.”
“Who was it?” Patri­cia asked. “Did you get his insur­ance?”
Grace was already dis­miss­ing her before she fin­ished.
“No need,” she said. “It was just a sil­ly thing. He was more shak­en
up than me.”
She gave Patri­cia anoth­er enthu­si­as­tic smile. It made Patri­cia feel
ill, so she looked down at the table to gath­er her thoughts. A
card­board box sat at one end, and its dark wood sur­face was cov­ered
in jagged, white shards of bro­ken porce­lain. A del­i­cate han­dle
pro­trud­ed from a ceram­ic curve and Patri­cia rec­og­nized an orange
and yel­low but­ter­fly, and then her vision widened and took in the
entire table.
“The wed­ding chi­na,” she said.
She couldn’t help it. The words just fell out of her mouth. The
entire set had been smashed. Shards were spread across the table
like bone frag­ments. She felt hor­ri­fied, as if she were see­ing a
muti­lat­ed corpse.
“It was an acci­dent,” Grace began.
“Did James Har­ris do this?” Patri­cia asked. “Did he try to
intim­i­date you? Did he come here and threat­en you?”
She tore her eyes away from the car­nage and saw Grace’s face. It
was pinched with fury.
“Do not ever say that man’s name again,” Grace said. “Not to me,
not to any­one. Not if you want our rela­tions to remain cor­dial.”
“It was him,” Patri­cia said.
“No,” Grace snapped. “You are not lis­ten­ing to what I am say­ing. I
shook his hand and apol­o­gized because you made fools of us all. You
humil­i­at­ed us in front of our hus­bands, in front of a stranger, in front
of your chil­dren. I tried to tell you before and you wouldn’t lis­ten, but
I am telling you now. As soon as I’ve cleared up this…mess”—her
voice cracked—“I am phon­ing every mem­ber of the book club and
telling them in no uncer­tain lan­guage that this mat­ter is at an end
and will nev­er, ever be men­tioned again. And we will wel­come this
man into book club and do what­ev­er it takes to put this behind us.”
“What did he do to you?” Patri­cia asked.
“You did this to me,” Grace said. “You made me trust you. And I
looked like a fool. You humil­i­at­ed me in front of my hus­band.”
“I didn’t—” Patri­cia tried.
“You caught me up in your play­act­ing,” Grace said. “You arranged
this ama­teur the­atri­cal event in your liv­ing room and some­how
con­vinced me to participate—I must have been out of my mind.”
The morn­ing flowed into Patricia’s limbs like black sludge, fill­ing
her up as Grace talked.
“This tawdry soap opera you’ve imag­ined between your­self and
James Har­ris,” Grace said. “I’d almost sus­pect you were…sexually
frus­trat­ed.”
Patri­cia couldn’t stop her­self. The anger wasn’t hers. She was only
a chan­nel. It came from some­place else, it had to, because there was
so much of it.
“What do you do all day, Grace?” she asked, and heard her voice
echo­ing off the din­ing room walls. “Ben is off to col­lege. Ben­nett is at
work. All you do is look down your nose at the rest of us, hide in this
house, and clean.”
“Do you ever think how lucky you are?” Grace asked. “Your
hus­band works him­self to the bone pro­vid­ing for you and the
chil­dren. He’s kind, he doesn’t raise his voice in anger. All your needs
are catered to, yet you weave these lurid fan­tasies out of bore­dom.”
“I’m the only per­son who sees real­i­ty,” Patri­cia said. “Some­thing is
wrong here, some­thing big­ger than your grandmother’s chi­na, and
your sil­ver pol­ish, and your man­ners, and next month’s book, and
you’re too scared to face it. So you just sit in your house and scrub
away like a good lit­tle wife.”
“You say that like it’s noth­ing,” Grace wailed. “I am a good per­son,
and I am a good wife, and a good moth­er. And, yes, I clean my
house, because that is my job. It is my place in this world. It is what I
am here to do. And I am sat­is­fied with that. And I don’t need to
fan­ta­size that I’m…I’m Nan­cy Drew to be hap­py. I can be hap­py with
what I do and who I am.”
“Clean all you want,” Patri­cia said. “But when­ev­er Ben­nett has a
drink, he’s still going to smack you in the mouth.”
Grace stood, frozen in shock. Patri­cia couldn’t believe she had said
that. They stayed like that in the freez­ing cold din­ing room for a long
moment, and Patri­cia knew their friend­ship would nev­er recov­er.
She turned and left the room.
She found Mrs. Greene dust­ing the ban­is­ter in the front hall.
“You don’t believe this, do you?” Patri­cia asked her. “You know
who he real­ly is.”
Mrs. Greene made her face per­fect­ly calm.
“I spoke with Mrs. Cavanaugh and she explained to me that y’all
wouldn’t be able to help any­more,” Mrs. Greene said. “She told me
every­one in Six Mile are on our own. She explained every­thing to me
in great detail.”
“It’s not true,” Patri­cia said.
“It’s all right,” Mrs. Greene said, smil­ing dim­ly. “I under­stand.
From here on out, I don’t expect any­thing from any of y’all.”
“I’m on your side,” Patri­cia said. “I just need some time for
every­thing to set­tle down.”
“You’re on your side,” Mrs. Greene said. “Don’t ever fool your­self
about that.”
Then she turned her back on Patri­cia and kept dust­ing Grace’s
home.
Some­thing explod­ed red and black inside Patricia’s brain and the
next thing she knew she was storm­ing into her house, stand­ing on
the sun porch, see­ing Korey slumped in the big chair star­ing at the
TV.
“Would you please turn that off and go down­town or to the beach
or some­where?” Patri­cia snapped. “It is one o’clock in the after­noon.”
“Dad said I didn’t have to lis­ten to you,” Korey told her. “He said
you were going through a phase.”
It touched off a fire inside her, but Patri­cia had the clar­i­ty to see
how care­ful­ly Carter had built this trap for her. Any­thing she did
would prove him right. She could hear him say­ing, in his smooth
psy­chi­atric tones, It’s a sign of how sick you are, that you can’t see
how sick you are.
She took a deep breath. She would not react. She would not
par­tic­i­pate in this any­more. She went into the din­ing room and saw
the Prozac in its saucer and the bot­tle of pills next to it. She snatched
them up and took them into the kitchen.

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.

22
For the next two weeks, all I can think about is the way Eddie kept creep­ing around the lake house,
and I find myself doing the same thing back in Thorn­field Estates. Going down hall­ways, open­ing
clos­ets, pac­ing.
Stand­ing in front of closed doors.
For the first time since I start­ed see­ing Eddie, I feel lone­ly.
I imag­ine bring­ing it up to Emi­ly or Camp­bell, pow­er-walk­ing around the neigh­bor­hood, all,
“Hey, girls, Eddie took me to the lake house where his wife died; weird, right?”
Fuck that.
But peo­ple are still talk­ing, I know.
When I do man­age to leave the house, even just to go to Roast­ed for a fan­cy cof­fee, I hear two
women I don’t even know talk­ing about Bea.
Two old­er ladies, sit­ting at a table near a win­dow, one of them with her phone in her hand. “I
ordered things from her web­site every Christ­mas,” she says to her friend. “She was such a
sweet­heart.”
I edge clos­er just as the oth­er one says, “It was the hus­band, you know it was.”
“Mmmh­m­mm,” her friend agrees, low­er­ing her voice to whis­per, “It always is.”
But which hus­band? There are two involved here, and one of them is about to be my hus­band.
Then the lady hold­ing her phone says, “It’s just such a shame she got caught up in it. You know
that’s what hap­pened. He prob­a­bly didn’t want to kill both of them, but they were both there, and…”
“And what else could he do?” her friend says. “It was the only option.”
Like “mur­der­ing some­one” is the same as say­ing, “Sure, Pep­si is fine,” when you order Coke.
These fuck­ing peo­ple.
I keep lis­ten­ing, try­ing to dis­cern whether they mean Tripp or Eddie, Bea or Blanche, so that the
barista has to call, “Hazel­nut soy lat­te for Jane?” three times before I remem­ber I’m Jane.
I can’t keep doing this.
I need to talk to some­one. I need to know what hap­pened out there on that lake.
Detec­tive Laurent’s card is still in my purse, and I think about call­ing her, just casu­al­ly check­ing in,
see­ing if there’s any­thing I can do to help, but even I can’t fake that lev­el of con­fi­dence.
No, the less I talk to the police, the bet­ter.
So, I decide to talk to some­one I dis­like near­ly as much.
When Tripp accept­ed my text invi­ta­tion to lunch, I’d been a lit­tle sur­prised, but now here we sit at
the pub in the vil­lage, the one I’ve nev­er been to because it always seemed like the kind of place guys
like Tripp would fre­quent.
“I’m sure you’re won­der­ing why I asked you to lunch,” I tell him, going for the whole “hes­i­tant
col­lege girl” thing. My hair is loose today so I can ner­vous­ly tuck it behind my ears as I talk, and
while I’m not in the jeans and T‑shirts I always wore to work at his house, I’m in one of the more
casu­al out­fits I picked up after the engage­ment, a plain beige shirt­dress that I know doesn’t
par­tic­u­lar­ly flat­ter me.
Snort­ing, Tripp picks up his Rueben and dips it in the extra Thou­sand Island he ordered. “Let me
guess,” he says. “Some­one told you the rumors about Blanche and Eddie, and now you want to know
if it’s true.”
My shock is not feigned. I real­ly am that blink­ing, stam­mer­ing girl I’ve pre­tend­ed to be so often.
“What?” I final­ly say, and he looks up.
Tripp’s gaze sharp. “Wait, it’s not about that?” He frowns a lit­tle, lick­ing dress­ing off his thumb.
“Well, shit. Okay, then. So what, you just want­ed to hang out?”
I sip my beer to buy some time, and I hate this, feel­ing like I’m out of con­trol, that this thing I set
up is already fucked.
“I want­ed to talk to you because I know you’re going through the same thing Eddie is, and I just
want­ed to see how you were doing, to be hon­est.”
A lit­tle wound­ed sharp­ness in my tone, eyes meet­ing his then slid­ing back to the table. I can still
keep this on track, even if I do want to lunge across the table and shake him until he tells me
every­thing about Eddie and Blanche.
Some of Tripp’s smug­ness drains away, and he puts his sand­wich down, pick­ing up his beer.
“Yeah. It was … dif­fer­ent when I thought she drowned. Now this, it’s … well, it’s a hell of a thing.”
He drains near­ly half his beer, set­ting it back on the table with a not-so-dis­creet burp into his
nap­kin. “How is Eddie?”
Tripp’s stare is point­ed, and I see now that he has his own rea­sons for accept­ing this invi­ta­tion,
and they have noth­ing to do with being neigh­bor­ly.
“I can’t real­ly speak for him,” I reply, care­ful now, push­ing my fries around my plate. “But I know
he offered to coop­er­ate with the police. Any­thing he can do to be help­ful.”
Which is true. Eddie’s gone down to the sta­tion twice now to answer ques­tions, ques­tions he’d
nev­er told me the specifics of, and I won­der if that’s what Tripp is fish­ing for. Won­der­ing how much
Eddie is say­ing, what is he say­ing, and not for the first time, I won­der if this was more dan­ger­ous than
I’d thought, arrang­ing to meet him. And not just because some­one might see us.
Drum­ming his fin­gers on the table, he nods, but his gaze is far off now, and we sit there in an
excru­ci­at­ing silence for too long before he says, “There wasn’t any­thing. Between Blanche and Eddie.
It was just your usu­al neigh­bor­hood bull­shit. Eddie’s com­pa­ny was doing some work on our house, I
was busy, so I let Blanche han­dle it. They hung out a lot, but Blanche and I were good. And hon­est­ly,
even if I thought she’d cheat on me, she nev­er would’ve fucked over Bea.”
He gri­maces before adding, “Although Bea nev­er deserved that loy­al­ty if you ask me, but…”
His words just hang there, and I push, the lit­tlest bit.
“You said that Bea took a lot of … inspi­ra­tion from Blanche.”
“Basi­cal­ly took her whole life, yeah, but they both end­ed up in the same place, didn’t they?
Bot­tom of Smith fuck­ing Lake.”
Tip­ping his head back, he sighs. “Any­ways, if Emi­ly Clark or Camp­bell or any of those oth­er
bitch­es try to tell you Eddie and Blanche were sleep­ing togeth­er, it was just gos­sip. Maybe even
wish­ful think­ing, since it’s not like I was ever all that pop­u­lar with that crowd.”
What­ev­er I was going to get out of Tripp is gone now, I can tell. He’s slip­ping back into his
bit­ter­ness, and when he orders anoth­er beer, I make a big show of check­ing my watch. “Oh, shit, I
have a hair appoint­ment,” I say.
“Sure you do.” His tone is sar­cas­tic but he doesn’t press fur­ther, and when I try to leave a twen­ty
to cov­er my lunch, he waves it off.
Back at the house, I go back to my com­put­er, pulling up Emily’s Face­book page, look­ing for any
pic­tures of Blanche with Eddie, but there’s noth­ing. Not on Campbell’s, either, and while Blanche is
clear­ly tagged in a few pic­tures, it’s a dead link to her page, which I assume some­one in her fam­i­ly
took down.
I’ve been so fix­at­ed on Bea, it nev­er occurred to me to look that close­ly at Blanche.
Now it seems that was a mis­take.
Eddie doesn’t get home until late. I’m in the bath­tub, bub­bles up to my chin, but I hear him long before
I see him—the front door unlock­ing, his foot­steps down the hall, the door to the bed­room open­ing.
And then he’s there, lean­ing against the door, watch­ing me.
“Good day?” I ask, but instead of answer­ing, he asks a ques­tion of his own.
“Why did you have lunch with Tripp Ingra­ham today?”
Sur­prised, I sit up a lit­tle, water slosh­ing. I fuck­ing love this tub, so deep and long I could lie
down flat if I want­ed to, but right now, I wish I weren’t in it, wish I weren’t naked and vul­ner­a­ble.
Usu­al­ly, the size dif­fer­ence between us is kind of a turn-on. Eddie is sleek, but brawny—he’s got real
mus­cle, the kind you get from actu­al­ly work­ing, not just going to the gym. He makes me feel even
small­er and more del­i­cate than I am.
But for the first time, it occurs to me how easy it would be for him to hurt me. To over­pow­er me.
“How did you know about that?” I ask, and I know imme­di­ate­ly it’s the wrong response. Eddie
isn’t scowl­ing, but he’s doing that thing again, that forced casu­al­ness, like this con­ver­sa­tion doesn’t
real­ly mean that much to him even though he is prac­ti­cal­ly vibrat­ing with ten­sion.
“I mean, it’s a small town, and trust me, peo­ple were dying to tell me they saw you out with him.
Thanks for that, by the way. Real­ly fun texts to get.”
Pissed off, I stand up, reach­ing for the tow­el hang­ing next to the bath. “Do you hon­est­ly think I
have any inter­est in Tripp Ingra­ham?”
Sigh­ing, Eddie turns away. “No,” he acknowl­edges, “but you have to think about how things look.
Espe­cial­ly now.”
He moves back into the bed­room and I stand there, still naked, still hold­ing the tow­el, drip­ping
onto the mar­ble floor and look­ing after him.
I have worked so hard to present a cer­tain ver­sion of myself to Eddie, to every­one, real­ly, but in
that moment, it snaps.
“How it looks?” I repeat, fol­low­ing him into the bed­room, wrap­ping the tow­el around myself.
“No, Eddie, I didn’t think about how it looks.”
“Of course, you didn’t. Let me guess, you also didn’t think about how it might look for my fiancée
to be hand­ing over wads of mon­ey to the guy she used to live with.”
I am frozen stand­ing there in my tow­el, my stom­ach clench­ing. I’m too rat­tled to even try to lie.
“What?”
Eddie is look­ing at me now with an expres­sion I’ve nev­er seen before. “Did you think I didn’t
know, Jane? Did it nev­er occur to you to come to me?”
How? How the fuck could he have known? That first time, the mon­ey I gave him was mine. The
sec­ond, yes, that was Eddie’s, but I was care­ful. I was so care­ful.
“He called me, too,” Eddie says, his hands on his hips, his head tilt­ed down. “Some bull­shit sto­ry
about peo­ple in Phoenix look­ing for you.”
This can’t be hap­pen­ing; he can’t know. I can’t breathe.
“Did he tell you why?” I ask, my voice bare­ly above a whis­per, and Eddie looks up at me again,
his eyes hard.
“I didn’t ask. I told him to go fuck him­self, which is what you should’ve done the sec­ond he
called.”
He steps clos­er, so close I can prac­ti­cal­ly feel the heat radi­at­ing off of him. I’m still stand­ing
there, not even wrapped in my tow­el, just hold­ing it in front of me, shiv­er­ing with more than just cold.
“That’s what you do when peo­ple threat­en you, Jane. When they try to fuck you over. You don’t
give in to them, you don’t give them what they want, you remind them that you’re the one in charge,
you’re mak­ing the rules.”
Eddie reach­es out then, tak­ing me by the shoul­ders, and for the first time since I met him, I stiff­en
at his touch.
He feels it, and the cor­ners of his mouth twist down, but he doesn’t let me go. “I don’t give a fuck
why some­one in Phoenix is try­ing to find you. What I care about is that when he came to you with this
shit, you didn’t trust me enough to tell me about it.”
I don’t know what to say, so I just stand there, look­ing down, want­i­ng him to let me go, want­i­ng
him to leave, and final­ly, he sighs and drops his hands.
“You know what?” he says, step­ping back and reach­ing into his jack­et pock­et. “Here.”
He pulls out a slip of paper and forces it into my hand.
My damp skin near­ly smudges the ink, but I see it’s a phone num­ber, one with a Phoenix area
code. “This is the num­ber of who­ev­er was call­ing John.”
I star­tle, blink­ing down at the paper. “He gave this to you?”
Eddie doesn’t answer that, say­ing, “The point is, Jane, I’ve had this num­ber in my wal­let for the
past month. Before I asked you to mar­ry me. And I nev­er called it. Not once. You know why?”
I shake my head even though I know what he’s about to say.
“Because I trust you, Janie.”
He turns, head­ing for the bed­room door, and then stops, look­ing at me. “It would be nice to get the
same in return.”
With that, he’s gone, and I sink to the edge of the tub, my knees shak­ing.
But it’s not because of the num­ber I hold in my hand. It’s not know­ing that Eddie’s had it all this
time, that at any point over the past month, he could’ve called it and learned … every­thing.
It’s because of what he said. How he looked.
That’s what you do when peo­ple threat­en you, Jane.

After an invig­o­rat­ing yet per­ilous adven­ture in Ruri­ta­nia, our nar­ra­tor finds his way back home, choos­ing to recu­per­ate in the tran­quil­i­ty of the Tyrol. Here, in seclu­sion, he begins to mend in body and spir­it, qui­et­ly sig­nal­ing his well­be­ing to his broth­er to stave off any undue con­cern. With facial hair regrown to con­ceal his recent past, he ven­tures to Paris for a reunion with his friend George Feath­er­ly, where he is com­pelled to craft a veneer of nor­mal­cy over his recent extra­or­di­nary expe­ri­ences. This involves fab­ri­cat­ing tales of roman­tic escapades to mask his true adven­tures in Ruri­ta­nia.

In Paris, he also touch­es base with Madame de Mauban, trad­ing let­ters that speak vol­umes of the unspo­ken, of sac­ri­fices, secrets kept, and lives irre­versibly altered by the events in Ruri­ta­nia. His return home stirs a mix of tri­umph and expect­ed rep­ri­mand. His sis­ter-in-law, Rose, is both bemused and frus­trat­ed by his appar­ent lack of ambi­tion and duty. Mean­while, his con­tem­pla­tion of a poten­tial diplo­mat­ic posi­tion in Strel­sau is quick­ly shelved when the absur­di­ty of returning—as some­one so visu­al­ly indis­tin­guish­able from the King—is acknowl­edged.

Our nar­ra­tor intro­spec­tive­ly nav­i­gates through his sub­se­quent days, find­ing lit­tle allure in the soci­etal cir­cles that once cap­ti­vat­ed him. In the calm soli­tude of his coun­try retreat, he con­tem­plates the future, enter­tained by the fleet­ing thought that des­tiny may yet have plans for him—plans per­haps inter­twined with those of young Rupert of Hentzau, his adver­sary still at large. Despite lead­ing a sub­dued exis­tence, he is annu­al­ly drawn to Dres­den, where he shares in the fel­low­ship of his faith­ful friend, Fritz von Tar­len­heim. Their reunions, marked by a poignant exchange of red ros­es, serve as a tes­ta­ment to endur­ing bonds and unspo­ken promis­es.

The chap­ter elo­quent­ly clos­es on a note of reflec­tive long­ing and noble res­ig­na­tion. Our nar­ra­tor dwells on the love he har­bors for Flavia, the Queen of Ruri­ta­nia— a love both grand and unat­tain­able, dig­ni­fied yet fraught with the anguish of their sep­a­ra­tion. With her, resides his heart, though he is left to won­der if their paths might ever cross again, in this life or beyond. Amid these mus­ings, there lingers the hint of des­tiny’s unseen hand—whether it will ush­er him back to the thrills and per­ils of Ruri­ta­nia or keep him ensconced in his soli­tary rever­ie remains a mys­tery, teas­ing the read­er with the pos­si­bil­i­ties of what might yet come.