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.

20
When Sean Preston was very little, Kevin started working harder on his own
music. He wanted to make his own name, which was something I encouraged.
He was recording a lot, which was his passion. Sometimes I’d drop by a studio
where he was working and it seemed like a clubhouse. I could smell the weed
wafting out of the studio door before I even walked in. He and the other guys
would all be getting high, and it felt like I was in the way. I wasn’t invited to their
party.
I couldn’t stand being around pot smoke. Even the smell of it nauseated me.
And I had the baby and was pregnant, so it wasn’t like I could hang out all day.
So mostly, I stayed home. It’s not as if that was such a hardship. I had a beautiful
home—a dream home. We would hire an amazing chef—too expensive to use
very often. But one time, eating something the chef cooked, I said, “Oh my God,
this is the most delicious thing I’ve ever had and can you just live with us? I love
you so much!” And I meant it—I loved him. I was so grateful for any additional
help around the house.
Maybe this is the way married couples are, I thought as Kevin and I grew more
and more estranged. You take turns letting each other be a little selfish. This is his
first taste of fame for himself. I should let him have it.
I gave myself pep talks: He’s my husband. I’m supposed to respect him, accept
him on a deeper level than I’d accept someone I was just dating. He’s the father of
my kids. His demeanor is different now, but if it changed, it could change back.
People say he’s going to break up with me while I have tiny children, like he did
with the mother of his first two children when they were infants, but no way! How
he was with his other family won’t be the way he is with me.
In trying to make up all these excuses in my head, I was lying to myself—
totally in denial this whole time that he was leaving me. I ew to New York to see
him. He’d been so out of touch that I thought we needed to have some time
together as a family. In the city, I checked into a nice hotel, excited to see my
husband.
But he wouldn’t see me. It seemed like he wanted to pretend I didn’t exist.
His manager, who had been on my team for years, wouldn’t see me, either.
He was on Kevin’s team now and it seemed they were done with me.
“Damn, really?” I said.
All I could think was that I wanted to get close enough to Kevin that I could
ask him what was going on. I wanted to say, “When you left to come out here,
we hugged. You kissed me. What’s going on? What happened?”
I’d suspected something was up, that he was changing, especially once he
started getting press and feeling himself. One time he came home late and told
me he’d been at a party. “Justin Timberlake was there!” he said. “Lindsay Lohan
was, too!”
Do you think I care about your stupid party? I thought. Do you have any idea
how many parties like that I’ve gone to? I’ve known some of those people longer than
I’ve known you. Do you know how much I went through in my years with Justin?
No—you know none of it. I didn’t say any of that, but I wanted to say it and a
whole lot more.
Kevin was just so enthralled with the fame and the power. Again and again in
my life I’ve seen fame and money ruin people, and I saw it happen with Kevin in
slow motion. In my experience, when most people—especially men—get that
type of attention, it’s all over. They love it too much. And it’s not good for
them.
Some celebrities handle fame well. They have perspective. They have fun
being admired but not too much fun. They know whose opinion to listen to
and whose opinion to ignore. Getting awards and trophies is cool, and in the
beginning—those rst two years when you become a celebrity—well, it’s a
feeling you can’t explain. I think some people are great at fame.
I’m not. My rst two or three years I was good at it, and it was ne, but my
real self? In school I was a basketball player. I didn’t cheerlead, I didn’t wanna be
out there. I played ball. That’s what I loved.
But fame? That world isn’t real, my friends. It’s. Not. Real. You go along
with it because of course it’s going to pay the family’s bills and everything. But
for me, there was an essence of real life missing from it. I think that’s why I had
my babies.
So getting awards and all that fame stu ? I liked it a lot. But there’s nothing
lasting in it for me. What I love is sweat on the oor during rehearsals, or just
playing ball and making a shot. I like the work. I like the practicing. That has
more authenticity and value than anything else.
I actually envy the people who know how to make fame work for them,
because I hide from it. I get very shy. For example, Jennifer Lopez, from the
beginning, struck me as someone who was very good at being famous—at
indulging people’s interest in her but knowing where to draw lines. She always
handled herself well. She always carried herself with dignity.
Kevin didn’t know how to do any of that. I’ll confess, I’m not great at it,
either. I’m a nervous person. I run away from most kinds of attention as I’ve
gotten older, maybe because I’ve been really hurt.
At the time of that rough trip to New York, I should have known my
marriage was over, but I still thought it might be salvageable. Later, Kevin moved
on to another studio, this one in Las Vegas. And so I went there, hoping to talk
to him.
When I found him, he had his head shaved. He was getting ready to shoot the
cover for his album. He was in the studio all the time. He really thought he was a
rapper now. Bless his heart—because he did take it so seriously.
And so I showed up in Vegas carrying Sean Preston, still pregnant with
Jayden James, full of sympathy for Kevin’s situation. He was trying to make
something happen for himself and everyone seemed to be doubting him. I knew
what that was like. It is scary to put yourself out there like that. You do really
have to believe in yourself even when the world makes you wonder if you have
what it takes. But I also felt like he should have been checking in more and
should have been spending time with me. Our little family was my heart. I’d had
his babies inside of me for a very long time, and I’d sacri ced a lot. I had all but
abandoned my career. I had done everything to make our life possible.

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 20
“But I said you could spend the night with Laurie,” Patricia told
Korey.
“Well, now I changed my mind,” Korey said.
She stood in the doorway to Patricia’s bathroom while Patricia
finished doing her makeup. Korey had come home from soccer camp
and increased Patricia’s stress exponentially. It was hard enough to
make sure Blue was always somewhere safe after dark, but Korey
hung around the house aimlessly, watching TV for hours, and then
she’d get a phone call and suddenly need to borrow the car to go see
her friends in the middle of the night. Except for tonight, when
Patricia actually wanted her out of the house.
“I’m hosting book club,” Patricia said. “You haven’t seen Laurie
since you got back from camp.”
One of the reasons they were having it at her house was because
she’d exerted gentle pressure on Carter to take Blue out for supper at
Quincy’s Steak House and then to a movie (they decided on
something called So I Married an Axe Murderer). Korey was
supposed to be spending the night downtown.
“She canceled,” Korey said. “Her parents are getting divorced and
her dad wants to spend quality time. That skirt’s too tight.”
“I haven’t decided what I’m wearing yet,” Patricia said, even
though her skirt was definitely not too tight. “If you have to be home
you need to stay in your room.”
“What if I have to go to the bathroom?” Korey asked. “Can I leave
my room then, Mother? Most parents would think it was great that
their child wanted to spend more time with them.”
“I’m only asking you to stay upstairs,” Patricia said.
“What if I want to watch TV?” Korey asked.
“Then go to Laurie Gibson’s.”
Korey slouched off and Patricia changed her skirt because it felt
tight, and then she finished her makeup and sprayed her hair. She
wasn’t going to put out anything to eat, but she’d made coffee and
put it in a thermal jug in case the police wanted some. What if they
wanted decaf? She didn’t have any and worried that might affect
their mood.
She felt tense. Before this summer she had never interacted with
the police, and now she felt like that was all she did. They made her
nervous, but if she could get through tonight, James Harris would no
longer be her problem. All she had to do was convince the police that
he was a drug dealer, they’d start looking into his affairs, and all his
secrets would come spilling out. And she wasn’t doing it alone; she
had her book club.
Patricia wondered what they would have said if she told them that
she thought James Harris was a vampire. Or something like that. She
wasn’t sure of the exact terminology, but that would do until a better
name came along. How else to explain that thing coming out of his
face? How else to explain his aversion to going out in sunlight, his
insistence on being invited inside, the fact that the marks on the
children and on Mrs. Savage all looked like bites?
When she’d tried to perform CPR on him he had looked sick and
weak and at least ten years older. When she saw him the following
week he’d positively glowed with health. What had happened in
between? Francine had gone missing. Had he eaten her? Sucked her
blood? He’d certainly done something.
When she got rid of her prejudices and considered the facts,
vampire was the theory that fit best. Fortunately, she’d never have to
say it out loud to anyone because this was just about finished. She
didn’t care how they ran him out of town, she just wanted him gone.
She went downstairs and jumped when she saw Kitty waving at her
through the window by the front door. Slick stood behind her.
“I know we’re a half hour early,” Kitty said as Patricia let them in.
“But I couldn’t sit around at home doing nothing.”
Slick had dressed conservatively in a knee-length navy skirt and a
white blouse with a blue batik vest over it. Kitty, on the other hand,
had apparently lost her mind right before she got dressed. She wore a
red blouse bedazzled with red rhinestones and a huge floral skirt.
Looking at her made Patricia’s eyes hurt.
Patricia put them in the den, then went to make sure Korey had
her bedroom door closed, then checked the driveway, and walked
back into the den just as Maryellen opened the front door.
“Yoo-hoo? Am I too early?” Maryellen called.
“We’re in the kitchen,” Patricia hollered.
“Ed went to pick up the detectives,” Maryellen said, coming in and
putting her purse on the den table. She took two business cards out
of her day planner. “Detective Claude D. Cannon and Detective Gene
Bussell. He says Gene is from Georgia but Claude is local and they’re
both good. They’ll listen to us. He can’t promise how they’ll react, but
they’ll listen.”
They each examined the cards for lack of anything else to do.
Grace walked into the den.
“The door was open,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind?”
“Do you want some coffee?” Patricia asked.
“No, thank you,” Grace said. “Bennett is at a heart association
dinner. He won’t be back until late.”
“Horse is at the Yacht Club with Leland,” Kitty said. “Again.”
As July had gotten hotter, Leland had convinced Horse to put what
money he could scrape together into Gracious Cay. Then the Dow
had surged and Carter had cashed out some AT&T shares Patricia’s
father had given them as a wedding present and he’d put that money
into Gracious Cay, too. The three men had all started going out for
dinner together, or meeting for drinks at the back bar of the Yacht
Club. Patricia didn’t know where Carter found the time, but male
bonding seemed to be the in thing these days.
“Patricia,” Grace said, pulling a sheet of paper from her purse. “I
wrote all your talking points down in an outline just in case you
needed to jog your thoughts.”
Patricia looked at the handwritten list, numbered and lettered in
Grace’s careful calligraphy.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Do you want to go over it again?” Grace asked.
“How many times are we going to hear this?” Kitty asked.
“Until we have it right,” Grace said. “This is the most serious thing
we’ve ever done in our lives.”
“I can’t keep hearing about those children,” Kitty moaned. “It’s
horrible.”
“Let me see it,” Maryellen said, reaching toward Patricia.
Patricia handed her the paper and Maryellen scanned it.
“Lord help us,” she said. “They’re going to think we’re a bunch of
crazies.”
They sat around Patricia’s kitchen table. The living room had fresh
cut flowers in it, the furniture was new, and the lights were just right.
They didn’t want to go onstage until it was time. No one had much to
say. Patricia went over her list in her head.
“It’s eight o’clock,” Grace said. “Should we move to the living
room?”
People pushed back their chairs, but Patricia felt like she needed to
say something, give some kind of pep talk, before they committed
themselves to this.
“I want everyone to know,” Patricia said, and they all stopped to
listen. “Once the police get here there is no turning back. I hope
everyone’s prepared for that?”
“I just want to go back to talking about books,” Kitty said. “I want
this all to be over with.”
“Whatever he’s done,” Grace said, “I don’t think James Harris is
going to want to call any more attention to himself after tonight.
Once the police start asking him questions, I’m sure he’ll leave the
Old Village quietly.”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Slick said.
“I just wish there were another way,” Kitty said, shoulders
slumping.
“We all do,” Patricia said. “But there isn’t.”
“The police will be discreet,” Maryellen said. “And this will all be
over very quickly.”
“Will y’all join me in a moment of prayer?” Slick asked.
They bowed their heads and joined hands, even Maryellen.
“Heavenly Father,” Slick said. “Give us strength in our mission,
and make us righteous in your cause. In thy name we pray, amen.”
Single file, they walked through the dining room and into the
living room, where they arranged themselves and Patricia realized
her error.
“We need water,” she said. “I forgot to put out ice water.”
“I’ll get it,” Grace said, and disappeared into the kitchen.
She brought the water back at five after eight. Everyone adjusted
and readjusted their skirts, their collars, their necklaces and
earrings. Slick took her three rings off, then put them back on, then
took them off again, and put them back on one more time. It was
8:10, then 8:15.
“Where are they?” Maryellen muttered to herself.
Grace checked the inside of her wrist.
“Ed doesn’t have a car phone, does he?” Patricia asked. “Because
we could call if he does and see where he is.”
“Let’s just sit tight,” Maryellen suggested.
At 8:30 they heard a car pull up in the driveway, then another.
“That’s Ed and the detectives,” Maryellen said.
Everyone came awake, sat up straighter, touched her hair to make
sure it was in place. Patricia walked to the window.
“Is it them?” Kitty asked.

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.

20
JUNE
“We should go to the lake this weekend.”
I’m sitting at the kitchen counter, paging through another bridal magazine when Eddie speaks, his
tone casual as he pours himself a cup of coffee.
It’s been a week since Detective Laurent showed up and while neither of us have mentioned her
visit, it’s still been there between us, a third presence in the room all the time.
And now Eddie wants to go to the lake? The same place where Blanche and his wife died? Oh
wait, were murdered?
“Like, the house there?” I ask inanely, and he smirks slightly.
“That was the idea, yeah. Might be nice to get out of town for a little bit, you know? And you’ve
never seen the house.”
I’m temporarily stunned into silence. Finally, I say, “Are you sure that’s a smart idea?”
Eddie fixes me with his eyes. He’s still smiling, his posture loose and relaxed, and it’s somehow
worse than if he were angry. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
It feels like a dare. It is a dare. He wants me to say it out loud, to ask about the police
investigation. Does he wonder if I read into Detective Laurent’s visit, if I suspect him at all? Because,
if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t know what to think anymore. But I also think that in a twisted
way, going to the lake could give me some clarity.
“Okay,” I say. “We’ll go to the lake.”
We leave on Friday afternoon, Eddie wrapping up work early. The drive to Smith Lake is about an
hour from the house in Mountain Brook, and it’s pretty, taking us away from the suburbs and into the
more rural parts of Alabama, hills rolling gently, the sky a blazing blue.
We stop in a town called Jasper to eat lunch, Eddie as at ease in a little barbecue joint with
plastic tables and a roll of paper towels for napkins as he is at the fancy French place back in the
village.
Watching him with his sloppy sandwich, managing to get not one drop of sauce on his pristine
white shirt, I laugh, shaking my head.
“You fit in anywhere,” I tell him, and he looks up, eyebrows raised.
“Is that a compliment?” he asks, and I’d meant it as one, definitely. But not for the first time, I
wonder about Eddie’s past. He rarely talks about it, like he just sprang into the world, fully formed
when he met Bea.
“No, if I wanted to compliment you, I’d tell you how hot you look with barbecue sauce on the
corner of your mouth.”
He smiles and winks. “You think I’m hot, huh?”
Shrugging, I poke at the lemon in my sweet tea with my straw. “Most days you’re just passable,
but right now, yes.”
That makes him laugh, and he tosses a balled-up napkin at me. “This is why I love you, Jane,” he
says. “You won’t let my head get too big.” Even though it’s dumb as hell, I almost want to tell him my
real name then. Just to hear him say it.
Instead, I finish up my lunch, and we head back to the car, the drive short now.
We make our way down winding roads, dim under the canopy of leaves, the lake sparkling in the
distance. There are lots of houses, but the farther we drive, the more spread out they become until
finally, there’s just the woods, the lake, and as Eddie rounds a corner, the house.
It’s not as grand as the one in Thornfield Estates, and it was clearly built to look like a rustic lake
house, the kind of place where you bring kids fishing, but it’s still sprawling, and I feel the coziness
of lunch start to ebb away.
It’s so quiet here. So isolated.
And it’s the last place Bea was ever alive.
As Eddie gets our bags from the trunk, I think he might be feeling something similar because he’s
quiet except to call out, “The code for the door is the same one at the house.”
6-12-85. Bea’s birthday.
I enter it into the keypad on the front door, and step inside.
More similarities to Eddie’s house—our house. It’s clearly been expensively decorated, but it’s
designed to look lived-in, too. There’s darker wood here, darker furniture, the whole place a lot more
masculine, a lot less … Bea.
As I stand beside the heavy front door, my surprise must register on my face because as Eddie
steps past me with our stuff, he asks, “What?”
“It’s just…”
This house looks so much more like him. Even though Bea died here, her ghost doesn’t feel nearly
as present.
“This is a very man-cavey place,” I finally say, and one corner of his mouth kicks up as he tosses
his leather bag onto a couch done in green-and-blue tartan.
“This place was Bea’s wedding present to me,” he says. “So, she let me decorate.” Another
smile, wry this time. “Which means I said yes to everything she picked out.”
So, Bea’s stamp is still here—it’s just her version of what she thought Eddie would like. Should
like.
I move into the living room, seeing it through Bea’s eyes, imagining how she saw Eddie. Even
though this is on a lake, not the ocean, there’s a whole coastal theme happening. Paintings of
schooners, decorations made with heavy rope, even an old Chelsea Clock on the wall.
“I worked on sailboats when I was younger, up north. Charter boats in Bar Harbor, that kind of
thing,” he says, nodding at the seascape over the fireplace. “I guess Bea wanted to remind me of it.”
“Because you liked it or because you hated it?”
The question is out before I realize what a stupid thing it is to ask, how much it reveals.
His head jerks back slightly, like the question was an actual physical blow, and he narrows his
eyes. “What does that mean?” he asks, and I feel my face go hot as I shrug, nudging the edge of an area
rug with my toe.
“You’ve just never mentioned that to me before, so I thought … maybe you were trying to forget
it? Your past. Maybe this reminder of it might not have actually been a nice thing to do.”
“You think Bea was that kind of bitch?” he asks, and god, I have royally fucked this up.
“Of course not,” I say, but to my surprise, he just laughs, shaking his head.
“I can’t blame you for it. I imagine you saw some real cunty stuff when you worked in the
neighborhood.”
It’s a relief, both that he doesn’t think my question was that weird, and also that he gets me. I may
not always be honest with Eddie, but he still sees these parts of me sometimes, and I like it.
It makes me think that even though I’ve been playing a certain role, he might have picked me—the
real me—anyway.
“It was still a dumb thing to say,” I tell him now, sliding closer to him. Over his shoulder is a
glass door leading out to a screened-in porch; beyond that is a sloping green lawn, a narrow pier, and
the dark water of the lake. This time of the afternoon, the sun sends little sparks of gold dancing
across its surface.
It’s hard to believe that this pretty, sparkly water took Bea’s life. And Blanche’s. And it’s even
harder to believe Eddie would want to be anywhere near it again. How can we sit out there tonight
and drink wine and not think about it?
But Eddie just gives my ass a pat, propelling me slightly in the direction of the hallway off the
living room. “Go ahead and get settled, and I’ll unpack the groceries.”
The master bedroom is nowhere near as big as the one back at Thornfield, but it’s pretty and, like
the rest of the house, cozy and comfortable. There’s a quilt on the bed in swirling shades of blue, and
a big armchair near the window with a good view of the lake.
I settle into the chair now, watching the water.
After twenty minutes, I still haven’t seen a single person out there.
No boats, no Jet Skis, no swimmers. The only sound is the lapping of the water against the dock
and the wind in the trees.
When I come out of the bedroom, Eddie is pouring us both a glass of wine.
“It’s really quiet out here,” I say, and he nods, looking out the back door toward the water.
“That’s why we picked it.”
And then he releases a long deep breath and says, “It made me crazy. After Bea.”
I look up, startled. I hadn’t expected him to voluntarily mention her after my fuckup earlier.
“The quiet,” he goes on. “Thinking about that night and how quiet it would’ve been, how dark.”
He keeps his eyes trained on the water. “It’s deep out there, you know. The deepest lake in
Alabama.”
I hadn’t known that, and I don’t say anything. I’m not even sure if he’s talking to me, to be honest.
It’s almost like he’s talking to himself, staring out at the lake.
“They flooded a forest to make it,” he goes on. “So there are trees under the water. Tall ones,
sixty feet high in some places. A whole fucking forest under the water. That’s why they thought they
never found her. They thought she was somewhere in the trees.”
The image seeps into my mind. Bea, her skin white, her body tangled in the branches of an
underwater forest, and it’s so awful I actually shake my head a little. I’d wondered why it had been so
hard to find the bodies, and now that I knew, I wish I didn’t.

In Chapter 20, titled “Jungle Island Again,” the narrative returns to the stranded party on Jungle Island, led by Tarzan, struggling for survival. Tarzan emphasizes the construction of a vessel to return to the mainland, a daunting task that causes discord and laziness among the crew, raising Tarzan’s concern for Jane’s safety with the increasingly unreliable Kincaid’s crew. Conversely, on the island’s north coast, the mutineers of the schooner Cowrie, under Gust, Momulla, and Kai Shang, plot greedily over their stolen pearls, unaware of their ship being the potential salvation for Tarzan’s group.

Gust harbors plans to abandon his cohorts with the Cowrie, manipulating fears of being pursued by a man-of-war seen days earlier to stall departure. This lie, coupled with his claim about the warship’s supposed wireless eavesdropping, buys time, reflecting his cunning yet cowardly nature.

Unexpectedly, Momulla encounters Schneider and Schmidt from the Kincaid, who conspire to leave the island, taking Jane as a means to ensure their payment. Their plan aligns with Momulla’s group’s needs, leading to a proposed alliance to capture Jane and use the Cowrie for their escape, potentially leaving Gust obsolete.

The chapter shifts towards action as Gust, overhearing Kai Shang and Momulla’s murderous intent towards him due to his navigational skills, flees into the daunting jungle, prioritizing survival over his fear of its unknown dangers. This departure marks a significant turning point, emphasizing the prevailing disloyalty and desperation among the stranded parties on the island.