In Chap­ter 28 of “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” Bublan­s­ki meets Modig for cof­fee at Wayne’s. He express­es his despair over the inves­ti­ga­tion’s dis­in­te­gra­tion, reveal­ing that despite noti­fy­ing Ekström, there has been no deci­sive action tak­en. Frus­trat­ed, Modig agrees with Bublan­ski’s sen­ti­ments about Ekström, while they dis­cuss the absence of Faste and the cur­rent sta­tus of Hed­ström, which remains stag­nant due to Ekström’s hes­i­tance. Bublan­s­ki recounts a con­ver­sa­tion with Arman­sky, who men­tions that Salan­der had pre­vi­ous­ly advo­cat­ed for Hed­ström’s dis­missal but was ignored.

As the con­ver­sa­tion pro­gress­es, Bublan­s­ki briefs Modig on the ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion, with reports of mul­ti­ple bod­ies being dis­cov­ered, includ­ing a like­ly female vic­tim in a sec­ond grave. Although Salan­der has been ruled out as a sus­pect in the Nyk­varn mur­ders, Bublan­s­ki can­not dis­re­gard her capac­i­ty for vio­lence, espe­cial­ly since she shot Lundin in the foot. They pon­der how a seem­ing­ly frag­ile Salan­der could over­pow­er dan­ger­ous men like Lundin and Niem­i­nen.

The offi­cers also review the ongo­ing search for Lundin, who is tied to the kid­nap­ping of Miri­am Wu, which fur­ther com­pli­cates the case. Mean­while, Modig ques­tions if Salan­der had been resid­ing in Bjurman’s sum­mer cab­in. They dis­cov­er that Bjurman’s files on Salan­der appear incom­plete, sug­gest­ing he may have with­held cru­cial infor­ma­tion from her past.

In a par­al­lel sto­ry­telling, the nar­ra­tive shifts focus to a char­ac­ter in Lundin’s house, who grap­ples with anx­i­ety and unease in iso­la­tion. Dis­tract­ed and unset­tled, he even­tu­al­ly learns about the police inves­ti­ga­tion into the recent shootout at a sum­mer cab­in, indi­cat­ing that dan­ger is clos­ing in.

Blomkvist, tied deeply into the nar­ra­tive, con­fronts Hol­ger Palm­gren about Salan­der’s past. Palm­gren reveals haunt­ing truths about Salan­der’s child­hood, detail­ing the abu­sive dynam­ics with her father, Zalachenko, and the even­tu­al trag­ic cir­cum­stance of her moth­er. Through Palm­gren’s rec­ol­lec­tions, read­ers gain insight into how sys­temic fail­ures con­tributed to Salander’s painful upbring­ing and how these trau­mas shaped her iden­ti­ty and actions.

The chap­ter cul­mi­nates in height­ened ten­sion, with the char­ac­ters on the brink of uncov­er­ing deep-seat­ed truths and impend­ing threats, set­ting the stage for unfold­ing con­flicts in the nar­ra­tive.

In Chap­ter 28, titled “The Art Thief,” we delve deep­er into the plight of Bre­itwieser, who, after being arrest­ed, is left in a bureau­crat­ic lim­bo as he awaits the approval of an inter­na­tion­al search war­rant. This time drags on, and he feels increas­ing­ly iso­lat­ed, receiv­ing only a sin­gle phone call to the French embassy, which offers no assis­tance. His emo­tion­al state dete­ri­o­rates as he awaits a let­ter from his girl­friend, Anne-Cather­ine, believ­ing that she may have over­heard some­thing cru­cial before his arrest, which inten­si­fies his sense of aban­don­ment.

After a painful­ly long wait, Inspec­tor Meier vis­its. Despite Brei­wieser’s deter­mi­na­tion to remain silent, he ulti­mate­ly suc­cumbs to pres­sure and agrees to con­fess dur­ing an inter­ro­ga­tion. He fab­ri­cates a sto­ry about his inter­est in clas­si­cal music and claims he vis­it­ed the Richard Wag­n­er Muse­um to learn more. Under ques­tion­ing, he invents an excuse to explain the absence of a train tick­et.

Bre­itwieser goes on to describe his impul­sive theft of a bugle, claim­ing it was meant as a Christ­mas gift for his moth­er, and insists he did not intend to sell it. He dis­cuss­es the details of the heist can­did­ly, even sketch­ing a lay­out of the muse­um, and main­tains that he act­ed alone with­out any weapons. As the inter­ro­ga­tion con­tin­ues, he deceit­ful­ly pro­fess­es inno­cence, stat­ing that aside from this sin­gle inci­dent, he has com­mit­ted no oth­er thefts.

After­wards, he learns that he must dis­close the loca­tion of the bugle, claim­ing it is hid­den at his mother’s house. He express­es a desire to return the instru­ment to the muse­um, hop­ing his plan will spare his fam­i­ly from legal reper­cus­sions and result in a lenient sen­tence for him­self. He sends let­ters to both Anne-Cather­ine and his moth­er, implor­ing them to assist in return­ing the bugle, albeit with­out much faith in their respons­es.

As days pass and the inter­na­tion­al search war­rant is final­ly approved, law enforce­ment arrives at his mother’s res­i­dence, led by Meier. Despite Mireille Sten­gel’s ini­tial denial and her insis­tence that her son has­n’t brought any­thing home, the offi­cers pro­ceed to search. How­ev­er, much to their dis­ap­point­ment, the attic reveals a stark emptiness—no musi­cal instru­ments or valu­able arti­facts.

The chap­ter under­scores Breitwieser’s grow­ing despair and guilt, jux­ta­posed with his attempts to manip­u­late the sit­u­a­tion, reflect­ing the com­plex­i­ties of his char­ac­ter amid the unrav­el­ing con­se­quences of his actions.

In Chap­ter 28, titled “The Vir­ginia Min­strels,” the nar­ra­tive fol­lows the pro­tag­o­nist, Jim, as he encoun­ters a group of per­form­ers tent­ed out­side of town. Upon his return, he is approached by a short man who offers him a tin cup of cof­fee, some­thing Jim has only smelled before. This ini­tial inter­ac­tion car­ries an air of ten­sion as Jim feels uneasy around the white men who seem dis­in­ter­est­ed in his fear.

The man, Cas­sidy, intro­duces him­self with a wide grin and explains that he plays the trom­bone, which intrigues Jim, who is unfa­mil­iar with the instru­ment. As the con­ver­sa­tion unfolds, Cas­sidy extends a sense of friend­li­ness that is both com­fort­ing and per­plex­ing to Jim. The inter­ac­tion reveals both a racial dynam­ic and an awk­ward attempt at con­nec­tion across cul­tur­al bound­aries. Emmett, anoth­er mem­ber of the troupe, prompts Jim to sing when the moment arrives, spark­ing con­fu­sion about Jim’s sta­tus since he has just wit­nessed a pay­ment for his pres­ence.

Emmett claims he hired Jim as a tenor, assert­ing his oppo­si­tion to slav­ery, which Jim finds hard to believe giv­en the recent trans­ac­tion. Their dia­logue reveals the com­plex­i­ties of free­dom and servi­tude dur­ing this time. Cas­sidy, now armed with a long horn, begins teach­ing Jim songs, which involve catchy cho­rus­es and jovial tunes, despite Jim’s lin­ger­ing dis­be­lief about his free­dom from slav­ery.

As the men begin to pre­pare for the per­for­mance, Cas­sidy assists Jim in get­ting dressed in new cloth­ing. Jim strug­gles with the gar­ments, which aggra­vate his injuries and dis­com­fort, yet he is over­whelmed by the kind­ness shown by the per­form­ers. They teach him how to wear the vest and tie, bring­ing a light-heart­ed­ness to what feels like a momen­tous yet con­fus­ing change in his life. Despite the joy of music and cama­raderie, Jim’s thoughts are shad­owed by the real­i­ty of his past and the stark dif­fer­ences in treat­ment he has expe­ri­enced. The chap­ter poignant­ly cap­tures the ten­sion of nav­i­gat­ing new rela­tion­ships and shift­ing iden­ti­ties amid his­tor­i­cal con­straints.

In Chap­ter 28, titled “We Solve Mur­ders,” the nar­ra­tive fol­lows Bon­nie Gre­gor, whose jour­ney as an influ­encer began mod­est­ly. Just a year after post­ing her first photograph—a pic­ture of a pink toi­let door on Instagram—Bonnie finds her­self on a train to Letch­worth Gar­den City, her fol­low­er count hav­ing sky­rock­et­ed to 14,000. Ini­tial­ly, her audi­ence con­sist­ed of close friends and fam­i­ly, but after her pho­to gained atten­tion, includ­ing a share by Fearne Cotton’s moth­er, Bon­nie’s social media pres­ence explod­ed.

As she scrolls through her Insta­gram, Bon­nie recalls how the #LooWith­AView post got four likes ini­tial­ly, main­ly from sup­port­ive acquain­tances and a per­sis­tent South Kore­an bot. Her ear­ly attempts includ­ed a brief stint fea­tur­ing a pic­ture of Har­ry Styles, but she quick­ly dis­card­ed that notion, con­sid­er­ing it dis­re­spect­ful. Encour­aged by her friend Reba—who point­ed out that 14K fol­low­ers clas­si­fied her as an influencer—Bonnie felt inspired to pur­sue this social media path.

After see­ing her fol­low­ers dwin­dle post-toi­let door, Bon­nie cre­ative­ly paint­ed “ILove­MyK­itchen” on a cab­i­net, which revived inter­est. This led her to dec­o­rate her walls with var­i­ous slo­gans, turn­ing her home into an activist can­vas, although she soon real­ized she had exhaust­ed all avail­able space.

Arriv­ing in Letch­worth, Bon­nie feels a mix of nerves and antic­i­pa­tion. She rel­ish­es the pic­turesque walk to the high street, tak­ing a moment to mar­ket her­self by plac­ing a stick­er on a bench, then snap­ping a pho­to and shar­ing it on Insta­gram with fresh hash­tags. The instant likes boost her con­fi­dence, rein­forc­ing her belief in pro­vid­ing joy in a world rife with neg­a­tiv­i­ty.

As she approach­es her meet­ing with Felic­i­ty Wool­las­ton from Vivid Viral Media, Bon­nie reflects on her aspi­ra­tions. She hopes Felic­i­ty can help her mon­e­tize her pas­sion, as her cur­rent projects mere­ly cov­er costs and her day job remains indis­pens­able. With mul­ti­ple cre­ative ideas at hand, Bon­nie is eager to learn how to turn her dreams into real­i­ty, under­stand­ing that suc­cess often begins with dream­ing big.

In Chap­ter 28 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Saint expe­ri­ences a poignant moment of reflec­tion as spring emerges, with ici­cles melt­ing and gold­en­rods bloom­ing. Despite the beau­ty around her, she recalls the harsh­ness of the win­ter and her emo­tion­al bat­tles, notably on Patch’s birth­day when she feigned ill­ness to avoid school. Her grand­moth­er, Nor­ma, tries to cheer her with ice cream and a jig­saw puz­zle of Mount Rush­more, yet Saint feels estranged from her child­hood inno­cence.

While wait­ing for a bus on Main Street, Saint encoun­ters Jim­my Wal­ters, who express­es that he miss­es her smile. Their con­ver­sa­tion reveals the con­trasts in their lives, with Saint feel­ing the weight of her wor­ries while Jim­my seems care­free, main­tain­ing a cheer­ful demeanor despite the chal­lenges he faces. As they ride the bus togeth­er, mem­o­ries resur­face of Nor­ma’s nur­tur­ing ways and her bat­tles to keep the bus clean despite her long work hours.

As they tran­si­tion through dif­fer­ent towns, Saint cap­tures the beau­ty of the land­scapes with her cam­era, express­ing nos­tal­gia when she men­tions miss­ing bees. Their pic­nic reveals deep­er con­ver­sa­tions about loss—Saint grap­ples with the absence of Patch, reflect­ing on the mys­tery of miss­ing chil­dren and her sus­pi­cions sur­round­ing their fates. The chap­ter inten­si­fies as Saint shares her feel­ings of uncer­tain­ty about life’s mean­ing, while Nor­ma pro­vides com­fort, remind­ing her of the impor­tance of hold­ing onto mem­o­ries and laugh­ter, even in dif­fi­cult times.

Nor­ma’s sto­ries about Patch expose a ten­der under­stand­ing between them, cre­at­ing a bond defined by shared expe­ri­ences of loss and hope. The chap­ter cul­mi­nates with a sig­nif­i­cant exchange about the val­ue of mak­ing oth­ers smile, rein­forc­ing the mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions in life despite the loom­ing dark. With a bit­ter­sweet tone, it con­cludes with Nor­ma’s wise advice, cement­ing the lov­ing yet com­pli­cat­ed dynam­ic between grand­moth­er and grand­daugh­ter amidst the back­drop of an evolv­ing world.

Wait­ing ai

Dur­ing the dri­ve back to the Island, Andrew and the nar­ra­tor hard­ly speak, with Andrew pre­oc­cu­pied by thoughts of a forth­com­ing meet­ing in the city and a need to change his attire. The jour­ney is equal­ly impor­tant for him to refresh before his busi­ness engage­ment. Upon near­ing their des­ti­na­tion, a minor domes­tic con­cern emerges—the nar­ra­tor real­izes she for­got to put out the garbage as instruct­ed by Nina, fear­ing the reper­cus­sions of this over­sight on their neat­ly main­tained rou­tine. Andrew, attempt­ing to rem­e­dy the sit­u­a­tion, assures her he will han­dle it despite the prac­ti­cal dif­fi­cul­ties involved in dis­pos­ing of the trash per­son­al­ly due to their missed garbage col­lec­tion.

Upon their arrival, they encounter Enzo, the land­scap­er, whose pres­ence and the unusu­al tim­ing of their return evoke a sense of dis­ap­proval and ten­sion. Andrew seeks Enzo’s assis­tance in deal­ing with the garbage issue, ini­tial­ly meet­ing resis­tance. Through a some­what con­tentious nego­ti­a­tion that under­scores both a lan­guage bar­ri­er and an appar­ent reluc­tance on Enzo’s part, Andrew man­ages to con­vince Enzo to under­take the task for a sum of money—elevating the pay­ment offer until Enzo agrees. This exchange not only high­lights Andrew’s deter­mi­na­tion to resolve the trash dilem­ma but also empha­sizes Enzo’s ini­tial ret­i­cence and the com­plex­i­ties of their inter­per­son­al dynam­ics.

The inter­ac­tion with Enzo also sheds light on under­ly­ing ten­sions and per­cep­tions with­in the house­hold dynamics—Andrew’s expressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion with Enzo’s work eth­ic and pres­ence around their home sug­gests a deep­er lay­er of mis­trust or dis­com­fort, pos­si­bly ampli­fied by the land­scap­er’s exten­sive involve­ment in their pri­vate space. More­over, Enzo’s reluc­tance and even­tu­al accep­tance of the task, cou­pled with his pre­vi­ous inter­ac­tions with the nar­ra­tor, hint at a nuanced rela­tion­ship between the employ­ees and the house­hold, pos­si­bly influ­enced by Nina’s pref­er­ences or direc­tives.

In essence, this chap­ter con­veys a snap­shot of domes­tic life entwined with inter­nal and exter­nal rela­tion­al com­plex­i­ties, set against a back­drop of every­day con­cerns and the sub­tle intri­ca­cies of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and nego­ti­a­tion with­in inter­per­son­al rela­tion­ships.

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
28
My sis­ters ate break­fast with Rhys and me, Azriel gone to wher­ev­er he’d
tak­en the Attor. Cass­ian had flown off to join him the moment we returned.
He’d giv­en Nes­ta a mock­ing bow, and she’d giv­en him a vul­gar ges­ture I
hadn’t real­ized she knew how to make.
Cass­ian had mere­ly laughed, his eyes snaking over Nesta’s ice-blue gown
with a preda­to­ry intent that, giv­en her hiss of rage, he knew would set her
spit­ting. Then he was gone, leav­ing my sis­ter on the broad doorstep, her
brown-gold hair ruf­fled by the chill wind stirred by his mighty wings.
We brought my sis­ters to the vil­lage to mail our let­ter, Rhys glam­our­ing
us so we were invis­i­ble while they went into the lit­tle shop to post them.
After we returned home, our good-byes were quick. I knew Rhys want­ed to
return to Velaris—if only to learn what the Attor was up to.
I’d said as much to Rhys while he flew us through the wall, into the
warmth of Pry­thi­an, then win­nowed us to Velaris.
Morn­ing mist still twined through the city and the moun­tains around it.
The chill also remained—but not near­ly as unfor­giv­ing as the cold of the
mor­tal world. Rhys left me in the foy­er, huff­ing hot air into my frozen
palms, with­out so much as a good-bye.
Hun­gry again, I found Nuala and Cer­rid­wen, and I gob­bled down cheese-
and-chive scones while think­ing through what I’d seen, what I’d done.
Not an hour lat­er, Rhys found me in the liv­ing room, my feet propped on
the couch before the fire, a book in my lap, a cup of rose tea steam­ing on
the low table before me. I stood as he entered, scan­ning him for any sign of
injury. Some­thing tight in my chest eased when I found noth­ing amiss.
“It’s done,” he said, drag­ging a hand through his blue-black hair. “We
learned what we need­ed to.” I braced myself to be shut out, to be told it’d
be tak­en care of, but Rhys added, “It’s up to you, Feyre, to decide how
much of our meth­ods you want to know about. What you can han­dle. What
we did to the Attor wasn’t pret­ty.”
“I want to know every­thing,” I said. “Take me there.”
“The Attor isn’t in Velaris. He was in the Hewn City, in the Court of
Nightmares—where it took Azriel less than an hour to break him.” I wait­ed
for more, and as if decid­ing I wasn’t about to crum­ple, Rhys stalked clos­er,
until less than a foot of the ornate red car­pet lay between us. His boots,
usu­al­ly impec­ca­bly pol­ished … that was sil­ver blood speck­led on them.
Only when I met his gaze did he say, “I’ll show you.”
I knew what he meant, and stead­ied myself, block­ing out the mur­mur­ing
fire and the boots and the lin­ger­ing cold around my heart.
Imme­di­ate­ly, I was in that antecham­ber of his mind—a pock­et of
mem­o­ry he’d carved for me.
Dark­ness flowed through me, soft and seduc­tive, echo­ing up from an
abyss of pow­er so great it had no end and no begin­ning.
“Tell me how you tracked her,” Azriel said in the qui­et voice that had
bro­ken count­less ene­mies.
I—Rhys—leaned against the far wall of the hold­ing cell, arms crossed.
Azriel crouched before where the Attor was chained to a chair in the cen­ter
of the room. A few lev­els above, the Court of Night­mares rev­eled on,
unaware their High Lord had come.
I’d have to pay them a vis­it soon. Remind them who held their leash.
Soon. But not today. Not when Feyre had win­nowed.
And she was still pissed as hell at me.
Right­ly so, if I was being hon­est. But Azriel had learned that a small
ene­my force had infil­trat­ed the North two days ago, and my sus­pi­cions were
con­firmed. Either to get at Tam­lin or at me, they want­ed her. Maybe for
their own exper­i­ment­ing.
The Attor let out a low laugh. “I received word from the king that’s where
you were. I don’t know how he knew. I got the order, flew to the wall as fast
as I could.”
Azriel’s knife was out, bal­anced on a knee. Truth-Teller—the name
stamped in sil­ver Illyr­i­an runes on the scab­bard. He’d already learned that
the Attor and a few oth­ers had been sta­tioned on the out­skirts of the Illyr­i­an
ter­ri­to­ry. I was half tempt­ed to dump the Attor in one of the war-camps and
see what the Illyr­i­ans did to it.
The Attor’s eyes shift­ed toward me, glow­ing with a hatred I’d become
well accus­tomed to. “Good luck try­ing to keep her, High Lord.”
Azriel said, “Why?”
Peo­ple often made the mis­take of assum­ing Cass­ian was the wilder one;
the one who couldn’t be tamed. But Cass­ian was all hot temper—temper
that could be used to forge and weld. There was an icy rage in Azriel I had
nev­er been able to thaw. In the cen­turies I’d known him, he’d said lit­tle
about his life, those years in his father’s keep, locked in dark­ness. Per­haps
the shad­owsinger gift had come to him then, per­haps he’d taught him­self
the lan­guage of shad­ow and wind and stone. His half-broth­ers hadn’t been
forth­com­ing, either. I knew because I’d met them, asked them, and had
shat­tered their legs when they’d spat on Azriel instead.
They’d walked again—eventually.
The Attor said, “Do you think it is not com­mon knowl­edge that you took
her from Tam­lin?”
I knew that already. That had been Azriel’s task these days: mon­i­tor the
sit­u­a­tion with the Spring Court, and pre­pare for our own attack on Hybern.
But Tam­lin had shut down his borders—sealed them so tight­ly that even
fly­ing over­head at night was impos­si­ble. And any ears and eyes Azriel had
once pos­sessed in the court had gone deaf and blind.
“The king could help you keep her—consider spar­ing you, if you worked
with him …”
As the Attor spoke, I rum­maged through its mind, each thought more vile
and hideous than the next. It didn’t even know I’d slipped inside, but—
there: images of the army that had been built, the twin to the one I’d fought
against five cen­turies ago; of Hybern’s shores full of ships, ready­ing for an
assault; of the king, loung­ing on his throne in his crum­bling cas­tle. No sign
of Juri­an sulk­ing about or the Caul­dron. Not a whis­per of the Book being
on their minds. Every­thing the Attor had con­fessed was true. And it had no
more val­ue.
Az looked over his shoul­der. The Attor had giv­en him every­thing. Now it
was just bab­bling to buy time.
I pushed off the wall. “Break its legs, shred its wings, and dump it off the
coast of Hybern. See if it sur­vives.” The Attor began thrash­ing, beg­ging. I
paused by the door and said to it, “I remem­ber every moment of it. Be
grate­ful I’m let­ting you live. For now.”
I hadn’t let myself see the mem­o­ries from Under the Moun­tain: of me, of
the oth­ers … of what it had done to that human girl I’d giv­en Ama­ran­tha in
Feyre’s place. I didn’t let myself see what it had been like to beat Feyre—to
tor­ment and tor­ture her.
I might have splat­tered him on the walls. And I need­ed him to send a
mes­sage more than I need­ed my own vengeance.
The Attor was already scream­ing beneath Truth-Teller’s honed edge
when I left the cell.
Then it was done. I stag­gered back, spool­ing myself into my body.
Tam­lin had closed his bor­ders. “What sit­u­a­tion with the Spring Court?”
“None. As of right now. But you know how far Tam­lin can be dri­ven to
… pro­tect what he thinks is his.”
The image of paint slid­ing down the ruined study wall flashed in my
mind.
“I should have sent Mor that day,” Rhys said with qui­et men­ace.
I snapped up my men­tal shields. I didn’t want to talk about it. “Thank
you for telling me,” I said, and took my book and tea up to my room.
“Feyre,” he said. I didn’t stop. “I am sorry—about deceiv­ing you ear­li­er.”
And this, let­ting me into his mind … a peace offer­ing. “I need to write a
let­ter.”
The let­ter was quick, sim­ple. But each word was a bat­tle.
Not because of my for­mer illit­er­a­cy. No, I could now read and write just
fine.
It was because of the mes­sage that Rhys, stand­ing in the foy­er, now read:
I left of my own free will.
I am cared for and safe. I am grate­ful for all that you did for me, all that
you gave.
Please don’t come look­ing for me. I’m not com­ing back.
He swift­ly fold­ed it in two and it van­ished. “Are you sure?”
Per­haps it would help with what­ev­er sit­u­a­tion was going on at the Spring
Court. I glanced to the win­dows beyond him. The mist wreath­ing the city
had wan­dered off, reveal­ing a bright, cloud­less sky. And some­how, my head
felt clear­er than it had in days—months.
A city lay out there, that I had bare­ly observed or cared about.
I want­ed it—life, peo­ple. I want­ed to see it, feel its rush through my
blood. No bound­aries, no lim­its to what I might encounter or do.
“I am no one’s pet,” I said. Rhys’s face was con­tem­pla­tive, and I
won­dered if he remem­bered that he’d told me the same thing once, when I
was too lost in my own guilt and despair to under­stand. “What next?”
“For what it’s worth, I did actu­al­ly want to give you a day to rest—”
“Don’t cod­dle me.”
“I’m not. And I’d hard­ly call our encounter this morn­ing rest. But you
will for­give me if I make assess­ments based on your cur­rent phys­i­cal
con­di­tion.”
“I’ll be the per­son who decides that. What about the Book of
Breath­ings?”
“Once Azriel returns from deal­ing with the Attor, he’s to put his oth­er
skill set to use and infil­trate the mor­tal queens’ courts to learn where they’re
keep­ing it—and what their plans might be. And as for the half in Pry­thi­an
… We’ll go to the Sum­mer Court with­in a few days, if my request to vis­it is
approved. High Lords vis­it­ing oth­er courts makes every­one jumpy. We’ll
deal with the Book then.”
He shut his mouth, no doubt wait­ing for me to trudge upstairs, to brood
and sleep.
Enough—I’d had enough of sleep­ing.
I said, “You told me that this city was bet­ter seen at night. Are you all
talk, or will you ever both­er to show me?”
A low laugh as he looked me over. I didn’t recoil from his gaze.
When his eyes found mine again, his mouth twist­ed in a smile so few
saw. Real amusement—perhaps a bit of hap­pi­ness edged with relief. The
male behind the High Lord’s mask. “Din­ner,” he said. “Tonight. Let’s find
out if you, Feyre dar­ling, are all talk—or if you’ll allow a Lord of Night to
take you out on the town.”
Amren came to my room before din­ner. Appar­ent­ly, we were all going out
tonight.
Down­stairs, Cass­ian and Mor were snip­ing at each oth­er about whether
Cass­ian could fly faster short-dis­tance than Mor could win­now to the same
spot. I assumed Azriel was near­by, seek­ing sanc­tu­ary in the shad­ows.
Hope­ful­ly, he’d got­ten some rest after deal­ing with the Attor—and would
rest a bit more before head­ing into the mor­tal realm to spy on those queens.
Amren, at least, knocked this time before enter­ing. Nuala and Cer­rid­wen,
who had fin­ished set­ting combs of moth­er-of-pearl into my hair, took one
look at the del­i­cate female and van­ished into puffs of smoke.
“Skit­tish things,” Amren said, her red lips cut­ting a cru­el line. “Wraiths
always are.”
“Wraiths?” I twist­ed in the seat before the van­i­ty. “I thought they were
High Fae.”
“Half,” Amren said, sur­vey­ing my turquoise, cobalt, and white clothes.
“Wraiths are noth­ing but shad­ow and mist, able to walk through walls,
stone—you name it. I don’t even want to know how those two were
con­ceived. High Fae will stick their cocks any­where.”
I choked on what could have been a laugh or a cough. “They make good
spies.”
“Why do you think they’re now whis­per­ing in Azriel’s ear that I’m in
here?”
“I thought they answered to Rhys.”
“They answer to both, but they were trained by Azriel first.”
“Are they spy­ing on me?”
“No.” She frowned at a loose thread in her rain cloud–colored shirt. Her
chin-length dark hair swayed as she lift­ed her head. “Rhys has told them
time and again not to, but I don’t think Azriel will ever trust me ful­ly. So
they’re report­ing on my move­ments. And with good rea­son.”
“Why?”
“Why not? I’d be dis­ap­point­ed if Rhysand’s spy­mas­ter didn’t keep tabs
on me. Even go against orders to do so.”
“Rhys doesn’t pun­ish him for dis­obey­ing?”
Those sil­ver eyes glowed. “The Court of Dreams is found­ed on three
things: to defend, to hon­or, and to cher­ish. Were you expect­ing brute
strength and obe­di­ence? Many of Rhysand’s top offi­cials have lit­tle to no

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.

I WORE A CREAM-COLORED COCKTAIL dress with heavy gold bead­ing
and a plung­ing neck­line. I pulled my long blond hair into a high
pony­tail. I wore dia­mond ear­rings.
I glowed.
  *  *  *  
THE FIRST THING you need to do to get a man to elope with you is to
chal­lenge him to go to Las Vegas.
You do this by being out at an L.A. club and hav­ing a few drinks
togeth­er. You ignore the impulse to roll your eyes at how eager he is to
have his pic­ture tak­en with you. You rec­og­nize that every­one is
play­ing every­one else. It’s only fair that he’s play­ing you at the same
time as you’re play­ing him. You rec­on­cile these facts by real­iz­ing that
what you both want from each oth­er is com­ple­men­tary.
You want a scan­dal.
He wants the world to know he screwed you.
The two things are one and the same.
You con­sid­er lay­ing it out for him, explain­ing what you want,
explain­ing what you’re will­ing to give him. But you’ve been famous
long enough to know that you nev­er tell any­one any­thing more than
you have to.
So instead of say­ing I’d like us to make tomorrow’s papers, you say,
“Mick, have you ever been to Vegas?”
When he scoffs, as if he can’t believe you’re ask­ing him if he’s ever
been to Vegas, you know this will be eas­i­er than you thought.
“Some­times I just get in the mood to roll dice, you know?” you say.
Sex­u­al impli­ca­tions are bet­ter when they are grad­ual, when they
snow­ball over time.
“You want to roll dice, baby?” he says, and you nod.
“But it’s prob­a­bly too late,” you say. “And we’re already here. And
here’s OK, I sup­pose. I’m hav­ing a fine time.”
“My guys can call a plane and have us there like that.” He snaps his
fin­gers.
“No,” you say. “That’s too much.”
“Not for you,” he says. “Noth­ing is too much for you.”
You know what he real­ly means is Noth­ing is too much for me.
“You could real­ly do that?” you say.
An hour and a half lat­er, you’re on a plane.
You have a few drinks, you sit in his lap, you let his hand wan­der,
and you slap it back. He has to ache for you and believe there is only
one way to have you. If he doesn’t want you enough, if he believes he
can get you anoth­er way, it’s all over. You’ve lost.
When the plane lands and he asks if the two of you should book a
room at the Sands, you must demur. You must be shocked. You must
tell him, in a voice that makes it clear you assumed he already knew,
that you don’t have sex out­side of mar­riage.
You must seem both stead­fast and heart­bro­ken about this. He must
think, She wants me. And the only way we can make it hap­pen is to get
mar­ried.
For a moment, you con­sid­er the idea that what you’re doing is
unkind. But then you remem­ber that this man is going to bed you and
then divorce you once he’s got­ten what he wants. So no one is a saint
here.
You’re going to give him what he’s ask­ing for. So it’s a fair trade.
You go to the craps table and play a cou­ple of rounds. You keep
los­ing at first, as does he, and you wor­ry that this is sober­ing both of
you. You know the key to impul­siv­i­ty is believ­ing you are invin­ci­ble.
No one goes around throw­ing cau­tion to the wind unless the wind is
blow­ing their way.
You drink cham­pagne, because it makes every­thing seem
cel­e­bra­to­ry. It makes tonight seem like an event.
When peo­ple rec­og­nize the two of you, you hap­pi­ly agree to get
your pic­ture tak­en with them. Every time it hap­pens, you hang on to
him. You are telling him, in no small way, This is what it could be like if
I belonged to you.
You hit a win­ning streak at the roulette table. You cheer so
ebul­lient­ly that you jump up and down. You do this because you know
where his eyes are going to go. You let him catch you catch­ing him.
You let him put his hand on your ass as the wheel spins again.
This time, when you win, you push your ass against him.
You let him lean into you and say, “Do you want to get out of here?”
You say, “I don’t think it’s a good idea. I don’t trust myself with you.”
You can­not bring up mar­riage first. You already said the word
ear­li­er. You have to wait for him to say it. He said it in the papers. He
will say it again. But you have to wait. You can­not rush it.
He has one more drink.
The two of you win three more times.
You let his hand graze your upper thigh, and then you push it away.
It is two A.M., and you are tired. You miss the love of your life. You
want to go home. You would rather be with her, in bed, hear­ing the
light buzz of her snor­ing, watch­ing her sleep, than be here. There is
noth­ing about here that you love.
Except what being here will afford you.
You imag­ine a world where the two of you can go out to din­ner
togeth­er on a Sat­ur­day night and no one thinks twice about it. It makes
you want to cry, the sim­plic­i­ty of it, the small­ness of it. You have
worked so hard for a life so grand. And now all you want are the
small­est free­doms. The dai­ly peace of lov­ing plain­ly.
Tonight feels like both a small and a high price to pay for that life.
“Baby, I can’t take it,” he says. “I have to be with you. I have to see
you. I have to love you.”
This is your chance. You have a fish on the line, and you have to
gen­tly reel him in.
“Oh, Mick,” you say. “We can’t. We can’t.”
“I think I love you, baby,” he says. There are tears in his eyes, and
you real­ize he’s prob­a­bly more com­plex than you have giv­en him
cred­it for.
You’re more com­plex than he’s giv­en you cred­it for, too.
“Do you mean it?” you ask him, as if you des­per­ate­ly hope it’s true.
“I think I do, baby. I do. I love every­thing about you. We only just
met, but I feel like I can’t live with­out you.” What he means is that he
thinks he can’t live with­out screw­ing you. And that, you believe.
“Oh, Mick,” you say, and then you say noth­ing more. Silence is your
best friend.
He nuz­zles your neck. It’s slop­py, and it feels akin to meet­ing a
New­found­land. But you pre­tend you love it. You two are in the bright
lights of a Vegas casi­no. Peo­ple can see you. You have to pre­tend that
you do not notice them. That way, tomor­row, when they talk to the
papers, they will say that the two of you were car­ry­ing on like a cou­ple
of teenagers.
You hope that Celia doesn’t pick up a sin­gle rag with your face on it.
You think she’s smart enough not to. You think she knows how to
pro­tect her­self. But you can’t be sure. The first thing you’re going to
do when you get home, when this is all over, is to make sure she
knows how impor­tant she is, how beau­ti­ful she is, how much you feel
your life would be over if she were not in it.
“Let’s get mar­ried, baby,” he says into your ear.
There it is.
For you to grab.
But you can’t look too eager.
“Mick, are you crazy?”
“You make me this crazy.”
“We can’t get mar­ried!” you say, and when he doesn’t say any­thing
back for a sec­ond, you wor­ry that you’ve pushed slight­ly too far. “Or
can we?” you ask. “I mean, I sup­pose we could!”
“Of course we can,” he says. “We’re on top of the world. We can do
any­thing we want.”
You throw your arms around him, and you press against him, to let
him know how excited—how surprised—you are by this idea and to
remind him what he’s doing it for. You know your val­ue to him. It
would be sil­ly to waste an oppor­tu­ni­ty to remind him.
He picks you up and sweeps you away. You whoop and holler so
every­one looks. Tomor­row they will tell the papers he car­ried you off.
It’s mem­o­rable. They will remem­ber it.
Forty min­utes lat­er, the two of you are drunk and stand­ing in front
of each oth­er at an altar.
He promis­es to love you for­ev­er.
You promise to obey.
He car­ries you over the thresh­old of the nicest room at the
Trop­i­cana. You gig­gle with fake sur­prise when he throws you onto the
bed.
And now here comes the sec­ond-most-impor­tant part.
You can­not be a good lay. You must dis­ap­point.
If he likes it, he’ll want to do it again. And you can’t do that. You
can’t do this more than once. It will break your heart.
When he tries to rip your dress off, you have to say, “Stop, Mick,
Christ. Get a hold of your­self.”
After you take the dress off slow­ly, you have to let him look at your
breasts for as long as he wants to. He has to see every inch of them.
He’s been wait­ing for so long to final­ly see the end­ing of that shot in
Boute-en-Train.
You have to remove all mys­tery, all intrigue.
You make him play with your breasts so long he gets bored.
And then you open your legs.
You lie there, stiff as a board under­neath him.
And here is the one part of this you can’t quite come to terms with
but you can’t quite avoid, either. He won’t use a con­dom. And even
though women you know have got­ten hold of birth con­trol pills, you
don’t have them, because you had no need for them until a few days
ago when you hatched this plan.
You cross your fin­gers behind your back.
You close your eyes.
You feel his heavy body fall on top of you, and you know that he is
done.
You want to cry, because you remem­ber what sex used to mean to
you, before. Before you real­ized how good it could feel, before you
dis­cov­ered what you liked. But you push it out of your mind. You push
it all out of your mind.
Mick doesn’t say any­thing after­ward.
And you don’t, either.
You fall asleep, hav­ing put on his under­shirt in the dark because
you didn’t want to sleep naked.
In the morn­ing, when the sun shines through the win­dows and
burns your eyes, you put your arm over your face.
Your head is pound­ing. Your heart is hurt­ing.
But you’re almost at the fin­ish line.
You catch his eye. He smiles. He grabs you.
You push him off and say, “I don’t like to have sex in the morn­ing.”
“What does that mean?” he says.
You shrug. “I’m sor­ry.”
He says, “C’mon, baby,” and lies on top of you. You’re not sure he’d
lis­ten if you said no one more time. And you’re not sure you want to
find out the answer. You’re not sure you could bear it.
“OK, fine, if you have to,” you say. And when he lifts him­self off you
and looks you in the eye, you real­ize it has accom­plished what you had
hoped. You have tak­en all the fun out of it for him.
He shakes his head. He gets out of bed. He says, “You know, you’re
noth­ing like I imag­ined.”
It doesn’t mat­ter how gor­geous a woman is, to a man like Mick
Riva, she’s always less attrac­tive after he’s had sex with her. You know
this. You allow it to hap­pen. You do not fix your hair. You pick at the
mas­cara flakes on your face.
You watch Mick step into the bath­room. You hear him turn on the
show­er.
When he comes out, he sits down next to you on the bed.
He is clean. You have not bathed.
He smells like soap. You smell like booze.
He is sit­ting up. You are lying down.
This, too, is a cal­cu­la­tion.
He has to feel like the pow­er is all his.
“Hon­ey, I had a great time,” he says.
You nod.
“But we were so drunk.” He speaks as if he’s talk­ing to a child.
“Both of us. We had no idea what we were doing.”
“I know,” you say. “It was a crazy thing to do.”

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.

28
One day in ear­ly Jan­u­ary 2008, I had the boys, and at the end of the vis­it a
secu­ri­ty guard who used to work for me and now worked for Kevin came to pick
them up.
First he put Pre­ston in the car. When he came to get Jay­den, the thought hit
me: I may nev­er see my boys again. Giv­en how things had been going with my
cus­tody case, I’d become terri�ed that I wouldn’t get the kids again if I gave them
back.
I ran into the bath­room with Jay­den and locked the door—I just couldn’t let
him go. I didn’t want any­one tak­ing my baby. A friend was there and came to the
bath­room door and told me the secu­ri­ty guard would wait. I held Jay­den and
cried so hard. But no one was giv­ing me extra time. Before I knew what was
hap­pen­ing, a SWAT team in black suits burst through the bath­room door as if
I’d hurt some­one. The only thing I was guilty of was feel­ing des­per­ate to keep
my own chil­dren for a few more hours and to get some assur­ance that I wasn’t
going to lose them for good. I looked at my friend and just said, “But you said he
would wait…”
Once they’d tak­en Jay­den from me, they tied me onto a gur­ney and took me
to the hos­pi­tal.
The hos­pi­tal let me go before the end of a sev­en­ty-two-hour hold. But the
dam­age was already done. And it didn’t help that the paparazzi were get­ting
worse in their hound­ing of me.
A new cus­tody hear­ing was held and I was told that now—because I’d been
so scared to lose the kids that I’d panicked—I would be allowed to see them even
less.

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 28
“Patri­cia!” Slick cried. “Thank good­ness!”
“I’m sor­ry to drop by with­out call­ing—” Patri­cia began.
“You’re always wel­come,” Slick said, pulling her in off the
doorstep. “I’m brain­storm­ing my Hal­loween par­ty and maybe you
can unstick my log­jam. You’re so good at these things!”
“You’re hav­ing a Hal­loween par­ty?” Patri­cia asked, fol­low­ing Slick
back to her kitchen.
She held her purse close to her body, feel­ing the fold­er and
pho­to­graph burn­ing through its can­vas sides.
“I’m against Hal­loween in all its forms because of the Satanism,”
Slick said, pulling open her stain­less-steel refrig­er­a­tor and tak­ing out
the half-and-half. “So this year, on All Hal­lows’ Eve, I will be hold­ing
a Ref­or­ma­tion Par­ty. I know it’s last minute, but it’s nev­er too late to
praise the Lord.”
She poured cof­fee, added her half-and-half, and hand­ed Patri­cia a
black-and-gold Bob Jones Uni­ver­si­ty mug.
“A what par­ty?” Patri­cia asked.
But Slick had already burst through the swing­ing door that led to
the back addi­tion. Patri­cia fol­lowed, mug in one hand, purse in the
oth­er. Slick sat on one of the sofas in what she called the
“con­ver­sa­tion area,” and Patri­cia sat across from her and looked for a
place to set her mug. The cof­fee table between them was cov­ered in
pho­to­copies, clipped-out mag­a­zine arti­cles, three-ring binders, and
pen­cils. The end table next to her was crowd­ed with a col­lec­tion of
snuff­box­es, sev­er­al mar­ble eggs, and a bowl of pot­pour­ri. Along with
the dried flower petals, leaves, and wood shav­ings, Slick had added a
few golf balls and tees to pay trib­ute to Leland’s pas­sion for the sport.
Patri­cia decid­ed to just hold her mug in her lap.
“You catch more flies with sug­ar than vine­gar,” Slick said. “So on
Sun­day I’ll throw a par­ty that will make every­one for­get about
Hal­loween: my Ref­or­ma­tion Par­ty. I’m going to present the idea to
St. Joseph’s tomor­row. See, we’ll take the chil­dren to the Fel­low­ship
Hall—and of course Blue and Korey will be welcome—and we’ll make
sure there are activ­i­ties for the teenagers. They’re the ones most at
risk, after all, but instead of mon­ster cos­tumes they dress up like
heroes of the Ref­or­ma­tion.”
“The who?” Patri­cia asked.
“You know,” Slick said. “Mar­tin Luther, John Calvin. We’ll have
medieval line danc­ing and Ger­man food, and I thought it would be
fun to have themed snacks. What do you think? It’s a Diet of Worms
cake.”
Slick hand­ed Patri­cia a pic­ture she’d cut out of a mag­a­zine.
“A worm cake?” Patri­cia asked.
“A Diet of Worms cake,” Slick cor­rect­ed. “When the Holy Roman
Empire declared Mar­tin Luther a fugi­tive for nail­ing his nine­ty-five
the­ses to the church door? The Diet of Worms?”
“Oh,” Patri­cia said.
“You dec­o­rate it with gum­my worms,” Slick said. “Isn’t that
hilar­i­ous? You have to make these things enter­tain­ing and
edu­ca­tion­al.” She plucked the clip­ping out of Patricia’s hand and
stud­ied it. “I don’t think it’s sac­ri­le­gious, do you? Maybe not enough
peo­ple know who John Calvin is? We’re also going to try reverse
trick-or-treat­ing.”
“Slick,” Patri­cia said. “I hate to change the sub­ject, but I need
help.”
“What’s the mat­ter?” Slick asked, putting down the clip­ping and
scoot­ing to the edge of her seat, eyes fas­tened on Patri­cia. “Is it about
Blue?”
“You’re a spir­i­tu­al per­son?” Patri­cia asked.
“I’m a Chris­t­ian,” Slick said. “There’s a dif­fer­ence.”
“But you believe there’s more to this world than what we can see?”
Patri­cia asked.
Slick’s smile got a lit­tle thin.
“I’m wor­ried about where all this is going,” she said.
“What do you think about James Har­ris?” Patri­cia asked.
“Oh,” Slick said, and she sound­ed gen­uine­ly dis­ap­point­ed. “We’ve
been here before, Patri­cia.”
“Something’s hap­pened,” Patri­cia said.
“Let’s not go back there again,” Slick said. “All that’s behind us
now.”
“I don’t want to do this again, either,” Patri­cia said. “But I’ve seen
some­thing, and I need your opin­ion.”
She reached into her purse.
“No!” Slick said. Patri­cia froze. “Think about what you’re doing.
You made your­self very sick last time. You gave us all a scare.”
“Help me, Slick,” Patri­cia said. “I gen­uine­ly don’t know what to
think. Tell me I’m crazy and I’ll nev­er men­tion it again. I promise.”
“Just leave what­ev­er it is in your purse,” Slick said. “Or give it to
me and I’ll put it through Leland’s shred­der. You and Carter are
doing so well. Everyone’s so hap­py. It’s been three years. If any­thing
bad was going to hap­pen, it would have hap­pened by now.”
A feel­ing of futil­i­ty washed over Patri­cia. Slick was right. The past
three years had been for­ward progress, not a cir­cle. If she showed
Slick the pho­to she’d be right back where she start­ed. Three years of
her life reduced to run­ning in place. The thought made her so
exhaust­ed she want­ed to lie down and take a nap.
“Don’t do it, Patri­cia,” Slick said, soft­ly. “Stay here with me in
real­i­ty. Things are so much bet­ter now than they were. Everyone’s
hap­py. We’re all okay. The chil­dren are safe.”
Inside her purse, Patricia’s fin­gers brushed the edge of Mrs.
Greene’s fold­er, worn soft by han­dling.
“I tried,” Patri­cia said. “I real­ly did try for three years, Slick. But
the chil­dren aren’t safe.”
She pulled her hand out of her purse with the fold­er.
“Don’t,” Slick moaned.
“It’s too late,” Patri­cia said. “We’ve run out of time. Just look at
this and tell me if I’m crazy.”
She laid the fold­er on top of Slick’s papers and placed the
pho­to­graph on it. Slick picked up the pho­to and Patri­cia saw her
fin­gers tight­en and her face get still. Then she laid it back, face­down.
“It’s a cousin,” she said. “Or his broth­er.”
“You know it’s him,” Patri­cia said. “Look at the back. 1928. He still
looks the same.”
Slick drew in one shud­der­ing breath, then blew it out.
“It’s a coin­ci­dence,” she said.
“Miss Mary had that pho­to­graph,” Patri­cia said. “That’s her father.
James Har­ris came through Ker­shaw when she was a lit­tle girl. He
called him­self Hoyt Pick­ens and he got them involved in a finan­cial
scheme that made them a lot of mon­ey, and then bank­rupt­ed the
whole town. And he stole their chil­dren. When peo­ple turned on him
he blamed a black man and they killed him, and he dis­ap­peared. I
think it was so long ago, and Kershaw’s so far upstate, he didn’t
imag­ine he’d be rec­og­nized if he came back.”
“No, Patri­cia,” Slick said, press­ing her lips togeth­er, shak­ing her
head. “Don’t do this.”
“Mrs. Greene put these togeth­er,” Patri­cia said, open­ing the green
fold­er.
“Mrs. Greene is strong in her faith,” Slick said. “But she doesn’t
have the edu­ca­tion we have. Her back­ground is dif­fer­ent. Her cul­ture
is dif­fer­ent.”
Patri­cia laid out four print­ed let­ters from the Town of Mt.
Pleas­ant.
“They found Francine’s car in the Kmart park­ing lot back in 1993,”
she said. “Remem­ber Francine? She did for James Har­ris when he
moved here. I saw her go into his house, and appar­ent­ly no one ever
saw her again. They found her car aban­doned in the Kmart park­ing
lot a few days lat­er. They sent her let­ters telling her to come pick it
up from the tow­ing com­pa­ny, but they just sat in her mail­box. That’s
where Mrs. Greene found them.”
“Steal­ing the mail is a fed­er­al crime,” Slick said.
“They had to break into her house to feed her cat,” Patri­cia said.
“Her sis­ter wound up declar­ing her dead and sell­ing the house. They
put the mon­ey in escrow. They say she has to be gone for five years
before that mon­ey gets paid.”
“Maybe she was car­jacked,” Slick sug­gest­ed.
Patri­cia pulled out the sheaf of news­pa­per clip­pings and laid them
out like play­ing cards, the way Mrs. Greene had done. “These are the
chil­dren. You remem­ber Orville Reed? He and his cousin Sean died
right after Francine dis­ap­peared. Sean was killed and Orville stepped
in front of a truck and killed him­self.”
“We did this before,” Slick said. “There was that oth­er lit­tle girl—”
“Des­tiny Tay­lor.”
“And Jim’s van, and all the rest,” Slick gave her a sym­pa­thet­ic look.
“Tak­ing care of Miss Mary put you under a ter­ri­ble strain.”
“It didn’t stop,” Patri­cia said. “After Des­tiny Tay­lor came Chivas
Ford, out in Six Mile. He was nine years old when he died in May
1994.”
“Chil­dren die for all kinds of rea­sons,” Slick said.
“Then came this one,” Patri­cia said, tap­ping a police blot­ter
clip­ping. “One year after that, in 1995. A lit­tle girl named Latasha
Burns in North Charleston cut her own neck with a butch­er knife.
How would a nine-year-old do that if there weren’t some­thing
ter­ri­ble she was try­ing to get away from?”
“I don’t want to hear this,” Slick said. “Is every child who pass­es in
some ter­ri­ble way Jim’s fault? Why stop at North Charleston? Why
not go all the way to Sum­merville or Colum­bia?”
“Every­one start­ed leav­ing Six Mile because of the Gra­cious Cay
devel­op­ment get­ting built,” Patri­cia said. “Maybe it wasn’t easy to
find chil­dren who wouldn’t be missed any­more.”
“Leland paid fair prices for those homes,” Slick said.
“Then this year,” Patri­cia con­tin­ued, “Carl­ton Borey up in
Awen­daw. Eleven years old. Mrs. Greene knows his aunt. She says
they found him dead in the woods of expo­sure. Who freezes to death
in the mid­dle of April? She said he’d been sick for months, the same
as the oth­er chil­dren.”
“None of this adds up,” Slick said. “You’re being sil­ly.”
“It’s a child a year, for three years,” Patri­cia said. “I know they’re
not our chil­dren, but they’re chil­dren. Are we not sup­posed to care
about them because they’re poor and black? That’s how we act­ed
before and now he wants Blue. When will he stop? Maybe he’ll want
Tiger next, or Mer­it, or one of Maryellen’s?”
“This is how witch hunts hap­pen,” Slick said. “Peo­ple get all
worked up over noth­ing and before you know it some­one gets hurt.”
“Are you a hyp­ocrite?” Patri­cia asked. “You’re using your
Ref­or­ma­tion Par­ty to pro­tect your chil­dren from Hal­loween, but are
you lift­ing a fin­ger to pro­tect them from this mon­ster? Either you
believe in the Dev­il or you don’t.”
She hat­ed the bul­ly­ing tone in her voice, but the more she talked
the more she con­vinced her­self that she need­ed to ask these
ques­tions. The more Slick denied what was right in front of her eyes,
the more she remind­ed Patri­cia of how she’d act­ed all those years
ago.
“Mon­ster is a very strong word for some­one who’s been so good to
our fam­i­lies,” Slick said.
Patri­cia turned Miss Mary’s pho­to­graph over.
“How is he not aging, Slick?” she said. “Explain that to me and I’ll
stop ask­ing ques­tions.”
Slick chewed her lip.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“The men are all out of town this week­end,” Patri­cia said. “The
clean­ing com­pa­ny Mrs. Greene works for cleans his house on
Sat­ur­day and Mrs. Greene is going to be there and she’s going to let

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.

28
“Are you wor­ried?” I ask as the car winds down the steep hill from the coun­try club. The three
glass­es of sauvi­gnon blanc I drank on an emp­ty stom­ach have loos­ened my tongue. The purr of the
motor is qui­et, and there’s no traf­fic up here, no sound, real­ly, except for the soft sigh Eddie gives as
he places a hand on my knee.
“About Tripp? I mean, I’m not not wor­ried, that’s for damn sure.”
He reach­es up and unbut­tons the top but­ton of his shirt, and when I glance over, in the dim light
from the dash­board, I can see the shad­ows under­neath his eyes, the hol­low of his cheek­bones.
I reach over and place a hand on his leg. “It’s going to be alright,” I assure him. “Now that Tripp
has been arrest­ed—”
Scoff­ing, Eddie draws his own hand back, plac­ing it on the wheel as he nego­ti­ates anoth­er turn.
“That’s not exact­ly an end to it,” he says. “There’s going to be a tri­al, there will be reporters, there
will be more ques­tions…”
Trail­ing off, he shakes his head. “It’s a fuck­ing mess.”
I think about what Camp­bell had start­ed to say the oth­er day at cof­fee, about Eddie’s tem­per. The
cater­er who screwed up, Bea laugh­ing it off, but Eddie …
No.
No, I told myself I wasn’t going to allow those kinds of thoughts any­more. He asked me to trust
him, and I will.
“We’ve got each oth­er,” I remind him.
Eddie’s expres­sion soft­ens slight­ly as he looks over at me. “Yeah, there is that, isn’t there?”
He smiles, lean­ing over to light­ly brush his lips over my cheek. He smells good, like he always
does, but under­neath the spicy, expen­sive scent of cologne is the smok­i­er smell of bour­bon, and for a
minute, I’m remind­ed so vis­cer­al­ly of Tripp that I near­ly jerk my head back.
But Eddie is noth­ing like Tripp, and we’ve just been at a par­ty, for fuck’s sake. Of course he
smells a lit­tle like nice booze. I prob­a­bly still smell like those glass­es of sauvi­gnon blanc Emi­ly
pushed on me.
The house is lit up as we pull into the dri­ve­way, and I won­der if there will ever be a time when I
get used to the idea that I live here. That this gor­geous house is all mine.
Well, mine and Eddie’s.
I have anoth­er glass of wine when we get in while Eddie answers some late-night emails, and
then I decide I’m going to take a bath. I can’t get enough of that giant tub, of being able to use it
when­ev­er I want.

In Chap­ter 28 of “The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall” by Anne Bron­të, the nar­ra­tor, reflect­ing on the trans­for­ma­tive jour­ney from bride to moth­er with­in a sin­gle year, delves into the com­plex tapes­try of her emo­tions sur­round­ing moth­er­hood and mar­riage. This peri­od has damp­ened her ini­tial bliss and height­ened her fears, yet it has also intro­duced her to the pro­found joys and respon­si­bil­i­ties of rais­ing a child. She grap­ples with the dual fears that her child might either be tak­en from her ear­ly or live to regret his exis­tence, each thought lead­ing her to con­tem­plate the harsh pos­si­bil­i­ties that lie ahead.

As she inter­acts with her son, Arthur, the nar­ra­tor reveals a deep mater­nal bond, marked by hopes and fears for his future. She yearns for her hus­band to share in this bond, to feel the same joy and hope, and to par­tic­i­pate in shap­ing their son’s future. How­ev­er, her hus­band Arthur’s indif­fer­ence and some­times deri­sive atti­tude toward their child and his par­ent­ing duties present a stark con­trast to her devot­ed, nur­tur­ing approach. His inabil­i­ty to appre­ci­ate their son as she does intro­duces a strain, high­light­ing dif­fer­ing atti­tudes towards fam­i­ly and respon­si­bil­i­ty.

Arthur’s spo­radic attempts to engage with their son are more about seek­ing her com­pan­ion­ship or ward­ing off soli­tude than gen­uine inter­est in the child. A par­tic­u­lar­ly telling inter­ac­tion occurs when Arthur, after observ­ing his wife’s ado­ra­tion for their son, express­es jeal­ousy and frus­tra­tion, reveal­ing a gap in their rela­tion­ship. The nar­ra­tor’s attempts to involve Arthur more close­ly with their son, hop­ing to cul­ti­vate a deep­er bond, are met with dis­com­fort and reluc­tance, though he shows a fleet­ing will­ing­ness to engage.

Through these reflec­tions and inter­ac­tions, the chap­ter por­trays the nar­ra­tor’s strug­gle with her evolv­ing iden­ti­ty as a wife and moth­er in the face of per­son­al and mar­i­tal chal­lenges. Her pro­found attach­ment to her son and her aspi­ra­tions for him are jux­ta­posed against her hus­band Arthur’s detached, some­times resent­ful atti­tude, under­scor­ing the ten­sions between their per­cep­tions of fam­i­ly, love, and duty.