Chap­ter 26 begins with me walk­ing into a place I once avoid­ed at all costs—the church where John Rivers works. It’s not one of the grand South­ern church­es that stretch across whole blocks; this one looks more like a for­got­ten gov­ern­ment build­ing. Its brick walls are dull, the only indi­ca­tion of holi­ness being the stained-glass win­dow where Jesus stands among lambs. I’ve put on a care­ful­ly cho­sen outfit—blue pleat­ed skirt, crisp white blouse, match­ing bal­let flats—something that looks pol­ished with­out mim­ic­k­ing the Emi­ly-and-Camp­bell type. When I checked my reflec­tion this morn­ing, I felt unfa­mil­iar, but not in a bad way. This ver­sion of me feels clos­er to some­thing real, some­thing bal­anced between sur­vival and rein­ven­tion.

The girl at the desk greets me with a bright smile, expect­ing maybe a dona­tion, and she’s not com­plete­ly wrong. I ask for John, adding an exag­ger­at­ed South­ern drawl, and the smile dims slight­ly. She points me to the music room, where gui­tar chords echo faint­ly down the hall. It smells like weak cof­fee and old paper, the kind of scent that clings to for­got­ten places. When I walk in, John doesn’t imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­nize me, and that half-sec­ond of hes­i­ta­tion is every­thing I need to feel in con­trol. He’s try­ing to play the part—polished shirt, combed hair, fresh sneakers—but it’s a cos­tume, one he bought with mon­ey he black­mailed me for. And I’ve come to shut it down.

I don’t waste time. I tell him I spoke with his “Phoenix con­tact.” I had called the num­ber he’d giv­en me—the one he dan­gled over my head like a leash—and dis­cov­ered it led to a pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor hired by Georgie Smith. My sup­posed aunt. She’d been look­ing for a niece who might’ve gone by the name Helen Burns. I fed the inves­ti­ga­tor a story—half-truths and well-placed mis­di­rec­tion. I told him I’d known Helen in fos­ter care, that she’d got­ten into drugs and drift­ed away. I made it sound like she was long gone. More impor­tant­ly, I warned him not to trust John Rivers.

The moment I bring it up, John’s face goes pale. Watch­ing him squirm almost feels worth the price of every­thing he’s put me through. Almost. I tell him the PI won’t be call­ing him back. I paint­ed John as a con artist with a pattern—someone who preyed on women like Georgie, mak­ing emp­ty promis­es. It wasn’t true, not entire­ly. But it was close enough to stick. I see it in his eyes: fear, real­iza­tion, the col­lapse of con­trol. He tries to fight back, accus­ing me of run­ning, of hid­ing, of using him when I need­ed a place to stay. Maybe some of that’s true. But none of it gives him lever­age any­more.

I remind him, gen­tly, that he has no more pow­er here. And just in case he’s think­ing of try­ing again, I make sure his boss, Rev­erend Ellis, sees me donate a siz­able check for the church’s music min­istry. Now, if John tries any­thing, he’ll have to explain why some­one gen­er­ous enough to sup­port their sound sys­tem deserves to be harassed. My name—Jane Rochester—will appear in every church bul­letin from now on, right along­side Eddie’s. I want that reminder to burn every Sun­day. I leave the build­ing a few thou­sand dol­lars lighter but a hun­dred pounds freer.

As I sit behind the wheel, I tell myself I’m not that girl any­more. I didn’t kill Mr. Brock. But I didn’t save him either. That dis­tinc­tion matters—at least to me. He died in that house, clutch­ing his chest while I sat just a room away. He nev­er asked for help. And I nev­er offered. He let Jane die. Not me—the oth­er Jane. The one who was my best friend, my cho­sen sis­ter, the girl who used to sleep next to me in that cold room and nev­er got warm again.

Jane had been fragile—too small, too sick too often. She need­ed care, and the Brocks nev­er gave it. When she caught some­thing worse than the usu­al stom­ach bug, her cough rat­tled her whole frame. Her fever climbed day after day. I begged them to take her to the doc­tor, but they refused. They said she was fak­ing. That she’d be fine. One night, she wasn’t fine. She died beside me, burn­ing with fever, slip­ping away while I held her hand and whis­pered promis­es I couldn’t keep.

Mr. Brock nev­er faced con­se­quences. But the night he clutched his chest in pain, I didn’t rush to help. I let it play out. Maybe he would’ve died any­way. Or maybe not. But that night felt like bal­ance. Like jus­tice paid its dues, how­ev­er late. Jane didn’t deserve to die. He did.

Now, I’m free of John, free of Brock, free of that past. I have Eddie. I have this life. And no one—not John, not the Brocks, not even the ghost of Helen Burns—is going to take it away.