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 dierent 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
oered 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 dierent
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.