In Chap­ter 17, Arman­sky inves­ti­gates Salan­der’s per­son­al­i­ty using Mil­ton Secu­ri­ty’s report form on East­er week­end. Mean­while, Blomkvist han­dles media inquiries about the dis­cov­ery of Dag Svens­son and Mia Johansson’s bod­ies, with whom he had per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al con­nec­tions. Despite media pres­sure, Blomkvist clar­i­fies the nature of their work for Mil­len­ni­um and denies any link to Salan­der, while main­tain­ing dis­cre­tion out of respect for the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies.

In Chap­ter 17 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” the scene unfolds in a tense office where Nix, pre­sum­ably a police offi­cer, urges a young girl named Saint to stop her cur­rent course of action. Saint, caught in a moment of despair, reflects on her life, feel­ing a deep sense of inad­e­qua­cy and poverty—not in mate­r­i­al wealth, but in her lack of style and fem­i­nin­i­ty that leaves her feel­ing iso­lat­ed from her peers. This feel­ing is ampli­fied as she rec­og­nizes the judg­ment from oth­ers, includ­ing Nix.

Sain­t’s thoughts drift to her friend Misty and the mys­te­ri­ous Dr. T, who she learns was alleged­ly in the woods search­ing for his miss­ing dog when an inci­dent occurred. Despite Nix’s claims, Saint is skep­ti­cal; she insists Dr. T does not own a dog, reveal­ing her inti­mate knowl­edge of the area sur­round­ing her grand­moth­er’s house that backs onto a farm. Her asser­tion indi­cates her famil­iar­i­ty with the land­scape and height­ens her sus­pi­cion about the whole sce­nario.

As Nix pre­pares to respond, a phone call inter­rupts the exchange, and Saint observes the sud­den change in Nix’s demeanor, indi­cat­ing some­thing sig­nif­i­cant has hap­pened. The chap­ter clos­es with a fore­bod­ing sense of dread as the news breaks that anoth­er girl has gone miss­ing, height­en­ing the ten­sion in Mon­ta Clare. The atmos­phere is thick with uncer­tain­ty and fear, encap­su­lat­ing Sain­t’s strug­gle to seek the truth amidst the chaos sur­round­ing her.

Over­all, this chap­ter deep­ens the mys­tery while explor­ing themes of iso­la­tion, trust, and the impact of loss in a small com­mu­ni­ty. The emo­tion­al under­tones cou­pled with the nar­ra­tive’s pac­ing cre­ate a pal­pa­ble sense of urgency and appre­hen­sion as the sto­ry unfolds.

In Chap­ter 17, Phoebe finds her­self anx­ious and uncer­tain about Lila’s absence before the Blend­ing of the Fam­i­lies, wor­ried that Lila may be upset with her for var­i­ous rea­sons, includ­ing leav­ing Gas‑X at her door with­out pack­ag­ing. Ulti­mate­ly, she reflects on her own feel­ings of joy and love she expe­ri­enced with Gary, acknowl­edg­ing that Lila encour­aged her to embrace this feel­ing. How­ev­er, when it comes to writ­ing her maid of hon­or speech, she strug­gles to artic­u­late her thoughts, feel­ing as though she’s writ­ing on a top­ic she does­n’t ful­ly believe in.

Her intro­spec­tion leads her to rec­og­nize the dis­con­nect in Lila and Gary’s rela­tion­ship. They are not tru­ly in love; rather, they are two indi­vid­u­als seek­ing love, pos­si­bly out of a fear of lone­li­ness. Phoebe encoun­ters Jim, who ini­tial­ly seeks her help with his speech but soon becomes an ally in their shared predica­ment. As they brain­storm togeth­er, Jim reveals his inse­cu­ri­ties about his under­stand­ing of Gary’s new rela­tion­ship with Lila, ques­tion­ing the authen­tic­i­ty and depth of Gary’s feel­ings.

As the con­ver­sa­tion deep­ens, Jim nos­tal­gi­cal­ly recounts his own crush on Lila and a poignant moment they shared when she was griev­ing her father’s ill­ness. Despite his feel­ings toward her, he con­fess­es that he ulti­mate­ly stepped aside for Gary out of loy­al­ty, believ­ing that Gary’s hap­pi­ness was para­mount, even at the cost of his own.

With comedic under­tones, Jim pro­pos­es using mar­i­jua­na edi­bles to alle­vi­ate their writer’s block, lead­ing to humor­ous exchanges about para­noia and their uncer­tain­ty sur­round­ing their feel­ings at the wed­ding. As they await the effects, the unique­ness of the sit­u­a­tion emerges — two friends grap­pling with their emo­tions, each entan­gled in the com­plex rela­tion­ships around them.

As Phoebe writes her speech back in her room, her thoughts drift to her own life and what might come next. Filled with a new­found sense of pur­pose, she seeks oppor­tu­ni­ties, explor­ing options for hous­ing and teach­ing, sug­gest­ing a desire to pos­si­bly start anew. The chap­ter clos­es with her feel­ing accom­plished and hope­ful, ready to face what­ev­er comes next .

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

17
I was hap­py with my new album, In the Zone. “Me Against the Music,”
fea­tur­ing Madon­na, was the �rst sin­gle o� the album. The next sin­gle was
“Tox­ic,” for which I won a Gram­my Award. “Tox­ic” was inno­v­a­tive as well as a
mas­sive suc­cess, and is still one of my favorites to per­form.
To pro­mote the album, I went out with an MTV cam­era crew in New York
City one night to �lm a spe­cial called In the Zone & Out All Night. We drove all
over the city to appear at three nightclubs—Show, Splash, and Aval­on. It was
elec­tri­fy­ing to see large groups of peo­ple danc­ing to the new songs. As has
hap­pened again and again in my career, my fans remind­ed me why I do what I
do.
But then, one day, there was a knock on my door. When I opened it, four
men just walked in right past me; I didn’t rec­og­nize three of them. I’d nev­er seen
their faces before in my life.
The fourth was my father.
They pro­ceed­ed to sit me down on a sofa (the same one I have to this day in
my bed­room). Imme­di­ate­ly they start­ed pep­per­ing me with ques­tions,
ques­tions, and more ques­tions. I was mute: I wasn’t will­ing to talk with any­one.
I had noth­ing to say.
A day lat­er I got a call from my team that I was going to speak to Diane
Sawyer… and on that same sofa. Because of what had hap­pened with Justin, and
every­thing I’d been through, I felt like I was no longer able to com­mu­ni­cate with
the world. I had a dark cloud over my head; I was trau­ma­tized.
I’d often retreat­ed to my apart­ment to be alone; now I was being forced to
speak to Diane Sawyer there and cry in front of the entire nation.
It was com­plete­ly humil­i­at­ing. I wasn’t told what the ques­tions would be
ahead of time, and it turned out they were 100 per­cent embar­rass­ing. I was too
vul­ner­a­ble then, too sen­si­tive, to do this type of inter­view. She asked things like,
“He’s going on tele­vi­sion and say­ing you broke his heart. You did some­thing
that caused him so much pain. So much su�ering. What did you do?”
I didn’t want to share any­thing pri­vate with the world. I didn’t owe the media
details of my breakup. I shouldn’t have been forced to speak on nation­al TV,
forced to cry in front of this stranger, a woman who was relent­less­ly going after
me with harsh ques­tion after harsh ques­tion. Instead, I felt like I had been
exploit­ed, set up in front of the whole world.
That inter­view was a break­ing point for me internally—a switch had been
�ipped. I felt some­thing dark come over my body. I felt myself turn­ing, almost
like a were­wolf, into a Bad Per­son.
I hon­est­ly feel like that moment in my life should have been a time for
growing—and not shar­ing every­thing with the world. It would have been the
bet­ter way to heal.
But I had no choice. It seemed like nobody real­ly cared how I felt.
Back home in Louisiana again for the hol­i­days, I invit­ed some friends over. We
were try­ing to hang out in the guest­house I’d built behind the main house—and
my moth­er got annoyed with us for being noisy. Sud­den­ly, it hit me that I had
enough mon­ey that we did not have to stay in Louisiana. I booked us a trip to
Las Vegas for New Year’s Eve and some friends from my tour joined us.
We cut loose at the Palms Casi­no Resort and drank—a lot. I’ll admit that we
got phe­nom­e­nal­ly stu­pid. I will also say that this was one time when I almost felt
over­whelmed hav­ing that much free­dom in Sin City. I was this lit­tle girl who had
worked so much, and then all of a sud­den the sched­ule was blank for a few days,
and so: Hel­lo, alco­hol!
Paris Hilton showed up at the casi­no to hang out and have some drinks.
Before I knew it, we got on top of tables, took our shoes o�, and ran through the
whole club like fairy-dust­ed idiots. No one got hurt, and I had the best time
with Paris—we were just play­ing, and we still do every time we get togeth­er.
I wasn’t rude to any­body. It was just inno­cent fun. Most peo­ple will prob­a­bly
judge, and now you can’t do things like that because peo­ple will all whip their
cam­eras out. But back then, that time in Vegas, we just act­ed sil­ly. Hav­ing
already been under so much media scruti­ny, I wasn’t inter­est­ed in caus­ing
trouble—it was about feel­ing free and enjoy­ing what I had been work­ing so hard
to achieve.
As a twen­tysome­thing will do after a few drinks, I wound up in bed with one
of my old friends—a child­hood friend who I’d known for­ev­er. The third night
we were there togeth­er, he and I got shit­faced. I don’t even remem­ber that night
at all, but from what I’ve pieced togeth­er, he and I lounged around the hotel
room and stayed up late watch­ing movies—Mona Lisa Smile and The Texas
Chain­saw Massacre—then had the bril­liant idea of going to A Lit­tle White
Chapel at three thir­ty in the morn­ing. When we got there, anoth­er cou­ple was
get­ting mar­ried, so we had to wait. Yes—we wait­ed in line to get mar­ried.
Peo­ple have asked me if I loved him. To be clear: he and I were not in love. I
was just hon­est­ly very drunk—and prob­a­bly, in a more gen­er­al sense at that time
in my life, very bored.
The next day, my whole fam­i­ly �ew out to Vegas. They showed up and stared
at me with these eyes of such fury. I looked around. “What hap­pened last
night?” I asked. “Did I kill some­one?”
“You got mar­ried!” they said, as if that might be some­how worse.
“We were just hav­ing fun,” I said.
But my mom and dad took it so seri­ous­ly.
“We have to get this annulled,” they said. They made way too big of a deal
out of inno­cent fun. Every­body has a di�erent per­spec­tive on it, but I didn’t
take it that seri­ous­ly. I thought a goof-around Vegas wed­ding was some­thing
peo­ple might do as a joke. Then my fam­i­ly came and act­ed like I’d start­ed World
War III. I cried the whole rest of the time I was in Las Vegas.
“I’m guilty!” I said. “I’m so sor­ry. I shouldn’t have got­ten mar­ried.”
We signed all the doc­u­ments they told us to sign. The mar­riage last­ed �fty-
�ve hours. I thought it was strange they got so involved so quick­ly and so
decisively—without my even hav­ing time to quite regret what I’d done.

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 17
Patri­cia went down the shaky front steps with a sil­ver Boy Scout
flash­light in one hand. Mrs. Greene stood in the door­way.
“I’m just going to look around the back of the trail­er,” Patri­cia said,
but Mrs. Greene had already closed and locked the front door.
Patri­cia heard her slide the chain into place.
All over Six Mile she heard the hum of air con­di­tion­ers. The woods
around her were a tor­na­do of scream­ing insects. Every breath felt
like it came through a tow­el soaked in warm water. She made her
legs move, tak­ing her around the dark cor­ner of the trail­er.
She clicked on the flash­light and played it over the big wood­en
spool, as if she might see an incrim­i­nat­ing foot­print out­lined in black
ink on its top. She shined her light down on the sandy soil and saw
inden­ta­tions and shad­ows and lumps but didn’t know what any of
them meant. She straight­ened and shined her light at the woods.
The pale yel­low beam played over pine trees. They were spaced
pret­ty far apart and she real­ized she could walk along the edge of
them and still keep an eye on the trail­er. Before she could think
bet­ter of it she stepped around the first one, then the sec­ond, the
flash­light beam­ing a lamp­light cir­cle on the ground in front of her,
lead­ing her into the woods step by step, as the scream­ing insects
closed in around her.
Some­thing grabbed her foot and yanked and her heart flood­ed
with cold water before she saw that she’d snagged it on a rusty wire
stretched along the ground. She looked back behind her, feel­ing
con­fi­dent, but the lit win­dows of the hous­es were far­ther away than
she’d expect­ed. She won­dered if the police had arrived but knew
she’d see their blue lights if they had.
The smell of warm sap sur­round­ed her, and pine nee­dles were
thick under­foot. She knew this was the last moment when she could
turn back. If she kept walk­ing for­ward she wouldn’t be able to see the
lit win­dows at all any­more and then she was going to be out here
alone with James Har­ris.
Hang on, Des­tiny, she thought as she start­ed walk­ing deep­er into
the woods. I’m com­ing.
With the flash­light beam bounc­ing before her, she con­cen­trat­ed on
each tree trunk, not the entire dark mass of them crowd­ing around
and behind her. She went care­ful­ly, not want­i­ng to step in a hole,
con­scious of the loud crash­ing sounds her body made as she brushed
through the branch­es, bush­es, and vines.
Some­thing that wasn’t her rus­tled to the right. She froze and
clicked off her flash­light so it wouldn’t give her away. The night
rushed in around her. She strained to lis­ten over the sound of blood
throb­bing in her ears. Her pulse thumped in her wrists. Her breath
rasped in her nose. Then she real­ized: the insects had stopped
scream­ing.
Blobs of dark col­or flashed across her vision. She heard some­thing
scur­ry through the trees, and sud­den­ly the thought of stand­ing still
pan­icked her, and she need­ed to move, but with­out the flash­light she
couldn’t see her way for­ward so she clicked it back on and the trees
and pine nee­dles on the ground mate­ri­al­ized in front of her again.
She moved fast, flash­light point­ed down, look­ing for a lit­tle girl’s
leg clad in den­im stick­ing out from behind a pine tree. Mixed in with
the sound of her breath and her heart­beat and her pulse she heard
things groan­ing in the trees all around her; any minute a big hand
would set­tle on the back of her neck. Her pound­ing heart pulled her
for­ward.
She should turn around and go home. She was noth­ing but a tiny
speck in the for­est. She was a fool to think she’d some­how stum­ble
across Des­tiny Tay­lor this way, and what was she going to say when
she saw James Har­ris? Was she going to knock him over the head
with her lit­tle flash­light? She need­ed to go back.
Then the trees stopped and she stepped onto a dirt road. It wasn’t
very wide but the sandy soil was loose and she real­ized some­one
must be build­ing some­thing near­by because of the big tread marks
pressed into its sur­face. She flashed the light in one direc­tion and
saw the lit­tle road dis­ap­pear­ing into a dark tun­nel of trees. She
flashed the light in the oth­er direc­tion and saw the chrome grille of
James Harris’s white van.
She snapped off her light and stepped back into the pines,
stum­bling over a stump. He could’ve seen her. She’d snapped her
light off in time, but she real­ized that he could’ve seen her beam
bob­bing through the trees as she approached, and then she’d stood
there like a dum­my look­ing the oth­er way before shin­ing her light at
the van. She want­ed to run but made her­self hold still instead. The
van didn’t move.
It wasn’t fifty feet away. She could walk over and touch it. She
need­ed to walk over and touch it. She need­ed to know if he was
inside.
She walked toward it, her shoes sink­ing into the sand, mak­ing no
sound, her stom­ach churn­ing. She wait­ed for the head­lights to
scream on and pin her down, the engine to roar to life and run her
over. The van’s grille and wind­shield swam from side to side in her
vision, bounc­ing up and down, get­ting clos­er, and then she was
there. She real­ized that inside was dark­er than out­side so she ducked
down, knees pop­ping, to make sure he didn’t see her head out­lined
through his wind­shield against the night sky.
She put out one hand to steady her­self. The curve of the hood felt
cool. She won­dered if the police were at Wanda’s trail­er yet. She
want­ed to go back. Didn’t drug deal­ers have guns, and knives, and all
kinds of weapons? She imag­ined Blue in the back of the van and
knew she had to look. Des­tiny Tay­lor wasn’t her child but she was
still a child.
Patri­cia slow­ly rose, knees crack­ing, and leaned for­ward until the
edges of her hands touched the cold wind­shield, and she cupped
them around her eyes and peered inside. Beyond the thin cres­cent
rim of the steer­ing wheel it was pitch-dark. She nar­rowed her eyes
until the mus­cles in them ached, but she couldn’t see a thing.
Then she real­ized he wasn’t in the van. He was still in the woods
with Des­tiny, or he’d fin­ished with her and was on his way back.
Before he got there she could look inside quick­ly and see if there
were any clues, any clothes from that oth­er child, any­thing that
belonged to Francine. She had sec­onds.
She walked to the back of the van, wrapped her hand around the
door han­dle, and pulled. Then she raised her flash­light and turned it
on.
A man’s back bent over some­thing on the floor, his rear end and
the soles of his work boots turned toward her, and then his back
reared up, and he turned into the flashlight’s beam and she saw
James Har­ris. But there was some­thing wrong with the low­er half of
his face. Some­thing black, shiny, and chiti­nous like a cockroach’s leg,
stuck sev­er­al inch­es out of his mouth. His jaws hung open, stu­pe­fied,
as he blinked bleari­ly in the light, but oth­er­wise his body didn’t move
as this long insec­toid appendage slow­ly with­drew into his mouth,
and when it had retreat­ed ful­ly, he closed his lips and she saw that
his chin and cheeks and the tip of his nose were coat­ed in slick, wet
blood.
Beneath him, a young black girl lay sprawled on the floor, long
orange T‑shirt pushed up to her stom­ach, legs akim­bo, an ugly dark
pur­ple mark on the inside of one thigh, oily with flu­ids.
James Har­ris slapped the palm of one hand against the met­al side
of the van and the vehi­cle shook from side to side as he hauled
him­self to his feet. He squint­ed and Patri­cia real­ized her flash­light
had blind­ed him. He took an unsteady, lurch­ing step toward her. She
froze, not know­ing what to do, and then he took anoth­er step,
rock­ing the van more, and she real­ized there was only three feet
between them. The lit­tle girl moaned and squirmed like she was
asleep, whim­per­ing like Rag­tag in his dreams.
The van rocked as James Har­ris took anoth­er step. There were
maybe two feet between them now and she had to do some­thing to
get that lit­tle girl out of there, and he still squint­ed into the flash­light
beam. He reached for it slow­ly, fin­gers out­stretched, inch­es from her
face. Patri­cia ran.
The sec­ond the flash­light beam was off his face she heard his feet
clang once on the van’s floor and then hit the sand behind her. She
ran into the woods, flash­light on, beam danc­ing crazi­ly over stumps
and trunks and leaves and bush­es, and she shoved her way past
branch­es that slapped her face and tree trunks that bruised her
shoul­ders and vines that lashed her ankles. She didn’t hear him
behind her but she ran. She didn’t know for how long, but she knew
it was long enough for her flashlight’s bat­ter­ies to dim. She thought
these woods would nev­er end, and then the woods spat her out
beside a chain-link fence and she knew she was back on one of the
roads lead­ing into Six Mile.
She shined her light around but it only made the shad­ows loom
larg­er and dance crazi­ly. She searched for some­thing famil­iar and
then every­thing explod­ed into bright white light and she saw a car
com­ing her way slow­ly, jounc­ing up and down the bumpy road, and
she cringed against a fence and it stopped, and a police officer’s voice
said, “Ma’am, do you know who called 911?”
She got in the back and had nev­er been so grate­ful to hear
any­thing as she was to hear the door slam shut behind her. The air
con­di­tion­ing instant­ly dried her sweat and left her skin grit­ty. She
saw that the offi­cer had a gun on his hip, and his part­ner in the
pas­sen­ger seat turned around and asked, “Can you show us the
house where the child went miss­ing?” They had a shot­gun in a rack
between them, and all of it made Patri­cia feel safe.
“He’s got her right now,” Patri­cia said. “He’s doing some­thing to
her. I saw them in the woods.”
The part­ner said some­thing into a hand­set and they turned on
their flash­ing lights but not their siren, and the car flew down the
nar­row road. Patri­cia saw the Mt. Zion A.M.E. church ahead of them.
“Where did you see them?” the offi­cer asked.
“There’s a road,” Patri­cia said as the police car bounced into Six
Mile. “A con­struc­tion road back in the woods behind here.”
“Over there,” the offi­cer in the pas­sen­ger seat said, low­er­ing the
radio hand­set, point­ing across the car.
The dri­ver turned hard, and mobile homes reeled to the right in
their head­lights. Then the police car surged for­ward between two
small homes and they left Six Mile behind. Trees sur­round­ed them
and the offi­cer dri­ving turned the wheel to the right and Patri­cia felt
its tires slide on sand, heavy and slow, and then they were on the
road she’d found.
“This is it,” Patri­cia said. “He’s in a white van up ahead.”
They slowed, and the offi­cer in the pas­sen­ger seat used a han­dle to
steer a spot­light mount­ed out­side the car to shine into the woods on
both sides of the road, pan­ning across the trees. It was thou­sands of
times brighter than Patricia’s lit­tle flash­light. They rolled down their
win­dows to lis­ten for a lit­tle girl’s cries.
Before they knew it, they’d reached the end of the road, com­ing to
where it ran into the state road.
“Maybe we missed him?” one of the offi­cers said.
Patri­cia didn’t look at her watch but she felt like they drove up and
down that soft, sandy road for an hour.
“Let’s try the house,” the dri­ver said.
She direct­ed them back to Six Mile and they parked out­side
Wanda’s trail­er. The part­ner let Patri­cia out of the back and she ran
up the rick­ety front porch and banged on the door. Wan­da prac­ti­cal­ly
threw her­self out­side.
“She hasn’t come back,” she said. “She’s still out there.”
“We need to see the child’s room,” one police offi­cer said. “We
have to see the last place you saw her.”
“You don’t need to do that,” Patri­cia said. “His name is James
Har­ris. He lives near me. He might have tak­en her back to his house.
I can show you.”
One offi­cer stayed in the liv­ing room and wrote what she said on a
pad while the oth­er fol­lowed Wan­da down the short hall to Destiny’s
bed­room, then a loud shriek filled the trail­er. The offi­cer low­ered his
pad and ran down the hall. Patri­cia couldn’t squeeze past the offi­cers
so she stayed with Mrs. Greene until Wan­da Tay­lor emerged from
between them with Des­tiny in her arms.
The lit­tle girl looked sleepy and uncon­cerned about all the fuss.
Wan­da sat on the sofa, Des­tiny draped across her lap, limp body
cra­dled in her mother’s arms. The offi­cers didn’t say any­thing and
their faces betrayed no expres­sion.
“I saw him,” Patri­cia told them. “His name is James Har­ris, he
lives on Mid­dle Street, his van is a white van with tint­ed win­dows.
Something’s wrong with his mouth, with his face.”
“This hap­pens some­times, ma’am,” one of the offi­cers said. “A kid
hides under the bed or sleeps in the clos­et and the par­ents call the
police say­ing she’s been abduct­ed. Gets every­one worked up.”
The enor­mi­ty of what he was say­ing was too much. All Patri­cia
could say was, “She doesn’t have a clos­et.”
Then she real­ized what she could do.
“Check her leg,” she said. “Beneath her panties on the inside part
of her thigh, there should be a mark there, like a cut.”
Every­one looked at each oth­er but no one moved.
“I’ll look,” Mrs. Greene said.
“No, ma’am,” the offi­cer said. “If you want us to check the child we
need to call the ambu­lance and take her to the hos­pi­tal so some­one
qual­i­fied can do it. Oth­er­wise we can’t use it as evi­dence.”
“Evi­dence?” Patri­cia asked.
“If you want to bring charges against this man, you have to do it
the right way,” the offi­cer said.
“If you’re alleg­ing that you saw a man molest­ing this child, it is
imper­a­tive that a trained med­ical pro­fes­sion­al exam­ine her,” the
oth­er offi­cer said.
“I’m a nurse,” Patri­cia told him.
“No one’s tak­ing my lit­tle girl any­where,” Wan­da said, hold­ing
Des­tiny, her limp head flop­ping against her mother’s shoul­der, eyes
half closed, arms hang­ing down at her sides. “She’s stay­ing with me.
She’s not going out of my sight again.”
“It’s impor­tant,” Patri­cia said.
“She’s see­ing the doc­tor in the morn­ing,” Wan­da Tay­lor said.
“She’s not going any­where until then.”
Pound­ing came from the front door and they looked at each oth­er,
frozen. The alu­minum door rat­tled in its frame until Mrs. Greene
pushed past every­one. She flung the door open. Carter stood on the
porch.
“Jesus Christ, Pat­ty,” he said. “What the hell is going on?”
—
“If my wife says she saw this man doing this, then that’s what
hap­pened,” Carter told the offi­cers, stand­ing in the mid­dle of the
trail­er. He looked out of place to Patri­cia, and then she remem­bered
he’d grown up poor, and if mobile homes had exist­ed in 1948 he
would almost cer­tain­ly have been born in one.
“We searched every­where she told us, sir,” the offi­cer repeat­ed
with a heavy empha­sis on the sir. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t
believe her. If they find any­thing wrong with this lit­tle girl tomor­row
we’ll have what your wife said tonight in the report.”
“I’m sleepy,” Des­tiny said, dreamy and soft, and Wan­da began the
process of get­ting every­one out of her home.
Out­side, Carter made sure the two offi­cers had his infor­ma­tion,
while Mrs. Greene walked over to Patri­cia.
“No point stand­ing around out­side when it’s this hot,” she said,
and they start­ed back to her house. Then she added, “They’re going
to take that lit­tle girl away.”
“Not if there’s noth­ing wrong with her,” Patri­cia said.
“You saw how they looked at Wan­da,” Mrs. Greene said. “You saw
how they looked at her home. They think she’s trash, and she is, but
not the kind of trash they think she is.”
“She needs to get to the doc­tor,” Patri­cia said. “No mat­ter what.”
“What’d you real­ly see that man doing to her?” Mrs. Greene asked.
They stepped over the low rail­ing around Mt. Zion A.M.E. and got
all the way to its steps before Patri­cia said any­thing.
“It wasn’t nat­ur­al,” she said.
It took Patri­cia two steps to real­ize Mrs. Greene had stopped
walk­ing. She turned around. In the church’s porch light, Mrs. Greene
looked very small.
“Everyone’s hun­gry for our chil­dren,” she said, and her voice
cracked. “The whole world wants to gob­ble up col­ored chil­dren, and
no mat­ter how many it takes it just licks its lips and wants more.
Help me, Mrs. Camp­bell. Help me keep that lit­tle girl with her
moth­er. Help me stop that man.”
“Of course,” Patri­cia said. “I’ll—”
“I don’t want to hear of course,” Mrs. Greene said. “When I tell
some­one what’s hap­pen­ing out here they see an old woman liv­ing in
the coun­try who’s nev­er been to school. When you tell them, they see
a doctor’s wife from the Old Vil­lage and they pay atten­tion. I don’t
like to ask for favors but I need you to make them pay atten­tion to
this. You know I did every­thing I could to save Miss Mary. I gave my
blood for her. When you called me on the tele­phone tonight you said
we’re all moth­ers. Yes, ma’am, we are. Give me your blood. Help
me.”
Reflex­ive­ly, Patri­cia almost said of course again, then wiped it
from her mind. She didn’t say a thing. She stood across from Mrs.
Greene and spoke, soft and firm.
“We’ll save them,” she said. “We won’t let them take Des­tiny, and
we won’t let that man take any more chil­dren. I will do every­thing in
my pow­er to stop him. I promise you.”
Mrs. Greene didn’t reply, and the two of them stood like that for a
moment.
“Well, that’s that,” Carter said, com­ing up behind her. “They’ll
have her to the doc­tor tomor­row and if anything’s wrong they have
my infor­ma­tion in the report.”
The mood broke and the three of them walked toward Mrs.
Greene’s house.

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.

17
Lat­er, we sit out­side in the big wood­en Adiron­dack chairs in the yard, a fire crack­ling away in the big
stone ring in front of us. Near­by, the grill smokes, and the scent of cook­ing meat reminds me of those
sum­mer nights in Phoenix, when the air was so still and so dry it felt like a loose spark could send
every­thing up in flames.
The grill turned over, the burn­ing coals spread over the grav­el yard, Jane, the real Jane,
cry­ing, Mr. Brock’s red face, a sweat­ing beer can in one hand, a pair of tongs in the oth­er.
His KISS THE COOK apron with a giant frog on it, its lips red and obscene in a puck­er, me
sprawled in the rocks, my hand burn­ing, my face sting­ing, think­ing how stu­pid that apron was,
how stu­pid it was that a man like him had this much pow­er over all of us.
I haven’t thought about that for such a long time. I’ve pushed it all away, but now here it is, this
ugly mem­o­ry, in this per­fect place.
Look­ing down, I study my engage­ment ring again, turn­ing my hand this way and that, catch­ing the
light of the flames.
That’s over. That can’t touch you. No mat­ter what John says.
Next to me, Eddie sighs, his long legs stretched out in front of him.
He real­ly does look good tonight. I think of how slight­ly ragged he was when I first met him, how
those edges have smoothed a lit­tle in the past few months, and I feel a lit­tle surge of sat­is­fac­tion. I did
that, I think. I’ve made him hap­py. He’s like this because of me.
And soon, I’m going to be his wife.
I think about the wed­ding dress­es I saw today, the veil there in the win­dow I’d itched to put on my
head.
“I think we should elope.”
I don’t know I’m going to say the words until they’re out, but then they are, and I real­ize I don’t
want to take them back.
Eddie paus­es, his beer lift­ed to his mouth. Then he takes a sip, swal­lows, and low­ers his arm
before look­ing over at me and say­ing, “We don’t have to do any­thing you don’t want to do.”
“It’s just … I don’t have a big fam­i­ly,” I say. “And I hard­ly know any­one in Birm­ing­ham, or at
least no one I’d want at my wed­ding.”
Eddie smirks slight­ly at that, rais­ing his eye­brows.
“I don’t want that John ass­hole at my wed­ding, either.”
Reach­ing over, he takes my hand, his thumb mak­ing cir­cles on the heel of my hand.
“Janie, say the word, and we’ll get mar­ried at the cour­t­house tomor­row. Or we’ll go to the lake.
Hell, we can go up to Ten­nessee if you want, rent one of those cheesy moun­tain chalets. I think they
even have dri­ve-through wed­ding chapels in Gatlin­burg.”
I smile, but don’t say any­thing, ignor­ing the weird sink­ing in my stom­ach at the idea of mar­ry­ing a
man like Eddie, but still hav­ing the kind of wed­ding girls like me always get. Cheap, fast, tacky. When
I sug­gest­ed elop­ing, I was imag­in­ing say­ing our vows on a white-sand beach, an inti­mate wed­ding
night in a big bed with gauzy mos­qui­to net­ting. I wasn’t imag­in­ing pulling up to a win­dow like we
were grab­bing french fries and head­ing to a motel adver­tis­ing free park­ing on a neon sign.
Still, what I know for cer­tain is that I can’t get mar­ried here. I can’t walk down an aisle at a big
church in a big dress and see the Camp­bells and the Car­o­lines, Bea’s friends, com­par­ing me to her.
I head inside, pick­ing up our emp­ty beers as I go. When I slide the patio door open, there’s a
sound from some­where above me.
I freeze there in the door­way, one ear cocked toward the ceil­ing, wait­ing.
There’s anoth­er thump, fol­lowed by a sec­ond, a third.
Slid­ing the patio door closed behind me, I glance back out at Eddie.
He’s still sit­ting in his Adiron­dack chair, hands behind his head now, his chin lift­ed to the evening
sky, and I creep a lit­tle deep­er into the house.
The sounds are rhyth­mic now, a steady thump thump thump like a heart­beat.
I think about that sto­ry they made us read in mid­dle school, the one with the man buried under the
floor­boards, his mur­der­er think­ing he could still hear the old man’s heart, and for a hor­ri­fied moment,
my brain con­jures up Bea.
Then the sounds stop.
I stand there, prac­ti­cal­ly hold­ing my breath, the emp­ty beer bot­tle dan­gling from my fin­gers as I
wait.
Three sharp raps at the front door make me near­ly jolt out of my skin, one of the bot­tles crash­ing
to the floor as I make a sound some­where between a shriek and a gasp.
It’s com­ing from the front of the house, though, not upstairs. Some­one knock­ing at the door.
“Jane?”
I see Eddie through the glass door, still sit­ting out­side, the words tossed casu­al­ly over his
shoul­der, his head bare­ly turned toward me.
I scowl at the back of that head, that per­fect­ly tou­sled hair. “I’m fine,” I call back. “Just some­one
at the door.”
There’s anoth­er knock just as I reach the foy­er, and when I open the door, a woman is stand­ing
there.
She’s wear­ing khakis and a blue but­ton-down, and there’s a badge snapped to her waist.
She’s a cop.
My heart is beat­ing so fast in my chest that I feel like she must be able to see it, and I lay a hand
there against my col­lar­bone, sud­den­ly grate­ful I have the dia­monds and emer­ald on my fin­ger, to let
her know I am some­body.
I have no rea­son to be afraid any­more, I remind myself. The woman stand­ing on the porch doesn’t
see the girl I used to be, doesn’t know the things I’ve done. There’s no sus­pi­cion in her gaze, no
nar­rowed eyes and thinned lips. She sees a woman who belongs in this house, a woman wear­ing Ann
Tay­lor and real jew­els, a woman whose dish­wa­ter-blond hair isn’t pulled back into a scrag­gly

Upon redis­cov­er­ing the “Kin­caid”, Mugam­bi, along with a native woman he unex­pect­ed­ly encoun­tered, and a horde of fierce beasts, ven­tured down­riv­er in a com­man­deered dugout. Their jour­ney was has­tened under the cloak of dark­ness, aim­ing to reunite the fero­cious pack with Tarzan by reach­ing the ves­sel where the dra­ma between human and beast would unfurl. How­ev­er, ten­sions spiked when Mugambi’s par­ty unex­pect­ed­ly col­lid­ed with anoth­er canoe, occu­pied by Rokof­f’s men, insti­gat­ing chaos. Shots were fired, pan­ick­ing both par­ties and attract­ing Tarzan’s atten­tion, who was else­where in the water, igno­rant of the “Kincaid”’s prox­im­i­ty.

Mean­while, the “Kin­caid” had sub­tly maneu­vered down­stream, ensnared by an eddy’s whims, bring­ing Jane Clay­ton inad­ver­tent­ly back into per­il’s embrace. Tarzan, dri­ven by the gun­fire din, nav­i­gat­ed the dark waters towards the unfold­ing con­flict. His arrival was time­ly but wrought with the real­iza­tion of Jane being in dis­tress, ensnared in anoth­er of Rokof­f’s traps. Tarzan’s inter­ven­tion was swift and bru­tal, redi­rect­ing his wrath from Rokoff to address the imme­di­ate dan­ger Jane faced. The deck became a bat­tle­ground, with Mugambi’s and Tarzan’s com­bined forces over­whelm­ing Rokof­f’s men, despite the lat­ter’s des­per­ate attempt to retal­i­ate.

In the com­mo­tion, Rokof­f’s cow­ardice was laid bare before his crew, lead­ing them to cast him out, deliv­er­ing him into the jaws of his doom—Sheeta, the pan­ther, whose pres­ence spelled a cru­el but fit­ting end for Rokoff. Tarzan, pre­vi­ous­ly con­sumed by a thirst for vengeance, found him­self swayed by Jane’s pres­ence, restrain­ing him­self to pro­tect her amidst the chaos.

The chap­ter reach­es its cli­max with Rokoff’s demise by Shee­ta, mark­ing an end that seemed to bring a sin­is­ter sat­is­fac­tion to Tarzan, one that delin­eat­ed jus­tice in its most pri­mal form. Yet, when the dust set­tled, the grim real­i­ty of their sit­u­a­tion resumed focus, with Tarzan and Jane sur­viv­ing yet anoth­er ordeal, stand­ing amidst friends and foes, bond­ed by their per­se­ver­ance and the relent­less tri­als that seem to pur­sue them across the dark, treach­er­ous waters of the Ugam­bi.