In Chap­ter 18, three par­al­lel inves­ti­ga­tions into mur­ders in Enskede pro­ceed. Offi­cer Bub­ble’s inves­ti­ga­tion has a sus­pect and mur­der weapon, focus­ing on appre­hend­ing Salan­der for impris­on­ment. Arman­sky’s inves­ti­ga­tion aims to pro­tect Salan­der by uncov­er­ing mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances. Mean­while, Blomkvist from Mil­len­ni­um rejects the police’s the­o­ry, sus­pect­ing alter­na­tive motives or con­trol fac­tors in Salander’s involve­ment. Hed­ström, assigned to the case, har­bors a per­son­al vendet­ta against Salan­der due to past griev­ances and ambi­tions of revenge.

In Chap­ter 18 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” the nar­ra­tive revolves around Cal­lie Mon­trose, a girl who hasn’t returned home from school. Con­cerned for her safe­ty, Nor­ma retrieves a Colt from the garage, check­ing it for ammu­ni­tion before plac­ing it in her night­stand. Mean­while, a char­ac­ter named Saint pre­pares for a clan­des­tine out­ing, stuff­ing a small ruck­sack with essen­tials: a flash­light, sling­shot, book of match­es, and an old jack­knife. As she ven­tures through the qui­et streets, she finds Ivy passed out on the sofa at the Macauley house, cov­er­ing her with a blan­ket, and stealth­ily retrieves a pis­tol from Patch’s bed­room, promis­ing, “I’ll bring you home.”

The sto­ry then shifts to a lighter scene where Patch shares his recent birth­day gift—a navy hus­sar waist­coat, which he found hid­den in his mother’s clos­et. Saint is enam­ored by the waist­coat, not­ing its beau­ty and the crafts­man­ship involved, as they engage in play­ful ban­ter. Saint recalls her joy­ful and bud­ding friend­ship with Patch, acknowl­edg­ing the com­plex­i­ties of their rela­tion­ship. Despite being aware of Patch’s trou­bled home life, she feels a con­nec­tion with him that blos­soms dur­ing shared moments, includ­ing nav­i­gat­ing through a corn maze and dis­cussing his­tor­i­cal fig­ures like Hen­ry Every.

Their friend­ship deep­ens with shared secrets and stolen moments, marked by amus­ing con­ver­sa­tions about pirates and exag­ger­at­ed brava­do. Saint rec­og­nizes the quirks and brav­ery that define Patch—his bold­ness, reck­less behav­ior, and their attempts at dar­ing acts, includ­ing a failed bee heist that costs him three days away from school.

In a ten­der moment, Saint sur­pris­es Patch with an ear­ly birth­day gift: a one-shot flint­lock repli­ca gun, a prized find from her adven­tures at flea mar­kets and pawn shops. Patch’s delight­ed reac­tion leads to a heart­felt hug, sym­bol­iz­ing the strength of their bond. The chap­ter wraps with a note of antic­i­pa­tion as both chil­dren cel­e­brate their unique gifts to one anoth­er, sig­ni­fy­ing the inno­cence and com­plex­i­ty of child­hood friend­ships amidst under­ly­ing ten­sions.

In the morn­ing, Lila vis­its Phoebe on her way to the flower ven­dor, men­tion­ing a pow­er out­age that has affect­ed the flow­ers. With­out delv­ing into thoughts about the blend­ing of their fam­i­lies, she requests Phoebe take Gary for errands due to his back injury from surf­ing. Lila, humor­ous­ly refer­ring to her­self in the third per­son, dis­miss­es con­cerns about Gary’s con­di­tion and express­es intent to keep him busy. Although she can man­age the sit­u­a­tion, Phoebe secret­ly dreads spend­ing the day with Gary, espe­cial­ly as she is sup­posed to be mov­ing on from him.

As they set off, Phoebe feels a mix of anx­i­ety and excite­ment about pub­lic speak­ing lat­er that day. Gary and Phoebe exchange ban­ter, reveal­ing their mutu­al dis­com­fort with aging and body pains, turn­ing what could be com­plaints into a relat­able con­ver­sa­tion. Their humor­ous exchange pro­vides them with a sense of cama­raderie and light-heart­ed­ness before the grim real­i­ties of the day ahead set in.

After pick­ing up pre­ordered liquor at a store, Phoebe receives a text from Geof­frey, the man­sion keep­er, regard­ing a care­tak­er posi­tion at New­combe Man­sion. Intrigued, Phoebe decides to meet Geof­frey after drop­ping Gary off. Upon arriv­ing at the man­sion, they are greet­ed by a south­ern gen­tle­man named Geof­frey, who explains the care­tak­ing posi­tion’s require­ments. Phoebe is eager to dis­cuss her research on his­tor­i­cal build­ings, reveal­ing a pas­sion she rekin­dles dur­ing her inter­view.

Explor­ing the man­sion togeth­er, Phoebe and Gary encounter the lav­ish inte­ri­ors, prompt­ing philo­soph­i­cal dis­cus­sions about hap­pi­ness and art col­lec­tion. Gary admits his feel­ing of hap­pi­ness is present at that moment, and this hon­esty deep­ens their con­nec­tion. As their day pro­gress­es, Phoebe grap­ples with her feel­ings toward Gary, real­iz­ing her heart aches at the thought of him mar­ry­ing some­one else.

They pro­ceed through their errands, stop­ping by to see Gary’s tai­lor. Here, Phoebe encoun­ters her mixed feel­ings again, ques­tion­ing if she could move for­ward from her teach­ing career to a new life in Rhode Island, while wrestling with her unre­solved feel­ings for Gary. Their shared moments seem to blur the lines of friend­ship, hint­ing at a deep­er con­nec­tion that com­pli­cates her thoughts.

At the bar­ber, Gary reveals a vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty about miss­ing teach­ing and con­nects with Phoebe through con­fes­sions of pre­tense in their pro­fes­sions. This mutu­al under­stand­ing brings them clos­er, but the reminder of his impend­ing mar­riage looms, as does Phoe­be’s loy­al­ty to Lila.

As they return to the hotel, the atmos­phere shifts, charged with unspo­ken feel­ings and pow­er­ful emo­tions. Lila’s unex­pect­ed appear­ance trig­gers Phoe­be’s fears, inten­si­fy­ing the real­iza­tion that while they have shared a mean­ing­ful day, the real­i­ty of Gary’s wed­ding is fast approach­ing, and with it, the need for Phoebe to pre­pare for her role as maid of hon­or while grap­pling with her unac­knowl­edged feel­ings.

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.

18
We hit the road once again. More bus­es. More cos­tume racks. More long
rehearsals. More step-and-repeats.
That was already one of the dark­est times of my life, and the vibe of the tour
was dark, too—a lot of sweaty num­bers, dark themes, and moody light­ing. The
tour also marked a change in my rela­tion­ship with my broth­er, Bryan.
Work­ing now as part of my team, Bryan was very well paid—and so was I—
for the Onyx Hotel Tour. He also did a huge deal for me with Eliz­a­beth Arden.
And yet, I had trou­ble not resent­ing him a bit once I went out on what was to be
an unbe­liev­ably gru­el­ing tour while he stayed in Los Ange­les and New York and
enjoyed his life.
I lost track of my broth­er in those years. And so, in many ways, it felt as
though I lost Justin and Bryan around the same time.
The tour felt so depress­ing. In Moline, Illi­nois, I hurt my knee real­ly bad­ly
toward the end of the show. I’d had a pre­vi­ous knee injury while rehears­ing for
the music video for “Some­times” o� my �rst album. That was more extreme: I’d
cried hys­ter­i­cal­ly. With this injury, I only had to resched­ule two dates, but in my
mind, I’d already start­ed to check out. I was crav­ing some light­ness and joy in my
life.
Then Kevin Fed­er­line was hold­ing me. That’s the thing I remem­ber best. We
met at a club called Joseph’s Café in Hol­ly­wood, where I used to sit at a table in
the back. Right away, from the moment I saw him, there was a con­nec­tion
between us—something that made me feel like I could escape every­thing that
was hard in my life. That very �rst night we met, he held me—and I mean held
me—in a pool for hours.
That was how he was to me: steady, strong, a com­fort. I remem­ber we would
go swim­ming, and he’d just wrap his arms around me in the water and not let
me go until I want­ed him to, no mat­ter how long that took. It was beyond a
sex­u­al thing. It wasn’t about lust. It was inti­mate. He would hold me as long as I
want­ed to be held. Had any­one in my life ever done that before? If so, I couldn’t
remem­ber when. And was there any­thing bet­ter?
After what I’d gone through with J, I hadn’t been with some­one in a real way
in so long. Mean­while, the press kept sug­gest­ing famous men who I should date
—roy­al­ty, CEOs, mod­els. How could I explain that I just want­ed to be held for
an hour by a man in a swim­ming pool?
I feel like a lot of women—and this is de�nitely true of me—can be as strong
as they want to be, can play this pow­er­ful role, but at the end of the day, after
we’ve done our work and made our mon­ey and tak­en care of every­one else, we
want some­one to hold us tight and tell us everything’s going to be okay. I’m
sor­ry. I know it sounds regres­sive. But I think it’s a human impulse. We want to
feel safe and alive and sexy all at the same time. And that’s what Kevin did for
me. So I held on to him like there was no tomor­row.
In the begin­ning, my rela­tion­ship with Kevin was play­ful.
Kevin liked me the way I was. As a woman who’d spent so much time try­ing
to live up to society’s expec­ta­tions, being with a man who gave me per­mis­sion to
be exact­ly who I was felt like such a gift.
Kevin had a “bad boy” image. Still, I had no idea when we met that he had a
tod­dler, nor that his ex-girl­friend was eight months preg­nant with his sec­ond
baby. I was clue­less. I was liv­ing in a bub­ble, and I didn’t have a lot of good, close
friends to con�de in and get advice from. I had no idea until after we’d been
togeth­er for a while and some­one told me, “You know he has a new baby, right?”
I didn’t believe it, but when I asked, he told me it was true. He told me he saw
them once a month.
“You have kids?” I said. “You have chil­dren? Not only one child but two
chil­dren?”
So, a num­ber was done on me, obvi­ous­ly. I had no idea.
That spring of 2004 I had to go back to work to make good on my con­tract­ed
dates, even though I was in no mood to do it. I �gured it would be tol­er­a­ble if
Kevin could go with me, and he agreed to come. We had so much fun togeth­er
on that tour; he helped keep me dis­tract­ed from the work, which felt as
chal­leng­ing as it ever had. After the shows, I didn’t have to go back to my hotel
room alone. Fly­ing home, we were chat­ting away, and I asked him to mar­ry me.
He said no and then he pro­posed.
We �lmed tour diaries togeth­er. The orig­i­nal con­cept was a doc­u­men­tary like
Madonna’s Truth or Dare, but it became more like a col­lec­tion of our home
movies, espe­cial­ly after I got hurt again, and it was lat­er released as a real­i­ty show
called Brit­ney and Kevin: Chaot­ic.
The Onyx Hotel Tour was just rough. It was too sex­u­al, for a start. Justin had
embar­rassed me pub­licly, so my rebut­tal onstage was to kind of go there a lit­tle
bit, too. But it was absolute­ly hor­ri­ble. I hat­ed it in the moment. In fact, I hat­ed
that entire stu­pid tour—so much that I prayed every night. I said, “God, just
make my arm break. Make my leg break. Can you make some­thing break?” And
then, on June 8, 2004, with still two months of shows to go, I fell again on the
set of my video for “Out­ra­geous,” got anoth­er knee injury, and had to have
surgery. The rest of the tour dates were scrapped. I thought back on how much
I’d su�ered as a teenag­er doing phys­i­cal ther­a­py for my knee. The expe­ri­ence had
been excru­ci­at­ing. I had to move my legs up and down even as they were caus­ing
me unspeak­able agony. So when the doc­tors o�ered me Vicodin, I took it. I
didn’t want to expe­ri­ence that lev­el of pain again.
I just went to my apart­ment in Man­hat­tan, got into my princess bed, and if
anyone—friends, fam­i­ly, peo­ple in the business—wanted to talk to me dur­ing
this time, I said, “Leave me alone. No, I don’t want to do any­thing or see
any­one.” And I de�nitely didn’t want to go back out on tour for a while if I
could help it.
Part of it was that I believed I had earned the right to make my own deci­sions
in my per­son­al life after such a gru­el­ing sched­ule. I felt like I’d been manip­u­lat­ed
into going straight back to work after the breakup with Justin, because it was all
I knew. The Onyx tour was a mis­take. But in my mind I thought I should just do
what I was sup­posed to do, which was work.
I real­ize now that I should’ve sat back and tak­en my time get­ting over the
breakup with Justin before I resumed tour­ing. The music indus­try is just too
hard-core and unfor­giv­ing. You often vis­it a di�erent city every day. There’s no
con­sis­ten­cy. It’s not pos­si­ble to �nd still­ness when you’re on the road. When I
made the Brit­ney Spears: Live and More! video spe­cial in Hawaii in 2000, I
began to real­ize that TV is real­ly easy. TV is the lux­u­ry part of the busi­ness;
tour­ing is not.
My sis­ter had also just land­ed a huge Nick­elodeon deal. I was hap­py for her.
See­ing her learn­ing her lines and doing wardrobe �ttings remind­ed me that I
would have loved to have a job that was more like the cozy world of children’s
tele­vi­sion. I liked think­ing about the Mick­ey Mouse Club and remem­ber­ing how
easy every­thing had seemed back then.
I thought Kevin would give me the sta­bil­i­ty I was craving—and the free­dom,
too.
Not a lot of peo­ple were hap­py for Kevin and me. Whether or not I liked it, I
was one of the biggest stars in the world at that time. He was liv­ing a more
pri­vate life. I had to defend our rela­tion­ship to every­one.
Kevin and I got mar­ried that fall. We held a “sur­prise” cer­e­mo­ny in
Sep­tem­ber, but the lawyers need­ed more time with the prenup, so the legal event
didn’t take place for a cou­ple weeks.
Peo­ple shot the cer­e­mo­ny. I wore a strap­less dress and the brides­maids wore
bur­gundy. After the cer­e­mo­ny, I changed into a pink sweat­suit that read MRS.
FEDERLINE and every­one else put on Juicy track­suits, too, because we went to a
club after to dance all night. Now that I was mar­ried and think­ing about start­ing
a fam­i­ly, I decid­ed to start say­ing no to things that didn’t feel right—like the
Onyx tour. I part­ed ways with my man­agers. I post­ed a let­ter to fans on my
web­site in which I told them I was going to take some time o� to enjoy my life.

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 18
Patri­cia woke up feel­ing like she’d fall­en down the stairs. Her joints
popped when she got out of bed, and her shoul­ders groaned like they
were stuffed with bro­ken glass when she reached for the cof­fee
fil­ters. When she undressed for her show­er she noticed bruis­es on
both hips from slid­ing back and forth across the back seat of the
police car.
Carter had to go in to the hos­pi­tal even though it was Sat­ur­day,
and Patri­cia let Blue do what­ev­er he want­ed because it was light out.
“But be back before it starts to get dark,” she said. “We’re hav­ing
ear­ly sup­per.”
It wasn’t safe to have Blue out of her sight after dark. She didn’t
know what James Har­ris was, she didn’t care, she couldn’t think
straight, but she knew he wouldn’t go out in the sun. She want­ed to
call Grace, to tell her what she’d seen, but when Grace didn’t
under­stand some­thing she refused to believe it exist­ed. She forced
her­self to calm down.
She couldn’t bring her­self to vac­u­um her cur­tains, so she did
laun­dry. She ironed shirts and slacks. She ironed socks. She kept
see­ing James Har­ris with that thing on his face, his beard of blood,
that lit­tle girl on the floor of his van, kept try­ing to fig­ure out how to
explain this to some­one. She cleaned the bath­rooms. She watched
the sun slide across the sky. She felt grate­ful that Korey was still
away at soc­cer camp.
The phone rang while she was throw­ing out expired condi­ments.
“Camp­bell res­i­dence,” Patri­cia said.
“They took her daugh­ter,” Mrs. Greene told her.
“What? Who did?” Patri­cia asked, try­ing to catch up.
“This morn­ing when Wan­da Tay­lor took her to the doc­tor,” Mrs.
Greene said, “he found a mark on her leg, like you said, and he made
Wan­da wait out­side while he talked to Des­tiny.”
“What did she say?” Patri­cia asked.
“Wan­da doesn’t know, but then the DSS showed up and a
police­man stood at the door,” Mrs. Greene said. “They told her
Des­tiny was on drugs and had marks where some­one inject­ed her.
They asked her who the man was that Des­tiny referred to as ‘Boo
Dad­dy.’ Wan­da told them she wasn’t see­ing any man, but they didn’t
believe her.”
“I’ll call those offi­cers from last night,” Patri­cia said, fran­tic. “I’ll
call them and they can talk to DSS. And Carter can call her doc­tor.
What was his name?”
“You promised this wouldn’t hap­pen,” Mrs. Greene said. “Both of
you promised.”
“Carter will call,” Patri­cia said. “He’ll straight­en this out. Should I
come out to talk to Wan­da?”
“I think it’s best if you don’t see Wan­da Tay­lor right now,” Mrs.
Greene said. “She’s not in a recep­tive frame of mind.”
Patri­cia dis­con­nect­ed the call but held onto the receiv­er as the
kitchen spun around her. She had seen Des­tiny. She’d been in her
bed­room. She’d sat with her moth­er. She’d seen her tiny, limp body
under­neath James Har­ris, while he stood over her, his face cov­ered
in her blood.
“I’m bored,” Blue said, com­ing into the den.
“Only bor­ing peo­ple get bored,” Patri­cia said, auto­mat­i­cal­ly.
“Everyone’s at camp,” Blue said. “There’s no one to play with.”
How had this hap­pened? What had she done?
“Go read a book,” she said.
She picked up the phone and dialed Carter’s office.
“I’ve read all my books,” he said.
“We’ll go to the library lat­er,” she said.
The phone rang, Carter picked up, and she told him what had
hap­pened.
“I’m in the mid­dle of a mil­lion things right now,” he said.
“We promised her, Carter. We made a promise. That woman is
cov­ered in stitch­es from try­ing to help your moth­er.”
“Okay, okay, Pat­ty, I’ll make some calls.”
—
“Every­one thinks Hitler was bad,” Blue said to the din­ner table. “But
Himm­ler was worse.”
“Okay,” Carter said, try­ing to wind him down. “Can you pass the
salt, Pat­ty?”
Patri­cia picked up the salt­shak­er but didn’t hand it to Blue just yet.
“Did you call that doc­tor about Des­tiny Tay­lor today?” she asked.
Carter had been deflect­ing her ever since he got home.
“Can I get the salt before I’m inter­ro­gat­ed?” he asked.
She made her­self smile and passed it to Blue.
“He was the head of the SS,” Blue said. “Which stands for
Schutzstaffel. They were the secret police in Ger­many.”
“That sounds pret­ty bad, bud­dy,” Carter said, tak­ing the salt from
him.
“I’m not sure that’s appro­pri­ate con­ver­sa­tion for the din­ner table,”
Patri­cia said.
“The Holo­caust was all his idea,” Blue con­tin­ued.
Patri­cia wait­ed until Carter had salt­ed every­thing on his plate for
what Patri­cia thought was a very long time.
“Carter?” she asked the sec­ond the salt­shak­er touched the table.
“Did you call?” He put down his fork and gath­ered his thoughts
before look­ing up at her, and Patri­cia knew this was a bad sign. “We
promised, Carter.”
“The sec­ond they form a search com­mit­tee, any chance I have of
becom­ing depart­ment head is over,” Carter said. “And they are so
close to a deci­sion that every­thing I do is scru­ti­nized under a
micro­scope. How do you think it would look if the can­di­date for chief
of psych, who’s a state employ­ee, start­ed call­ing up oth­er state
employ­ees and telling them how to do their jobs? Do you know how
bad that would look for me? The Med­ical Uni­ver­si­ty is a state
insti­tu­tion. Things have to get done a cer­tain way. I can’t just run
around ask­ing ques­tions and cast­ing asper­sions.”
“We made a promise,” Patri­cia said, and real­ized her hand was
shak­ing. She put her fork down.
“They did med­ical exper­i­ments in the camps,” Blue said. “They
would tor­ture one twin and see if the oth­er one felt any­thing.”
“If her doc­tor made a deci­sion to remove her from her home, he
had a good rea­son and I’m not going to sec­ond-guess him,” Carter
said, pick­ing up his fork. “And frankly, after see­ing that trail­er, he
prob­a­bly made the right deci­sion.”
Which was when the door­bell rang, and Patri­cia jumped in her
seat. Her heart start­ed beat­ing triple time. She had a sink­ing feel­ing
she knew who it was. She want­ed to say some­thing to Carter, to show
him how unfair he was being, but the door­bell rang again. Carter
looked up over his fork­ful of chick­en.
“Are you going to get that?” he asked.
“I’ll get it,” Blue said, slid­ing out of his chair.
Patri­cia stood up and blocked him.
“Fin­ish your chick­en,” she said.
She walked toward the front door like a pris­on­er approach­ing the
elec­tric chair. She swung it wide and through the screen door she saw
James Har­ris. He smiled. This first encounter would be the hard­est,
but with her fam­i­ly at her back and her house around her, stand­ing
on her pri­vate prop­er­ty, Patri­cia gave him her very best fake host­ess
smile. She’d had lots of prac­tice.
“What a pleas­ant sur­prise,” she said through the screen door.
“Did I catch you dur­ing a meal again?” he said. “I’m so sor­ry.”
“It’s no both­er.”
“You know,” he said, “I got inter­rupt­ed dur­ing a meal recent­ly. It
was very upset­ting.”
For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. No, she told her­self, it was an
inno­cent com­ment. He wasn’t test­ing her.
“I’m sor­ry to hear that,” she said.
“It made me think about you,” he said. “It made me real­ize how
often I inter­rupt your family’s meals.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “We enjoy hav­ing you.”
She exam­ined his face care­ful­ly through the screen. He exam­ined
her face right back.
“That’s good to hear,” he said. “Ever since you invit­ed me into your
home I just can’t stay away. I almost feel like it’s my house, too.”
“How nice,” she said.
“So when I found myself deal­ing with an unpleas­ant sit­u­a­tion
today I thought of you,” he said. “You were so help­ful last time.”
“Oh?” Patri­cia said.
“The woman who cleaned for my great-aunt dis­ap­peared,” he said.
“And I heard that some­one was spread­ing the sto­ry that the last place
she was seen was my house. The insin­u­a­tion is that I had some­thing
to do with it.”
And Patri­cia knew. The police had been to see him. They hadn’t
said her name. He hadn’t seen her last night. But he was sus­pi­cious
and had come here to test her, to see if he could jolt her into
reveal­ing some­thing. Clear­ly he had nev­er been to a cock­tail par­ty in
the Old Vil­lage before.
“Who would say some­thing like that, I won­der?” Patri­cia asked.
“I thought you might have heard some­thing.”
“I don’t lis­ten to gos­sip.”
“Well,” he said. “The way I heard it, she took off with some fel­la.”
“Then that set­tles that,” she said.
“It hurts me to think that you or your kids might hear that I did
some­thing to her,” he said. “The last thing I want is for any­one to be
afraid of me.”
“Don’t you wor­ry about that for a sec­ond,” Patri­cia said, and she
made her­self meet his eyes. “No one in this house is afraid of you.”
They held each oth­er for a sec­ond, and it felt like a chal­lenge. She
looked away first.
“It’s just the way you’re talk­ing to me,” he said. “You won’t open
the door. You seem dis­tant. Usu­al­ly you invite me in when I drop by.
I feel like something’s changed.”
“Not a thing,” she said, and real­ized what she had to do. “We were
about to have dessert. Won’t you join us?”
She kept her breath­ing under con­trol, kept a pleas­ant smile on her
face.
“That would be nice,” he said. “Thank you.”
She real­ized she had to let him in now, and she forced her arm to
reach out toward the door, and she felt the bones in her shoul­der
grat­ing as she took the latch in one hand and twist­ed it clock­wise.
The screen door groaned on its spring.
“Come in,” she said. “You’re always wel­come.”
She stood to the side as he stepped past her, and she saw his chin
cov­ered with blood and that thing retract­ing into his mouth, and it
was only a shad­ow, and she closed the door behind him.
“Thank you,” he said.
He had got­ten into her house the same as if he’d held a gun to her
head. She had to stay calm. She wasn’t help­less. How many times
had she stood at a par­ty or in the super­mar­ket, talk­ing about
someone’s child being slow, or their baby being ugly, and that per­son
appeared out of nowhere and she smiled in their face and said, I was
just think­ing about you and that cute baby of yours, and they nev­er
had a clue.
She could do this.
“…would drain the per­son of all their blood and then give them
some­one else’s blood that was the wrong type,” Blue was say­ing as
she led James Har­ris back into the din­ing room.
“Mm-hmm,” Carter said, ignor­ing Blue.
“Are you talk­ing about Himm­ler and the camps?” James Har­ris
asked.
Blue and Carter stopped and looked up. Patri­cia saw every detail in
the room all at once. Every­thing felt freight­ed with impor­tance.
“Look who stopped by.” She smiled. “Just in time for dessert.”
She picked up her nap­kin and sat down, ges­tur­ing to her left for
James Har­ris to be seat­ed.
“Thank you for invit­ing an old bach­e­lor in for dessert,” he said.
“Blue,” Patri­cia said. “Why don’t you clear the table and bring in
the cook­ies. Would you like cof­fee, James?”
“It’ll keep me up,” he said. “I have enough trou­ble sleep­ing as it is.”
“Which cook­ies?” Blue asked.
“All of them,” Patri­cia said, and Blue scam­pered from the room,
prac­ti­cal­ly skip­ping.
“How’re you enjoy­ing sum­mer?” Carter asked. “Where’d you live
before here?”
“Neva­da,” James Har­ris said.
Neva­da? Patri­cia thought.
“That’s a dry heat,” Carter said. “We got up to eighty-five per­cent
humid­i­ty today.”
“It’s cer­tain­ly not what I’m used to,” James said. “It real­ly ruins my
appetite.”
Was that what he’d been doing to Des­tiny Tay­lor, Patri­cia
won­dered? Did he think he was eat­ing blood? She thought about
Richard Chase, the Vam­pire of Sacra­men­to, who killed and par­tial­ly
ate six peo­ple in the sev­en­ties and lit­er­al­ly believed he was an actu­al
vam­pire. Then she saw that hard, thorny thing retreat­ing into James
Harris’s mouth like a cockroach’s leg, and she didn’t know how to
explain that. Her pulse sped up as she real­ized that it lay in his
throat, behind a thin lay­er of skin, so close to her she could reach
over and touch it. So close to Blue. She took a breath and forced
her­self to calm down.
“I have a recipe for gaz­pa­cho,” she said. “Have you ever had
gaz­pa­cho, James?”
“Can’t say I have,” he said.
“It’s a cold soup,” Patri­cia said. “From Italy.”
“Gross,” Blue said, com­ing in with four bags of Pep­peridge Farm
cook­ies clutched to his chest.
“It’s per­fect for warm weath­er,” Patri­cia smiled. “I’ll copy the
recipe down for you before you go.”
“Look,” Carter said, in his busi­ness voice, and Patri­cia looked at
him, try­ing to con­vey in the secret lan­guage of mar­ried cou­ples that
they need­ed to stay absolute­ly nor­mal because they were in more
dan­ger than he knew right this minute.
Carter made eye con­tact and Patri­cia flicked her eyes from her
hus­band to James Har­ris and put every­thing inside her heart,
every­thing they shared in their mar­riage, she put it all into her eyes
in a way only he could see, and he got it. Play it safe, her eyes said.
Play dumb.
Carter broke eye con­tact and turned to James Har­ris.
“We need to clear the air,” he said. “You have to real­ize that Pat­ty
feels ter­ri­ble about what she said to the police.”
Patri­cia felt like Carter had cracked open her chest and dumped ice
cubes inside. Any­thing she could say froze in her throat.
“What did Mom do?” Blue asked.
“I think it’s bet­ter if you hear it from your moth­er,” James Har­ris
said.
Patri­cia saw James Har­ris and Carter both watch­ing her. James
Har­ris wore a sin­cere mask but Patri­cia knew that behind it he was
laugh­ing at her. Carter wore his Seri­ous Man face.
“I thought Mr. Har­ris had done some­thing wrong,” Patri­cia told
Blue, push­ing the words through her con­strict­ed throat. “But I was
con­fused.”
“It wasn’t much fun hav­ing the police stop by my house today,”
James Har­ris said.
“You called the police on him?” Blue asked, astound­ed.
“I feel awful about all this,” Carter said. “Pat­ty?”
“I’m sor­ry,” Patri­cia said, faint­ly.
“We cleared it all up,” James Har­ris said. “Most­ly it was just
embar­rass­ing to have a police car parked in front of my house since
I’m new here. You know how these small neigh­bor­hoods are.”
“What did you do?” Blue asked James Har­ris.
“Well, it’s a lit­tle adult,” James Har­ris said. “Your moth­er should
real­ly be the one to tell you.”
Patri­cia felt trapped by Carter and James Har­ris, and the
unfair­ness of it all made her feel wild. This was her house, this was
her fam­i­ly, she hadn’t done any­thing wrong. She could ask every­one
to leave, right this minute. But she had done some­thing wrong,
hadn’t she? Because Des­tiny Tay­lor was cry­ing her­self to sleep
with­out her moth­er right this minute.
“I…,” she began, and it died in the din­ing room air.
“Your moth­er thought he had done some­thing inap­pro­pri­ate with
a child,” Carter said. “But she was absolute­ly, one hun­dred per­cent
wrong. I want you to know, son, we would nev­er invite some­one into
this house who might harm you or your sis­ter in any way. Your
moth­er meant well but she wasn’t think­ing clear­ly.”
James Har­ris kept star­ing at Patri­cia.
“Yes,” she said. “I was mixed up.”
The silence stretched on and Patri­cia real­ized what they were
wait­ing for. She looked hard at her plate.
“I’m sor­ry,” she said in a voice so faint she bare­ly heard it.
James Har­ris bit nois­i­ly into a Pep­peridge Farm Mint Milano and
chewed. In the silence, she could hear his teeth grind­ing it to pulp,
and then he swal­lowed and she heard the wad of chewed-up cook­ie
slide down his throat, past that thing.
“Well,” James Har­ris said, “I have to run but don’t worry—I can’t
be too mad at your mom. After all, we’re neigh­bors. And you’ve been
so kind to me since I moved in.”
“I’ll show you out,” Patri­cia said, because she didn’t know what
else to say.
She walked through the dark front hall in front of James Har­ris
and felt him lean­ing for­ward to say some­thing. She couldn’t take it.
She couldn’t han­dle one more word. He was so smug.
“Patri­cia…,” he began, voice low.
She snapped on the hall light. He flinched, squint­ing and blink­ing.
A teardrop leaked from one eye. It was child­ish, but it made her feel
bet­ter.
—
As they got ready for bed, Carter tried to talk to her.
“Pat­ty,” he said. “Don’t get upset. It was bet­ter to get that out in
the open.”
“I’m not upset,” she said.
“What­ev­er you think you saw, he seems like an okay guy.”
“Carter, I saw it,” she said. “He was doing some­thing to that lit­tle
girl. They took her from her moth­er today because they found a mark
on her inner thigh.”
“I’m not going to get into that again,” he said. “At some point you
have to assume the pro­fes­sion­als know what they’re doing.”
“I saw him,” she said.
“Even if you did look in his van that no one could find,” Carter
said, “eye­wit­ness accounts are noto­ri­ous­ly unre­li­able. It was dark,
the light source was a flash­light, it hap­pened fast.”
“I know what I saw,” Patri­cia said.
“I can show you stud­ies,” Carter said.
But Patri­cia knew what she had seen and she knew it was
unnat­ur­al. From the way Ann Sav­age attacked her, to Miss Mary
being attacked by rats, to the man on the roof that night, to James
Har­ris and all his hints about eat­ing and being inter­rupt­ed, the way
the Old Vil­lage no longer felt safe—something was wrong. She’d
already removed their spare key from its hid­ing place out­side in the
fake rock, and she’d start­ed dead­bolt­ing the doors when­ev­er she left
the house, even just to run errands. Things were chang­ing too fast,
and James Har­ris was at the cen­ter of it.
And some­thing he’d said ate at her. She got up and went
down­stairs.
“Pat­ty,” Carter called behind her. “Don’t storm off.”
“I’m not storm­ing,” she called over her shoul­der, but real­ly didn’t
care if he heard her or not.
She found her copy of Drac­u­la in the book­case in the den. They’d
read it for book club in Octo­ber two years ago.
She flipped through the pages until the phrase she was look­ing for
jumped out at her:
“He may not enter any­where at the first,” says Van Hels­ing in his
Dutch-taint­ed Eng­lish, “unless there be some of the house­hold who
bid him to come; though after­wards he can come as he please.”
She had invit­ed him inside her house months ago. She thought
about Richard Chase, the Vam­pire of Sacra­men­to, again, and then
she thought about that thing in his mouth, and the next day after
church she drove to The Com­mons shop­ping cen­ter and went into
the Book Bag. She checked to make sure no one she knew was there
before she walked over to the reg­is­ter.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Could you tell me where your hor­ror books
are?”
“Behind Sci-fi and Fan­ta­sy,” the kid grunt­ed with­out look­ing up.
“Thank you,” Patri­cia said.
She picked books by their cov­ers, one after the oth­er, and began
pil­ing them up by the cash reg­is­ter.
When she was ready to pay, the clerk rang them up, one cov­er of a
hunky, smooth-shaven young man with spiked hair after anoth­er:
Vam­pire Beat, Some of Your Blood, The Del­i­cate Depen­den­cy,
’Salem’s Lot, Vam­pire Junc­tion, Live Girls, Night­blood, No Blood
Spilled, The Vampire’s Appren­tice, Inter­view with the Vam­pire, The
Vam­pire Lestat, Vam­pire Tapes­try, The Hotel Tran­syl­va­nia. If it

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.

18
Eddie takes the detec­tive out to the back­yard. There’s no ride to the police sta­tion, no Eddie in the
back of a car, and I tell myself that this isn’t seri­ous. This is noth­ing, real­ly.
If it were some­thing, he wouldn’t be offer­ing the detec­tive bot­tled water with a smile.
I stand in the kitchen, absent­mind­ed­ly clean­ing the coun­ters, putting glass­es in the dish­wash­er,
any­thing to keep my hands busy and make me look just as relaxed as Eddie does right now.
But I’m not Eddie, and when Detec­tive Lau­rent comes back inside, I have to fight the urge to go
hide in the bed­room and lock the door.
It sounds stu­pid, but I’d thought this kind of mon­ey and lifestyle insu­lat­ed you from things like this,
the police show­ing up at your door with ques­tions and hard eyes.
The detec­tive is friend­ly enough, though, hold­ing up her emp­ty bot­tle. “Recy­cling?” she asks, and
I take it from her, smil­ing like I’m total­ly unboth­ered.
She leans on the counter, casu­al, and asks, “How long have the two of you been see­ing each
oth­er?”
I have no idea if this is an actu­al ques­tion she’s ask­ing as a police offi­cer, or if she’s just mak­ing
small talk, and my palms sweat as I reach up to tuck my hair behind my ear.
“A few months?” I say. “Eddie and I met back in Feb­ru­ary, start­ed dat­ing in March?”
Great, I’m doing the ques­tion­ing thing that makes me sound like an unsure lit­tle girl, not the kind of
woman who belongs in a house like this.
But the detec­tive just smiles at me, her dark eyes warm, the skin around them crin­kling.
“Your fiancé says you used to be his dog-walk­er.” Wrin­kling her nose, she ges­tures around us. “I
said, ‘What the hell do peo­ple in this neigh­bor­hood need a dog-walk­er for?’ but that’s the bougie set
for you, isn’t it?”
I laugh along with her, nod­ding even as my heart keeps pound­ing and my hands keep shak­ing. “I
said the same thing. But it was a good job, and I like dogs.”
I could not sound more insipid if I tried, but that’s the point, right? Make her think I’m no one
worth even talk­ing to. And what­ev­er this is, it has noth­ing to do with me. Plain Jane, blend­ing into the
back­ground again.
Drum­ming her nails on the counter—sensible, short, square, only one thin gold band on her left
hand—Detective Lau­rent nods. “We all have to do what we can to get by,” she says, not unkind­ly, and
then gives me a nod before check­ing the phone she has clipped to her belt.
“I bet­ter get going. Sor­ry again for inter­rupt­ing y’all’s evening.”
“It was no prob­lem at all,” I tell her, dying to ask why she’s here, what she said to Eddie, but also
want­i­ng her to go, to pre­tend that this night nev­er even hap­pened.
“Let me walk you out,” I offer, but she waves me off.
“No need.” Then, reach­ing into her jack­et, she pulls out a busi­ness card and hands it to me. Unlike
the card Eddie hand­ed to John that day, this one is thin, the paper cheap. It’s stamped with the
Moun­tain Brook PD’s crest, and has her name—Detective Tori Laurent—and num­ber. “I told Mr.
Rochester to call if he has any ques­tions. You do the same, okay?”
And then she’s off, her sen­si­ble shoes squeak­ing on the floor, the front door open­ing and clos­ing.
As though he’d been wait­ing for her to leave, Eddie comes in through the back slid­ing glass door
and lets out a long breath, shov­ing his hands through his hair.
“Are you okay?” he asks, and I make myself smile up at him as I wrap my arms around his waist.
“Yeah, fine,” I say, even though I def­i­nite­ly am not. “What did she want?”
He leans in close, rest­ing his chin on the top of my head. “To talk about Blanche. And Bea.”
“Did they find her?” My voice is qui­et. It’s such a grue­some ques­tion, a grue­some image, them
find­ing Bea after she’s been in the water this long …
“Not Bea,” Eddie replies, his voice rough. “Blanche, though. They found Blanche.”
“Jesus,” I mut­ter, try­ing hard not to think about what exact­ly they found as I pull out of his
embrace.
His skin has gone a sort of gray­ish-green, and a mus­cle keeps tick­ing in his jaw. He looks more
like the Eddie I first met than he has in ages, and my stom­ach lurch­es.
“Is there more?”
“She was … there was a frac­ture on her skull. Like she’d been hit by some­thing. Or some­one.”
He turns away from me, then, rub­bing the back of his neck, and I stand there, absorb­ing the news,
peel­ing through the shock and fear to see what this means.
Now I’m not just nau­seous, I’m cold. Numb, almost as I reach up and press my fin­gers to my lips.
“She was mur­dered?” I ask, my voice bare­ly above a whis­per.
Eddie still has his back to me, his shoul­ders tense, and I can’t help but add, “And Bea?”
“Con­sid­ered a homi­cide, now, too,” he says. “That’s what they want­ed to talk to me about. To tell
me they’re now inves­ti­gat­ing her dis­ap­pear­ance as a mur­der.”
I feel like my vision is gray­ing out, and my knees are sud­den­ly weak, watery. “Oh, god. Eddie.”
I don’t know what else to say.
We were final­ly start­ing to make peace with Bea’s ghost. We’re engaged, for fuck’s sake. Talk­ing
about a wed­ding. And it’s one thing to have lost your wife in a trag­ic acci­dent. But to find out
some­one did it on pur­pose? That’s a night­mare.
And then anoth­er thought occurs to me. “They don’t…” I don’t even want to fin­ish the sen­tence.
Don’t want it hang­ing there in the air between us.
“Think I did it?” he asks, turn­ing around. He’s still pale, but his expres­sion isn’t quite so intense
now. “No, they just want­ed to let me know that things had changed. They’ll have ques­tions, of course,
but I got the impres­sion they were look­ing at me as the griev­ing wid­ow­er, not a sus­pect.”
The more he talks, the more that the nor­mal Eddie, the Eddie I’m used to, starts bleed­ing back into
his face and voice. I can prac­ti­cal­ly see his oth­er per­sona slid­ing on like a shell. Or a mask.
He looks at me then, frown­ing. “Christ, Jane, I’m so sor­ry.”
“Sor­ry?” I step toward him, tak­ing his hands. “Why would you say that?”
Sigh­ing, he pulls me into his arms. “Because this is such a fuck­ing mess, and I don’t want you to
have to deal with this. I don’t want you … I don’t know, sit­ting in some lit­tle room, answer­ing
ques­tions about some­thing that hap­pened before you even fuck­ing knew me.”
I thought I’d felt as scared as I could, but now a new hor­ror rush­es over me, mak­ing my mouth dry
as I look up at him. “You think they’ll want to ques­tion me?”
“They men­tioned it,” he says, dis­tract­ed. “Just that you should come along when I go in.”
I’ve spent the past five years avoid­ing atten­tion, avoid­ing ques­tions, def­i­nite­ly avoid­ing cops.
Fuck, if they look into Eddie over this, they’ll look into me. His fiancée. The girl he got engaged to
less than a year after his wife dis­ap­peared.
John, the call from Phoenix, now this. I can prac­ti­cal­ly feel the teeth of a trap start­ing to snap
closed, and I close my eyes, press­ing my fore­head against Eddie’s chest and tak­ing deep breaths.
Eddie’s hand goes to the back of my neck, rub­bing. “Don’t let it wor­ry you, though.”
“It doesn’t,” I auto­mat­i­cal­ly reply, but he gives a rue­ful smile, reach­ing out to cup my cheek.
“Janie, you’re pale as a ghost.”
I cap­ture his hand before he can pull it back, press­ing it clos­er to my face. His skin feels so warm.
Mine is still freez­ing. “This is a lot, I know,” he says. “I’m still try­ing to wrap my mind around it. But
I want you to know you have noth­ing to wor­ry about, okay? I’m not going any­where, and we’re going
to get through this.”
He’s speak­ing in this calm, mea­sured tone, but it doesn’t help. In fact, I think it might actu­al­ly
make it worse, and I step back from him, run­ning a hand through my hair.
“Eddie, your wife was mur­dered,” I say. “It’s not going to be okay. It can’t be.”
Things like this weren’t sup­posed to hap­pen here. I was sup­posed to be safe here, this place was
sup­posed to be safe.
And even though Blanche and Bea had dis­ap­peared before I even arrived in Thorn­field Estates,
there was a part of me that felt like maybe this was my fault. Had I brought this here? This sor­did­ness,
this vio­lence? Did it cling to me like some kind of virus, infect­ing any­one who got close to me?
It was a sil­ly, self-absorbed thought that didn’t make any sense. But what made even less sense
was the thought that Bea and Blanche could’ve stum­bled into some­thing that got them killed. Who
would’ve want­ed to hurt either of them? And why?
And why was Eddie so calm?
“I know, it’s fuck­ing awful,” he says on a sigh. “Believe me, I know.” Clos­ing his eyes, he pinch­es
the bridge of his nose. “But there’s noth­ing we can do about it now. Wor­ry­ing about it isn’t going to
change it.”
Wor­ry­ing about it isn’t going to change it. I want to tell him that it’s pret­ty fuck­ing nor­mal to
wor­ry about who might have want­ed your wife and her best friend dead, but some­thing stops me.
Eddie takes my hands. “Focus on the wed­ding,” he says. “On the rest of our lives. Not this.”
“It’s just that … I don’t real­ly like the police,” I say, and he frowns in con­fu­sion.
“Why not?”
Spo­ken like a rich white guy, I think to myself.
Instead, I con­sid­er my response very care­ful­ly. This is anoth­er moment where I feel like a bit of
truth in the lie might be use­ful.
“There was a fos­ter fam­i­ly I lived with,” I say. “In Ari­zona. They weren’t exact­ly in it to do good
work for kids, you know?”
When I glance back over at him, he’s got his arms fold­ed across his chest, watch­ing me with his

In Chap­ter 18 of “The Beasts of Tarzan,” titled “Paul­vitch Plots Revenge,” the nar­ra­tive focus­es on Alexan­der Paul­vitch’s schem­ing for ret­ri­bu­tion against Tarzan and Jane. Har­bour­ing a deep-seat­ed vendet­ta, the Russ­ian plots var­i­ous means to thwart the cou­ple’s escape but strug­gles with prac­ti­cal exe­cu­tion. Paul­vitch’s plans are dri­ven by a blend of imprac­ti­cal ideas and a thirst for vengeance that his dis­tort­ed rea­son­ing fuels, fail­ing to rec­og­nize his role in the con­flict with Tarzan. Even­tu­al­ly, he decides the only fea­si­ble approach is to tra­verse the dan­ger­ous jour­ney to retrieve a canoe and return to con­front his adver­saries.

Deter­mined, Paul­vitch nav­i­gates through the jun­gle towards a vil­lage, aim­ing to secure a canoe but is met with hos­til­i­ty due to his past actions asso­ci­at­ed with greed and cru­el­ty. After being chased away, he stealth­ily watch­es for an oppor­tu­ni­ty to steal a canoe, which presents itself when a local youth unsus­pect­ing­ly cross­es paths with him. Paul­vitch cold­ly mur­ders the boy, steals his canoe, and sets off towards the Kin­caid.

Upon reach­ing the Kin­caid under the cloak of night, Paul­vitch plans to recruit the ship’s dis­grun­tled crew to seize con­trol from Tarzan. He sneaks aboard and attempts to allure one of the crew mem­bers with his scheme but is met with resis­tance and dis­dain for past griev­ances. Faced with the threat of being hand­ed over to Tarzan or nav­i­gat­ing the per­ilous jun­gle alone, Paul­vitch opts for the lat­ter, after unsuc­cess­ful­ly try­ing to bribe his way out with his pos­ses­sions.

Mak­ing his way to his cab­in to col­lect his things, Paul­vitch retrieves an infer­nal machine—a bomb designed dur­ing his time with the Nihilists—and sets it with the inten­tion of anni­hi­lat­ing Tarzan and his allies on the Kin­caid. He con­ceals the device, leaves with the coerced “pay­ment” for his free­dom, and departs the ship, leav­ing the crew and the pro­tag­o­nists unaware of the immi­nent dan­ger that lurks aboard.

The chap­ter vivid­ly por­trays Paul­vitch’s descent into fur­ther vil­lainy, illus­trat­ing his cun­ning and des­per­a­tion, set­ting a tense stage for an impend­ing con­fronta­tion fueled by revenge.