In Chap­ter 6, Lis­beth Salan­der infil­trates Mil­ton Secu­ri­ty’s office on Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 23, at 3:10 a.m., using a pirat­ed card key. She dis­cov­ers her old office unchanged, indi­cat­ing no new occu­pant. Salan­der upgrades Arman­sky’s com­put­er with her cus­tom pro­gram to copy its hard dri­ve to a serv­er in Hol­land. Her actions high­light her tech­ni­cal prowess and cri­tique of the com­pa­ny’s secu­ri­ty laps­es.

In this chap­ter of “The Last One at the Wed­ding,” Frank Sza­tows­ki returns to Black­bird cot­tage to find his sis­ter Tam­my and niece Abi­gail gear­ing up for a hike amid the chaot­ic after­math of a recent tragedy involv­ing Gwen­dolyn, a girl who was dis­cov­ered dead. While Tam­my insists that they must move for­ward and par­tic­i­pate in the event, Frank feels over­whelmed and opts to stay behind for some much-need­ed rest. Watch­ing them leave, he pre­pares a quick snack, hop­ing to avoid fur­ther encoun­ters with the hik­ing group.

Frank decides to take a qui­eter route back to the beach, where he dis­cov­ers Gwen­dolyn’s body had been dragged ashore. The atmos­phere is tense, the pre­vi­ous chaos sub­sided, leav­ing only vague reminders of the tragedy. Reach­ing the entrance of the camp, he encoun­ters Hugo, who is cheer­ful and offers help in get­ting Frank’s car. Despite Frank’s insis­tence that he can man­age, Hugo promis­es to arrange for the Jeep­’s deliv­ery, main­tain­ing a bright demeanor about the sit­u­a­tion.

As they chat, Hugo divulges that he runs the camp year-round, deal­ing with var­i­ous main­te­nance issues. The two briefly dis­cuss Aidan Gardner’s reluc­tance to vis­it the camp, with Hugo hint­ing that Aidan is con­sumed with work in Boston. Soon after, Frank is reunit­ed with his vehi­cle and heads into town.

Arriv­ing at a restau­rant, Frank maneu­vers through the area, even­tu­al­ly lead­ing to a wood­ed path where he seeks out Brody Tag­gart, hop­ing for answers about Gwen­dolyn’s death. As he approach­es Brody’s home, he hears a dog bark­ing. To his sur­prise, Brody emerges with an AR-15, threat­en­ing Frank from the porch. Frank tries to con­vey the urgency of his vis­it, reveal­ing Gwendolyn’s trag­ic demise. After a tense moment, Brody’s sis­ter Lin­da joins them, reveal­ing a more hos­pitable side.

Lin­da and Frank begin to dis­cuss Dawn, her daugh­ter, as they delve into the nature of her rela­tion­ship with Aidan Gard­ner. Lin­da reveals her con­cerns about “Gard­ner Stan­dard Time,” manip­u­lat­ed real­i­ties cre­at­ed by Aidan and his fam­i­ly. She explains Dawn’s unsteady rela­tion­ship his­to­ry with Aidan, which is more com­pli­cat­ed than it appears.

As the con­ver­sa­tion unfolds, Lin­da shares alarm­ing details about Dawn’s last days, includ­ing a preg­nan­cy test she dis­cov­ered and a con­cern­ing phone call from her daugh­ter before her dis­ap­pear­ance. The chap­ter con­cludes with a sense of dread and sus­pi­cion, as Lin­da express­es out­right dis­be­lief in the police’s han­dling of the inves­ti­ga­tion and hints that they might have cov­ered up cru­cial evi­dence sur­round­ing her daughter’s fate. The ten­sion esca­lates, leav­ing Frank inti­mate­ly aware of the dan­gers sur­round­ing his own daugh­ter, Mag­gie, as the pieces of an unset­tling mys­tery begin to reveal them­selves.

In Chap­ter 6 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Saint spends an anx­ious hour in the woods sur­round­ing her home, search­ing for her miss­ing bees, hop­ing they’ve mere­ly relo­cat­ed rather than been lost or harmed. As she emerges on Main Street, her braid is slight­ly undone and sweat beads on her fore­head. She enters the small police sta­tion just as she’s about to demand action against Mr. Lewis, but her atten­tion is drawn to Misty Mey­er, who stands trem­bling before an offi­cer.

Misty appears young, fright­ened, and out of breath, evi­dence of a recent trau­mat­ic event evi­dent from the scraped skin on her knees. As she col­laps­es, the offi­cer helps her into a chair. Con­cerned, he urges her to take a moment to breathe. Misty, how­ev­er, is fix­at­ed on the street out­side, vis­i­bly shak­en as she mur­murs that some­one “saved” her. The offi­cer tries to reas­sure her, but Misty insists on the pres­ence of a fig­ure who helped her.

Her dis­tress only grows as she recounts her expe­ri­ence with a “pirate kid,” men­tion­ing that he con­front­ed a much larg­er man. Saint can’t help but feel a ris­ing dread as she approach­es, fueled by instinct. Misty reveals that the kid who inter­vened was Joseph Macauley, instant­ly cap­tur­ing Sain­t’s atten­tion.

Sain­t’s small stature con­trasts with the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion as she con­tin­ues inquir­ing after Joseph’s where­abouts. The offi­cer, notic­ing her con­cern, also leans in, aware of the grav­i­ty of Misty’s words. Saint recalls her grand­fa­ther’s sud­den death, con­nect­ing the expe­ri­ence of shock to the cur­rent unfold­ing cri­sis.

The offi­cer attempts to gath­er more infor­ma­tion while wrap­ping a jack­et around Misty, who remains silent. Saint grows increas­ing­ly fran­tic at the thought of Joseph being in dan­ger, press­ing for detailed answers. In des­per­a­tion, Misty men­tions a clear­ing near the old rail­road, prompt­ing Saint to bolt from the sta­tion, deter­mi­na­tion fuel­ing her as she rush­es toward the woods, aware that every­thing has shift­ed in that moment.

In Chap­ter 6, Phoebe wakes up in a hotel room, sur­round­ed by famil­iar scents that lead her to affirm her exis­tence. It’s ear­ly morn­ing, the par­ty atmos­phere has sub­sided, and she grap­ples with feel­ings of grief and shame that often accom­pa­ny her at this hour. Acknowl­edg­ing her painful thoughts, she resists the urge to fall into despair—especially after her recent sui­cide attempt.

Deter­mined to take action, Phoebe thinks of small tasks to ground her­self, declar­ing she can brush her teeth or hydrate. How­ev­er, she soon finds that attempt­ing to take a bath is thwart­ed by the absence of a drain stop­per, which leads her to opt for the hotel’s hot tub instead. She pre­pares for a new expe­ri­ence, shed­ding her wed­ding ring and don­ning the plush hotel robe, inad­ver­tent­ly sym­bol­iz­ing her break from past con­straints.

As she ven­tures down­stairs, she notices the unset­tling arrange­ment of books in the hotel lob­by, instinc­tive­ly cor­rect­ing the spines, an act of defi­ance against the mun­dan­i­ty she per­ceives. Upon reach­ing the hot tub, she enters and feels the warmth melt away her weari­ness. A hand­some man joins her, and they engage in light­heart­ed ban­ter. This unex­pect­ed con­nec­tion pro­vides her a sense of relief as they trade wit­ty remarks about their appear­ances and life expe­ri­ences.

Their con­ver­sa­tion takes a deep­er turn when Phoebe can­did­ly reveals her strug­gles with sui­cide, not­ing the absur­di­ty of her sit­u­a­tion amid the fes­tiv­i­ties of a wed­ding. The man responds empa­thet­i­cal­ly, shar­ing his own strug­gles. Their dia­logue blends humor and heart­felt truth, turn­ing what could have been heavy into a bond­ing moment. They nav­i­gate top­ics of hon­esty, attrac­tion, and their indi­vid­ual bur­dens while stand­ing pre­car­i­ous­ly close to a thresh­old of con­nec­tion.

Phoebe real­izes she desires inti­ma­cy, open­ly stat­ing, “I want to fuck you.” The acknowl­edg­ment of desire lays bare the rem­nants of her for­mer reser­va­tions about want­i­ng some­thing gen­uine. Their inter­ac­tion cul­mi­nates in a moment of truth that feels lib­er­at­ing for Phoebe, who enters a trans­for­ma­tive phase as she reflects on her past while savor­ing the vibrant present. Con­clud­ing the chap­ter, she retrieves *Mrs. Dal­loway* from a shelf, indi­cat­ing a shift towards a new chap­ter in her life, embody­ing her rekin­dled curios­i­ty about what lies ahead after pain and loss.

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

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.

6
When I was ten, I was invit­ed to be a con­tes­tant on Star Search.
On the �rst show, I did a spunky ver­sion of a song I’d heard sung by Judy
Gar­land: “I Don’t Care.” I got 3.75 stars. My rival, a girl who sang opera, got
3.5. I advanced to the next round. The next episode taped lat­er that day, and I
was up against a bolo-tie-wear­ing boy with a lot of hair spray in his hair named
Mar­ty Thomas, age twelve. We were friend­ly; we even played bas­ket­ball togeth­er
before the show. I sang the Jud­ds’ “Love Can Build a Bridge,” which I’d sung the
year before at my aunt’s wed­ding.
While we were wait­ing for our scores, Mar­ty and I were inter­viewed onstage
by the host, Ed McMa­hon.
“I noticed last week, you have the most adorable, pret­ty eyes,” he said to me.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Why not?”
“They’re mean.”
“Boyfriends?” Ed said. “You mean all boys are mean? I’m not mean! How
about me?”
“Well, it depends,” I said.
“I get that a lot,” Ed said.
I got 3.75 again. Mar­ty got a per­fect 4. I smiled and hugged him polite­ly, and
as I walked o�, Ed wished me luck. I kept it togeth­er until I made it back­stage—
but then I burst into tears. After­ward, my mom got me a hot fudge sun­dae.
My mom and I kept �ying back and forth to New York. The inten­si­ty of
work­ing in the city as a lit­tle girl was excit­ing for me, even if it was also
intim­i­dat­ing.
I got o�ered a job: an under­study role in the o�-Broadway musi­cal Ruth­less!,
inspired by The Bad Seed, All About Eve, Mame, and Gyp­sy. I played a
socio­path­ic child star named Tina Den­mark. Tina’s �rst song was called “Born
to Enter­tain.” It hit close to home. The oth­er under­study was a tal­ent­ed young
actress named Natal­ie Port­man.
While I was doing the show, we rent­ed a lit­tle apart­ment for my mom, baby
Jamie Lynn, and me near my pub­lic school, the Pro­fes­sion­al Per­form­ing Arts
School, and I took class­es near­by at Broad­way Dance Cen­ter. But most­ly I
passed my time at the Play­ers The­atre down­town.
The expe­ri­ence was a val­i­da­tion in some way, proof I had enough tal­ent to
make it in the the­atri­cal world. But it was a gru­el­ing sched­ule. There was no time
to be a reg­u­lar kid or real­ly make friends, because I had to work near­ly every day.
On Sat­ur­days there were two shows.
I also didn’t love being an under­study. I had to be at the the­ater every night
until as late as mid­night, in case I had to take over for the main Tina, Lau­ra Bell
Bundy. After a few months, she left and I took over the lead, but I was awful­ly
worn out.
By the time Christ­mas came around, I des­per­ate­ly want­ed to go home—and
then I learned I was sup­posed to per­form on Christ­mas Day. In tears, I asked my
mom, “Am I real­ly going to do this for Christ­mas?” I looked at the lit­tle mini
tree in our apart­ment, think­ing about the stur­dy ever­green we’d have in our
liv­ing room in Kent­wood.
In my lit­tle-girl mind, I didn’t under­stand why I’d want to do that—continue
per­form­ing through the hol­i­days. So I quit the show and went home.
The sched­ule of New York City the­ater was just too rough on me at that age.
One good thing did come out of it, though: I learned how to sing in a the­ater
with small acoustics. The audi­ence is right beside you—just two hun­dred peo­ple
in the room. Hon­est­ly, it’s strange, but in that space, the feel­ing of singing is

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 6
Friends and rel­a­tives had dropped by the house all Fri­day and
brought Patri­cia six bunch­es of flow­ers, two copies of South­ern
Liv­ing and one copy of Red­book, three casseroles (corn, taco,
spinach), a pound of cof­fee, a bot­tle of wine, and two pies (Boston
cream, peach). She decid­ed that regift­ing a casse­role was
appro­pri­ate, giv­en the sit­u­a­tion, so she took out the taco one to thaw.
Carter had gone to the hos­pi­tal ear­ly even though it was the
week­end. Patri­cia found Mrs. Greene and Miss Mary sit­ting on the
back patio. The morn­ing felt soft and warm, and Mrs. Greene leafed
through Fam­i­ly Cir­cle mag­a­zine while Miss Mary stared at the bird
feed­er, which was, as usu­al, crawl­ing with squir­rels.
“Are you enjoy­ing the sun­shine, Miss Mary?” Patri­cia asked.
Miss Mary turned her watery eyes toward Patri­cia and scowled.
“Hoyt Pick­ens came by last night,” she said.
“Ear’s look­ing bet­ter,” Mrs. Greene said.
“Thank you,” Patri­cia said.
Rag­tag, lying at Miss Mary’s feet, perked up as a fat black marsh
rat streaked out of the bush­es and dashed across the grass, mak­ing
Patri­cia jump and send­ing three squir­rels flee­ing in ter­ror. It dashed
around the edge of the fence sep­a­rat­ing their prop­er­ty from the
Langs next door and was gone as fast as it had appeared. Rag­tag put
his head down again.
“You ought to put out poi­son,” Mrs. Greene said.
Patri­cia made a men­tal note to call the bug man and see if they had
rat poi­son.
“I’m just going down the street to drop off a casse­role,” Patri­cia
said.
“We’re about to have some lunch,” Mrs. Greene said. “What are
you think­ing about for lunch, Miss Mary?”
“Hoyt,” Miss Mary said. “What was his name, that Hoyt?”
Patri­cia wrote a quick note (So sor­ry for your loss, The Camp­bells)
and taped it to the tin foil over the taco casse­role, then walked down
the warm­ing streets to Ann Savage’s cot­tage, the freez­ing cold
casse­role held in front of her.
It was turn­ing into a hot day so she had a lit­tle bit of a shine on her
by the time she stepped off the road onto Mrs. Savage’s dirt yard. The
nephew must be home because his white van sat on the grass,
under­neath the shade. It looked out of place in the Old Vil­lage
because, as Maryellen had point­ed out, it seemed like the kind of
thing a child snatch­er would dri­ve.
Patri­cia walked up the wood­en steps to the front porch and rat­tled
her knuck­les against the screen door. After a minute she knocked
again and heard noth­ing but the hol­low echo of her knock inside the
house and cicadas scream­ing from the drainage pond that sep­a­rat­ed
Mrs. Savage’s yard from the John­sons next door.
Patri­cia knocked again and wait­ed, look­ing across the street at
where devel­op­ers had torn down the Short­ridges’ house, which used
to have the most beau­ti­ful slate roof. In its place, some­one from out
of town was build­ing an osten­ta­tious minia­ture man­sion. More and
more of these eye­sores were pop­ping up all over the Old Vil­lage, big
heavy things that sprawled from prop­er­ty line to prop­er­ty line and
didn’t leave any room for a yard.
Patri­cia want­ed to leave the casse­role, but she hadn’t come all this
way not to speak to the nephew. She decid­ed to try the front door.
She’d just leave it on the kitchen counter with a note, she told her­self.
She opened the screen door and turned the door­knob. It stuck for a
moment, then swung open.
“Yoo-hoo?” Patri­cia called into the dim inte­ri­or.
No one answered. Patri­cia stepped inside. All the blinds were
drawn. The air felt hot and dusty.
“Hel­lo?” Patri­cia said. “It’s Patri­cia Camp­bell from Pier­ates
Cruze?”
No answer. She’d nev­er been inside Ann Savage’s house before.
Heavy old fur­ni­ture crowd­ed the front room. Liquor store box­es and
paper bags of junk mail cov­ered the floor. Cir­cu­lars, cat­a­logs, and old
rolled-up copies of the Moul­trie News spilled from the seats of every
chair. Four dusty old Sam­sonite suit­cas­es were lined up against the
wall. Built-in shelves around the front door were crowd­ed with
water­logged romance nov­els. It smelled like the Good­will store.
A door­way on her left led into a dark kitchen, and a door­way on
her right led to the back of the house. A ceil­ing fan spun lethar­gi­cal­ly
over­head. Patri­cia looked down the hall­way. There was a half-open
door at the far end lead­ing to what she assumed was the bed­room.
From it, she heard the groan­ing of a win­dow-unit air con­di­tion­er.
Sure­ly the nephew wouldn’t have gone out and left his air
con­di­tion­er on.
Hold­ing her breath, Patri­cia walked care­ful­ly down the hall and
pushed the bed­room door all the way open.
“Knock knock?” she said.
The man lying on the bed was dead.
He lay on top of the quilt, still in his work boots. He wore blue
jeans and a white but­ton-up shirt. His hands were at his sides. He
was huge, well over six feet, and his feet hung off the end. But despite
his size, he looked starved. The flesh clung tight to his bones. The
sal­low skin of his face looked drawn and fine­ly wrin­kled, his blond
hair looked brit­tle and thin.
“Excuse me?” Patri­cia asked, her voice a shaky rasp.
She forced her­self to step all the way into the room, put the
casse­role dish on the end of the bed, and took his wrist. His skin felt
cool. He had no pulse.
Patri­cia exam­ined his face close­ly. He had thin lips, a wide mouth,
and high cheek­bones. His looks lay some­where between hand­some
and pret­ty. She shook his shoul­der, just in case.
“Sir?” she croaked. “Sir?”
His body bare­ly moved beneath her hand. She held the back of her
fore­fin­ger under his nos­trils: noth­ing. Her nurs­ing instincts took
over.
She used one hand to pull his chin down, and the oth­er to pull his
upper lip back. She felt inside his mouth with one fin­ger. His tongue
felt dry. Noth­ing obstruct­ed his air­way. Patri­cia leaned over his face
and real­ized, with a tick­ling in the veins on the inside of her elbows,
this was the clos­est she’d been to a man who wasn’t her hus­band in
nine­teen years. Then her dry lips pressed against his chapped ones
and formed a seal. She pinched his nose shut and blew three strong
breaths into his wind­pipe. Then she per­formed three strong chest
com­pres­sions.
Noth­ing. She leaned down for a sec­ond attempt, made the seal
with their lips, and blew into his mouth, once, twice, then her tra­chea
vibrat­ed back­ward as air blast­ed down her throat. She reared back
cough­ing, the man bolt­ed upright, his fore­head smack­ing into the
side of Patricia’s skull with a hol­low knock, and Patri­cia stag­gered
back­ward into the wall, knock­ing all the breath out of her lungs. Her
legs went out from under her, and she slid to the floor, land­ing hard
on her butt, as the man leapt to his feet, wild-eyed, send­ing the
casse­role dish clat­ter­ing to the floor.
“What the fuck!” he shout­ed.
He looked wild­ly around the room and found Patri­cia on the floor
at his feet. Chest heav­ing, mouth hang­ing open, he squint­ed at her in
the dim­ness.
“How’d you get in?” he shout­ed. “Who are you?”
Patri­cia man­aged to get her breath­ing under con­trol enough to
squeak, “Patri­cia Camp­bell from Pier­ates Cruze.”
“What?” he barked.
“I thought you were dead,” she said.
“What?” he barked again.
“I per­formed CPR,” she said. “You weren’t breath­ing.”
“What?” he barked one more time.
“I’m your neigh­bor?” Patri­cia cow­ered. “From Pier­ates Cruze?”
He looked out the hall door. He looked back at his bed. He looked
down at her.
“Fuck,” he said again, and his shoul­ders slumped.
“I brought you a casse­role,” Patri­cia said, point­ing at the upside-
down casse­role dish.
The man’s chest heaved slow­er.
“You came here to bring me a casse­role?” he asked.
“I’m so sor­ry for your loss,” Patri­cia said. “I’m…your great-aunt
was found in my yard? And things got a lit­tle bit phys­i­cal? Maybe
you’ve seen my dog? He’s a cock­er spaniel mix, he, well…maybe it’s
bet­ter you haven’t? And…? Well, I so hope that noth­ing hap­pened at
our house to make your aunt worse.”
“You brought me a casse­role because my aunt died,” he said, as if
explain­ing it to him­self.
“You didn’t come to the door,” she said. “But I saw your car out­side
so I stuck my head in.”
“And down the hall,” he said. “And into my bed­room.”
She felt like a fool.
“No one here thinks twice about that,” she explained. “It’s the Old
Vil­lage. You weren’t breath­ing.”
He opened his eyes wide and closed them tight­ly a few times,
sway­ing slight­ly.
“I am very, very tired,” he said.
Patri­cia real­ized he wasn’t going to help her to her feet, so she
pushed her­self up off the floor.
“Let me clean this up,” she said, reach­ing for the casse­role dish. “I
feel so stu­pid.”
“No,” he said. “You have to leave.” He wavered, his head jerk­ing in
lit­tle shakes and nods.
“It’ll only take a minute,” she said.

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.

6
Eddie isn’t there when I walk Adele the next morn­ing. His car is miss­ing from the garage, and I tell
myself I’m not dis­ap­point­ed when I take the pup­py from the back­yard and out for her walk.
Thorn­field Estates is just up the hill from Moun­tain Brook Vil­lage where I used to work, so this
morn­ing, I take Adele there, her lit­tle legs trot­ting hap­pi­ly as we turn out of the neigh­bor­hood. I tell
myself it’s because I’m bored with the same streets, but real­ly, it’s because I want peo­ple to see us. I
want peo­ple who don’t know I’m the dog-walk­er to see me with Eddie’s dog. Which means, in their
heads, I’m linked with Eddie.
It makes me hold my head up high­er as I walk past Roast­ed, past the lit­tle bou­tique sell­ing things
that I now rec­og­nize as knock­offs of South­ern Manors. I pass three stores with bright­ly pat­terned
quilt­ed bags in the win­dows, and I think how many of those bags are prob­a­bly tucked away in clos­ets
in Thorn­field Estates.
What would it feel like to be the kind of woman who spent $250 on an ugly bag just because you
could?
At my side, Adele trots along, her nails click­ing on the side­walk, and I’m just about to turn by the
book­store when I hear, “Jane?”
It’s Mrs. McLaren. I walk her dal­ma­t­ian, Mary-Beth, every Wednes­day, and now she’s stand­ing in
front of me, a Roast­ed cup in hand. Like Emi­ly Clark, she wears fan­cy yoga clothes half the time, but
she’s small­er and curvi­er than Emi­ly or Mrs. Reed, her hair about four dif­fer­ent shades of blond as it
curls around her face.
“What are you two doing all the way down here?” She asks it with a smile, but my face sud­den­ly
flames hot, like I’ve been caught at some­thing.
“Change of scenery,” I reply with a sheep­ish shrug, hop­ing Mrs. McLaren will just let this go, but
now she’s step­ping clos­er, her gaze falling to Adele.
“Sweet­heart, it’s prob­a­bly not safe to have the dogs out of the neigh­bor­hood.” The words are
cooed, sug­ar-sweet, a cot­ton can­dy chas­tise­ment, and I hate her for them.
Like I’m a child. Or, worse, a ser­vant who wan­dered out of her gat­ed yard.
“We’re not far from home,” I say, and at my side, Adele whines, strain­ing on her leash, her tail
brush­ing back and forth.
Home.
There’s a shop­ping bag dan­gling from Mrs. McLaren’s wrist as she steps clos­er. It’s imprint­ed
with the logo of one of those lit­tle bou­tiques I just passed, and I won­der what’s in it, want­i­ng to catch
a glimpse of the item inside, so that when I see it lying around her house lat­er, I can take it. A stu­pid,
pet­ty reac­tion, lash­ing out, I know that, but there it is, an insis­tent pulse under my skin.
What­ev­er this bitch bought today, she’s not going to keep it, not after mak­ing me feel this small.
“Okay, well, maybe run on back there, then?” The uptick, mak­ing it a ques­tion. “And sweet­ie,
please don’t ever take Mary-Beth out of the neigh­bor­hood, okay? She gets so excitable, and I’d hate
for her to be out in all this…” she waves a hand, the bag still dan­gling from her wrist. “Rig­ma­role.”
I’ve seen maybe three cars this morn­ing, and the only rig­ma­role cur­rent­ly hap­pen­ing is Mrs.
McLaren stop­ping me like I’m some kind of crim­i­nal for dar­ing to walk a dog out­side Thornfield’s
gates.
But I nod.
I smile.
I bite back the ven­om flood­ing my mouth because I have prac­tice at that, and I walk back to
Thorn­field Estates and to Eddie’s house.
It’s cool and qui­et as I let myself in, and I lean down to unclip Adele’s leash. Her claws skit­ter
across the mar­ble, then the hard­wood as she makes her way to the slid­ing glass doors, and I fol­low,
open­ing them to let her out into the yard.
This is the part where I’m sup­posed to hang up her leash on the hook by the front door, maybe
leave a note for Eddie say­ing that I came by and that Adele is out­side, and then leave. Go back to the
con­crete box on St. Pierre Street, think again about tak­ing the GRE, maybe sort through the var­i­ous
trea­sures I’ve picked up on dressers, on bath­room coun­ters, beside night­stands.
Instead, I walk back into the liv­ing room with that bright pink­ish-red couch and flo­ral chairs, the
shelves with all those books, and I look around.
For once, I’m not look­ing for some­thing to take. I don’t know what it says about me, about Eddie,
or how I might feel about Eddie that I don’t want to take any­thing from him, but I don’t. I just want to
know him. To learn some­thing.
Actu­al­ly, if I’m being hon­est with myself, I want to see pic­tures of him with Bea.
There aren’t any in the liv­ing room, but I can see spaces on the wall where pho­tographs must have
hung. And the man­tel is weird­ly bare, which makes me think it once held more than just a pair of
sil­ver can­dle­sticks.
I wan­der down the hall, sneak­ers squeak­ing, and there’s more empti­ness.
Upstairs.
The hard­wood is smooth under­foot, and there are no blank spaces here, only taste­ful pieces of art.
On the land­ing, there’s a table with that glass bowl I rec­og­nize from South­ern Manors, the one
shaped like an apple, and I let my fin­gers drift over it before mov­ing on, up the short­er flight of stairs
to the sec­ond floor.
It’s dim up here, the lights off, and the morn­ing sun not yet high enough to reach through the
win­dows. There are doors on either side, but I don’t try to open any of them.
Instead, I make my way to a small wood­en table under a round stained-glass win­dow, there at the
end of the hall.
There’s only one thing on it, a sil­ver-framed pho­to­graph, and it’s both exact­ly what I want­ed to
see, and some­thing I wish I’d nev­er seen at all.
I had won­dered what Bea and Eddie looked like togeth­er, and now I know.
They’re beau­ti­ful.
But it’s more than just that. Lots of peo­ple are beau­ti­ful, espe­cial­ly in this neigh­bor­hood where
every­one can afford the upkeep, so it’s not her per­fect hair and flaw­less fig­ure, her bright smile and
design­er bathing suit. It’s that they look like they fit. Both of them, stand­ing on that gor­geous beach,
her smil­ing at the cam­era, Eddie smil­ing at her.
They’d found the per­son for them. That thing most of us look for and nev­er find, that thing I always
assumed didn’t exist, because in this whole wide world, how could there ever be one per­son who
was just right for you?
But Bea was right for Eddie, I can see that now, and I sud­den­ly feel so stu­pid and small. Sure,
he’d flirt­ed with me, but he was prob­a­bly one of those guys for whom it was sec­ond nature. He’d had
this. He cer­tain­ly didn’t want me.
“That was in Hawaii.”
I whirl around, the keys falling from my sud­den­ly numb fin­gers.
Eddie is stand­ing in the hall­way, just at the top of the stairs, lean­ing against the wall with one
ankle crossed in front of the oth­er. He’s wear­ing jeans today and a blue but­ton-down, the kind that
looks casu­al, but prob­a­bly costs more than I’d make in a cou­ple of weeks at the cof­fee shop or
walk­ing dogs. I won­der what that’s like, to have so much mon­ey that spend­ing someone’s rent on one
shirt doesn’t even reg­is­ter.
His sun­glass­es dan­gle from his hand, and he nods at the table. “That pic­ture,” he tells me, as if I
hadn’t known what he was refer­ring to. “That’s me and Bea in Hawaii last year. We met there,
actu­al­ly.”
I swal­low hard, shov­ing my hands into the back pock­ets of my jeans, straight­en­ing my shoul­ders.
“I was just look­ing for the bath­room,” I tell him, and he smiles a lit­tle.
“Of course you were,” he says, push­ing off from the wall and walk­ing clos­er. The hall is wide
and bright, filled with light from the inset win­dow above us, but it feels small­er, clos­er, as he moves
near­er.
“It was the one pic­ture I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of,” he says now, and I’m very aware of
him stand­ing right next to me, his elbow near­ly brush­ing my side.
“The rest were most­ly shots of our wed­ding, a few pic­tures of when we were build­ing this house.
But that one…” Trail­ing off, he picks up the frame, study­ing the image. “I don’t know. I just couldn’t
throw it out.”
“You threw the rest of them away?” I ask. “Even your wed­ding pic­tures?”
He sets the frame back on the table with a soft clunk. “Burned them, actu­al­ly. In the back­yard three
days after the acci­dent.”
“I’m so sor­ry,” I say qui­et­ly, try­ing not to imag­ine Eddie stand­ing in front of a fire as Bea’s face
melt­ed.
But then he looks at me, his blue eyes nar­row­ing just a lit­tle bit. “I don’t think you are, Jane,” he
says, and my mouth is dry, my heart ham­mer­ing. I wish I’d nev­er come upstairs into this hall­way, and I
am so glad I came into this hall­way because if I hadn’t, we wouldn’t be stand­ing here right now, and
he wouldn’t be look­ing at me like that.
“What hap­pened was awful,” I try again, and he nods, but his hand is already com­ing up to cup my
elbow. His fin­gers fold around the sharp point, and I stare down at where he’s touch­ing me, at the
sight of that hand on my skin.
“Awful,” he echoes. “But you’re not sor­ry, because her not being here means that you can be here.
With me.”

In Chap­ter 6 of “The Beasts of Tarzan,” titled “A Hideous Crew,” the jour­ney of Tarzan, Mugam­bi, Akut, Shee­ta, and the sav­age apes pro­gress­es as they ven­ture towards the open sea in a war-canoe, nav­i­gat­ing through a break in the reef amidst chal­leng­ing waves. The jour­ney, ini­tial­ly smooth, soon becomes tumul­tuous as the apes aboard are thrown into pan­ic by the rough seas, threat­en­ing to cap­size their canoe. How­ev­er, Tarzan and Akut man­age to restore order, and the apes adapt to their mar­itime sur­round­ings.

Upon reach­ing clos­er to the shore as night falls, their canoe cap­sizes, but all man­age to reach safe­ty. While the apes and Mugam­bi set­tle by a fire, Tarzan and Shee­ta ven­ture into the jun­gle, hunt­ing a bull buf­fa­lo in a dis­play of their pri­mal prowess and syn­er­gy. After feast­ing, they return to the group, lead­ing them towards the Ugam­bi Riv­er in search of natives for infor­ma­tion about Rokoff, Tarzan’s adver­sary, and the kid­napped child, Jack.

The nar­ra­tive shifts to Kaviri, a local chief, who, spurred by the sight­ing of Tarzan’s crew, believes them to be anoth­er threat sim­i­lar to a pre­vi­ous white man (Rokoff), who had brought vio­lence and abduc­tion to his peo­ple. Kaviri sets out with war canoes to attack but is astound­ed and over­pow­ered by the feroc­i­ty of Tarzan’s bes­tial crew. After a fierce con­fronta­tion, where Tarzan’s jun­gle allies dis­play their for­mi­da­ble prowess, Kaviri finds him­self cap­tive and con­vers­es with Tarzan, learn­ing of his quest to find the very man (Rokoff) he despis­es. Tarzan dis­cov­ers from Kaviri that a white man, woman, and child, like­ly being pur­sued by Rokoff, had passed through the area ear­li­er.

This rev­e­la­tion fuels Tarzan’s fears for his son’s safe­ty and sets the stage for his con­tin­ued quest, fur­ther into the heart of dark­ness along the Ugam­bi, with the unex­pect­ed but sol­id alliance of Kaviri’s men pro­pelled by a mutu­al enmi­ty for Rokoff. Span­ning a blend of intense action, the dynam­ics of trust and betray­al, and the pri­mal bond between man and beast, this chap­ter cru­cial­ly bridges Tarzan’s sav­age prowess with his pater­nal instincts, ampli­fy­ing his deter­mi­na­tion to van­quish Rokoff and recov­er his child.