The woman crawled over to Sam, and they waited.One Mississippi two Mississippi...Snow filtered silently through the trees at theirbacks—Sam had almost made it—and onto the lake.This time William remained quiet. He had fallen backward with one knee bent beneath him and the pen still in his neck. Snow landed in his unfocused eyes, one big and one small, and melted there, drew clean tracks in the blood, ran into his ears like tears.
The woman nudged him with her foot. His body rocked. He didn’t move.
“I think he’s actually dead this time,” the woman said.
Sam looked at the object she had dropped in the snow. The award from William’s desk, the Mt. Washington Post Fiction Award that had probably belonged rightfully to Pen. William’s hand was stretched toward Sam, his long, beautiful fingers that had typed millions of words, held dozens of microphones, cupped her breasts, been inside her, braided her hair. Slid a ring on her own hand. Throttled her neck. Killed the others, in ways Sam would never know.
Sam reached forward and tugged William’s hood down over his face. She couldn’t bring herself to close his eyelids, which would still be warm, because she knew it would be the last time she would ever touch him. She couldn’t think about that. She tried to clear her throat, which hurt like a motherfucker. She turned her head and spat blood in the snow.
“Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely to the woman.
“You’re welcome,” the woman said. She smiled shyly. Even with her overbite, or maybe because of it, her grin was beautiful.
“It’s you,” Sam rasped. “You’re the one who’s been following us.”
The Rabbit nodded. “Yup,” she said. “I’m Emily. I’ve been trying to keep you safe, all along.”
Epilogue
Come, children, let us shut up the box and puppets, for our play is played out.
—William Thackeray,Vanity Fair
“Oh, Jake,” said Brett, “we could have had such a damned good time together.”
... “Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
—Ernest Hemingway,The Sun Also Rises
The one thing Sam remembered from being in a TV studio as a child that had not changed in the intervening years was how hot the lights were. It was like being a speaker times ten, and she had chosen her outfit accordingly: a sleeveless silk halter dress whose collar the techs could clip her mic on. It was, of course, red, though this time for a different reason.
What Sam was not used to and had not encountered in the past couple of decades since being in her dad’s studio, when instead she’d been on local cable channels or university TV, or, on one occasion, C-SPAN, was the live audience. Luckily the lights onstage were still bright enough that it was difficult for Sam to make out any faces, soshe couldn’t spot her codependency group. She refused, absolutely refused, to look directly at Drishti. Sam was also not accustomed to being one of two subjects in an interview, as she was now with Emily, who sat in the chair on her right, nor being face-to-face with one of the most famous and beloved faces in America, if not the world, who had chosen Sam’s novel as her Book Club Pick and who was, like most TV people, surprisingly smaller in person but with larger facial features, as if she were a Broadway actor with a visage designed to be seen from the back row, or some beautiful demigod.
“Are you ready?” she asked, and Sam said she was. Emily nodded. She wore Doc Martens and an electric purple dress, her hair freshly dyed the same shade. Her new nose stud, a gold rabbit, glinted near one nostril. Aside from her stage makeup, applied in the greenroom, she looked like exactly what she was: a bookseller. She also looked a little petrified. Sam winked at her.
The host patted Sam’s knee.
“I cannotwaitto talk about this book,” she said.
A tech held up a sign that saidquietand the cameraman counted them down. Sam stared at the little red dot on the camera facing her and tried to smile in a natural, nonfrozen way, which was impossible.
The cameraman pointed at the host.
“Helloooooo, book lovers!” the host said. “Y’all. Who is as excited as I am for today?” The audience clapped and cheered. “How many of you have beenliterallycounting the hours until we could talk about this book?” The host raised her hand and pointed dramatically to herself. “I have been awake since I read it,” she said, turning to Sam. “I haven’t had a good night’s sleep forweeks! I’ll be sending you my bill for my undereye-bag cream.”
“I will happily pay it,” said Sam.
“Thankyou,” the host said, and turned back to the camera. “But seriously, though this book is sensational, and I mean that in every sense of the word, it is also deadly serious. Not only does it expose some of the most shocking murders of our time, it focuses on an underlying issuemost of us don’t talk about, that affects so many of us and our mental health. So let’s talk about—”
She held up one of the copies of Sam’s book stacked on the end table between them.
“Murder Your Darlings,” she said. She showcased the hardcover, which featured a fountain pen whose nib was bisected by a jackrabbit, by moving it from side to side, then put it back. “The megahit bestseller of the season, the breakout book of the year, number one on theNew York Timeslist since the day it dropped, and rightly so.”
She golf-clapped toward Sam, who bowed her head back at the host—it was her recommendation, of course, that had put the book on the list.
“Today,” said the host, “we’re talking with the author, Sam Vetiver—andthe woman who saved her life, Emily Brown—”
Somebody in the audience yelled “The Rabbit, yaaassss! We love you!” and there was laughter. Emily smiled down at her boots.
