Her eyes are open.
They’re not seeing anything.
That’s when it hits me all the way.
This ain’t the lake. This ain’t a maybe. This ain’t mud and mystery and whispers.
This is my knife in her chest.
The sirens come fast in a town like ours. Hell doesn’t get many emergencies that ain’t drunk driving or kitchen fires. When police lights flood the windows, I don’t move. I don’t run. I don’t hide the knife. I sit on the floor with my back against the counter, my bloody hand pressed to my own arm, and I wait.
An officer I recognize from church kneels in front of me, his voice softer than it should be. “Brit, what happened?”
I don’t call him by his first name. I don’t ask him to look at me like I’m still the girl who served him coffee on Sundays.
“She broke the glass,” I say. “She grabbed a knife. She cut me first.”
I hold out my arm. It’s still bleeding, thin and angry. The slice is shallow but deliberate, and it’s the only thing in that shop that feels like an argument in my favor.
“She said she was going to disfigure me,” I add, and my throat tightens. “She said if Oaks divorced her, she’d ruin him. Tell everything. Put him away for life.”
The officer’s jaw shifts. He glances toward the body.
“You stabbed her twice,” he says carefully.
“Had to.” I close my eyes for a second. “The first time, she went down. I panicked. I thought she’d get back up. She faked things before. At the lake. She faked her death and then came to kill me.”
That part is important. The lake. The disappearance. The mud and the missing body. The way Bethany played everyone like a fiddle.
“She came back,” I whisper. “After we thought she drowned. She let everyone think I killed her.”
He writes it down.
Another officer reads me my rights. I nod at every line. I don’t ask for a lawyer until they tell me I should, and even then I don’t hesitate.
“Call Legend,” I say. “He’ll know who to call.”
The club arrives before the ambulance leaves.
Royal first. He doesn’t look at Bethany. He looks at the floor, the glass, the blood trail, the broken case. He notices everything without touching a thing.
“You called it in yourself?” he asks quietly.
“Yes.”
He shakes his head. “Should’ve called us.”
Legend comes next. He doesn’t touch me either. He just studies my face like he’s reading a report.
“You run?” he asks.
“No.”
“You lie?”
“No.”
He nods. “Good.”
