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“What are you doing here, Diya?”

“She committed suicide a year before Riley,” I said. He flinched back as if I had kicked him. “I’m looking to see if there was any connection between Riley’s case and…”

Vincent stood up from the chair, his fingers pulling at his hair.

“Are you helping Asher?”

“What if Riley didn’t just kill herself? What if she was pushed into taking her own life?”

“What the fuck are you…” He shook his head, inhaling sharply. “Shit, sorry.” He sat back down with a huff. “What are you saying, Diya?” He sounded exasperated. “You must know this is wrong.”

“It’s not wrong, Sheriff,” Layne said. “We’re doing the job you were supposed to do.”

“It’s been eight years. You’re eight years too late.”

“But what if the one who killed Riley is still out there, killing more while we sit here twiddling our thumbs?” Layne fluttered her eyes, giving Vincent one of her most beautiful smiles.

Vincent sputtered and shook his head, his face twisting in frustration. “Conspiracy theories from a man who committed himself to an asylum.”

“It looks like you don’t want to hear the truth,” I said with a frown. “So, why do you think that woman was killed? Right after I’d just talked to her about her daughter? Coincidence?”

“I don’t know,” Vincent muttered, looking conflicted.

“You want to believe us,” Layne said. “What’s your instinct telling you, Sheriff? You’re a cop, for fuck’s sake.”

“You don’t want to… because then you’d have to admit Asher was right all along. You don’t want to accept it, because then you’d also have to face the fact that you failed Riley. But you didn’t. The only one to blame is the person who did this.”

“I-I need to think. Can I…” He wordlessly pointed toward the door.

“Sure, just call me, and if you still want me to go with you to the party, I will. If not, that’s okay, too.”

He gave me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll call you.”

Nodding, we walked out.

Deputy Clark was waiting for us right by the door.

“Let me escort you outside, Doctor Sharma.”

We walked toward the main desk where the receptionist was now reading a different book.

I noticed the glass box on the table was gone.

I came to a halt, my mind whirring with a thought that grew shrill until all else faded.

“The spiders. Fuck. The spiders.”

How did I miss that?

“What?”

“The spiders, Lay. Fuck, how did I not see that?”

“What do you mean?”

“It was right there… all along.” I pointed to the table where the glass terrarium once was. Filled to the brim with colorful spiders. Riley wrote about the spiders. They had four eyes. It had eight, but Deputy Clark saw only the four eyes in the front, and Riley could have seen the same.

I turned to Deputy Clark. “Where did the spiders go? Did the owner come back?”