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“How is that a signal?” Enzo stared at me as if I’d completely lost it.

“That flower grows everywhere around the orphanage. She took him, and he found a way to tell us it was her.”

“That’s more like Ryden,” Enzo said, but I caught the way he winced. He truly liked Trish, and this was hurting him too much.

I closed my eyes, refusing to give in to the wave of anger threatening to overtake me. I had to stay calm. Stay in control. She had to keep believing I was still in the dark.

We walked into the funeral home. I stopped in front of Trish’s painting, hanging above the fireplace, then looked at the other paintings.

The dead stag was… suddenly familiar.

“And these are all pieces of evidence. We just never recognized them for what they were.”

“What?”

“She’s been playing with us for so long. Enjoying every second of it.”

“What do the paintings have to do with any of this?” He blinked.

Trish’s paintings weren’t random. Each one revealed a fragment of her twisted view of life—of her life.

“I should have seen it sooner,” I whispered, stepping closer to the collection of paintings above Enzo’s fireplace. It was her story, laid bare in blood and cruelty.

“What do you see, Yara?” Enzo asked.

“Everything she painted is broken. Grotesque. That stag, with its soft, innocent eyes and shattered legs. The crow with those hollow, unsettling eyes. The man clutching his own eviscerated stomach...” I swallowed. “They weren’t meaningless. Every painting is about her, her life. There is violence, but there’s sadness too.”

If I had looked carefully, properly, I would have found it before.

“That… Enzo, the stag’s eyes were Tany’s eyes. Innocent, sad and blue. And full of pain.”

Tany had the most beautiful blue eyes. They were always smiling. She never smiled after Robert Miller had come into our lives, after he had stolen her innocence.

“And the broken legs. Tany looked broken when we found her. The pool of blood around the creature...” I wiped my eyes, anger tangling with grief.

I saw Tany in that. Her eyes, her despair. Suddenly it was too hard to hold on to the anger. Too hard not to let the pain consume me. I let it in for a minute, the grief and guilt, before shaking them off.

“Tany? The girl from the orphanage?”

“Yes, Patricia’s sister,” I whispered, my eyes drifting to the next painting. “The crow’s eyes... they’re so judgmental.”

“Ryden said the same.”

“The crow was every girl who had judged Patricia for who she was.” I traced my fingers over the wisps of smoke curling around the bird. “And the painting I bought from her—the man clutching his own disemboweled stomach...” I took a breath. “Robert Miller.”

“The man who raped Tany?”

Nodding, I pointed to the last painting. “And the snake eating its tail… life coming full circle.”

It had been there all along. Right in front of us. Hidden in plain sight, waiting for someone who knew how to see it.

She had watched me admire the painting, and that smile on her face… she had been mocking me. She knew I would never see the truth until it was too late.

“I still can’t believe it’s her.” Enzo winced. “I’m sorry. I feel like I brought her into our lives.”

“You didn’t.”

I did.