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“Thank you, Jules.”

The humor slips away as we both remember how he let me reclaim my body that night. Because standing still would have destroyed me.

“You gave me a shovel when I needed one,” I say quietly. His throat moves. “So I brought you one.”

“Two.”

“Well, I’m not making you dig alone.”

Something breaks across his face. Not quite a smile. Not quite grief. Probably both.

I reach for the door. “Jules.” I turn back. His eyes are red. “I told you,” I say. “I’m not leaving you alone in the dark. I’ll be waiting. Do your thing.”

Then I step outside and pull the door closed behind me.

Heller starts screaming less than a minute later. I walk toward the truck very calmly. Extremely normally. My knees shake so hard I have to brace against the tailgate before climbing up. Nothing concerning here. Just a woman standing lookout on Halloween while her serial-killer boyfriend interrogates the man who murdered his little brother.

I sit on the tailgate, tuck my skirts around my knees against the cold, and stare at the contractor bag. “You and me both, buddies.”

The squirrels don’t respond.

Excellent lookout partners.

CHAPTER 36

Gage

For seventeen years, my family set a place for someone who never came home. Three weeks ago, we finally brought him back. Not the way any of us wanted. But Grady has a grave now.

A name carved into stone. Dates that hurt. A place where Mom can bring flowers, Maisie can sit cross-legged in the grass and tell him every detail about her cats, and Nana can share stories of how her apple crisp is superior to a five-star pastry chef.

The police found him exactly where Heller said they would, after someone anonymously pointed them toward the property. What followed was a blur of questions, evidence, reopened cases, photographs removed from walls, and more families getting closure.

Like us.

I don’t think much about what we did afterward. I remember Jubilee beside me. Two shovels. Cold earth. Her hand finding mine whenever mine stopped working. Her knowing, without asking, when silence was better than jokes.

Later, there was fire. Not for Heller. For Jacob Ricketts.

Jubilee stood beneath a black November sky holding the letter her father left behind. I waited for a tremor, but it didn’t come. She read the last line one final time, folded the paper along its old creases, and held a corner to the flame.

I didn’t ask whether she was sure. She was.

She watched until every word became ash, the orange light flickering across her face, her jaw set. Then she slipped her palm into mine and said, “Okay.”

That was it. No forgiveness. No condemnation. No dramatic speech to a dead man. Just okay.

The funeral came four days later.

Grady should have had Maisie insulting his tie at his wedding. His big brother holding the ring as his best man. Mom calling him three times a day. Nana trying to feed him every time he walked through her door. A bad back from pretending he could still play football at forty. Kids, maybe. Cats, if Maisie had anything to say about it.

Instead, we dated his stone the day we brought him home, so it would read twenty-six years, because that was the age he should have been. Nine was only where Heller stopped him. It wasn’t where we did.

Afterward, we went back to Nana’s house and ate until nobody could move. Nobody called it a celebration. Nobody called it a wake either. It was simply dinner.

Mom sat beside Anne, already trading recipes like they’d known each other for years. Nana took her usual place. Maisie dropped into hers. I sat down, then realized Jubilee was still standing.

There was only one chair left. Grady’s.