My body shook a melancholy rhythm. I was scared. There was no way around it. I felt like saying it all, letting every secret flow from me like a raging body of water. These are the things you want before death. You want to be free of everything you kept to yourself. You want to leave as you came—with nothing left behind, and nothing spared.

“Who said anything about murder?” she asks with a shrug, “what right would I have to murder you?”

“I don’t know. Every right?”

“Oh yeah, ok…you’re absolutely correct, aren’t you? I do have every fucking right.”

Suddenly an intense silver gleam draws my eyes to her waistband where a knife rests against her skin. Puncture wounds, indeed.

“I wish that everything had been different, Spence. I wish I hadn’t gotten myself involved in this. But look, she had my money…the trust fund from our father and I had nothing! I had nothing!” I screamed, feeling the tears pour from my undeserving eyes, “and I had never worked hard for anything in my life. I didn’t even know where to start. Then there was this elaborate plan to get her daughter back and…and I had my chance. All I had to do was live in that house and watch your every move. Report back to them at the end of the day. I gave you every warning I could. I told you to be careful, but you wouldn’t listen! You were falling for her and…that was it. And no, they hadn’t counted on it, but certainly it made things a lot easier. Certainly they had you blinded beyond what anyone could’ve expected going in and then…then the rest was…”

“Shut up. Just stop…stop talking,” she said, covering her ears.

The act looked ridiculous. There she was, an adult woman with a blade resting in the band of her jeans and she stood like an innocent child in the middle of a tantrum. But it worked, because I shut my mouth and paced nervously around my small living room, waiting for her to resume our conversation. I knew it wasn’t my place to continue. I was living on borrowed time as it was.

“So you watched me? Were there cameras or what? How invasive did this plan become?”

“Nothing like that. I just watched to see if you were in your room. Sometimes I listened to your conversations with your brother. Our rooms were close, you know.”

“The Dennison House was real. I mean, there were other girls who had lived there and traded sex for money, right? Or was that part of the plan as well?”

“No, it was real. You and Madison were both…and there had been girls there before, yes. Aiden’s business of hooking up girls with the wealthy was very, very real.”

“But Ashley?”