Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 47525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
Just a little.
Maybe—just maybe—the truth (parts of it anyway) will finally rise to the surface.
And I’ll be able to fly free… before the walls close in again.
34.5
DR. WEISS
Day Thirteen
The Baylor Estate has never been “home” to another family since the murders.
There’s a hired crew that comes in once a month to check the pipes and test the lights; a landscaping team that trims the hydrangeas and cuts back the grass.
Every now and then, the estate goes back on the market, but open houses never attract real buyers. Just YouTubers. Lurkers. Curious internet sleuths hoping to stand in the blood-soaked footprints of the woman the press dubbed The Pretty Girl Murderer.
I turn off the windshield wipers and park behind Robin’s rental.
Apparently, the real estate agent is twenty minutes late.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
A suited man raps his knuckles on my window before jogging toward the porch.
I step out and follow him.
“Sorry about the delay,” he says, flipping through a keyring. “Hot market these days. I think this one’ll sell super fast, so if you love it, let’s get that offer in.”
“We will, totally.” Robin flashes a saccharine smile.
I say nothing.
He pushes open the front door. A draft of warm, citrus-cleaned air spills out.
“Feel free to explore. Any questions, I’m around,” he says. “Make sure you check out the cedar beam upgrades—they complement the garden, and—”
I stop listening.
The moment I cross the threshold, the staging furniture vanishes in my mind.
I don’t see beige and white. I see blood and chaos.
Books thrown across the carpet. A broken picture frame. Sadie’s hand clenched around a knife.
The living room may be clean now, but I can still see the shadows.
I move down the hall. The kitchen is pristine, remodeled—but I can smell the pancakes she made while three corpses cooled on the tile.
She called 9-1-1 from the corner by the fridge. Her voice trembling, trying to sound like a survivor.
Upstairs, she ran a bath in the aftermath. Let the water run red, then pink, then clear.
It should horrify me.
But standing here, remembering all of it...
It stirs something dark in me. Something dangerous.
It turns me on.
The bathroom walls are painted a soft powder blue now—nothing like the stark white of the original. The faucets have been replaced. Even the drain covers.
But the bones of this house remember.
“There you are,” the realtor says, stepping in behind me. “Gorgeous bathroom suite, huh?”
“Yes,” I say. “I can almost look past the fact that someone was murdered in here.”
His smile falters. “You’re not actually a buyer, are you?”
“I’d like to seriously buy your silence.” I hand him a few hundred-dollar bills. “Give me two hours. Go eat lunch.”
He accepts the money and vanishes without a word.
Robin throws me a disapproving look. “Really?”
“Why did you drag me here again?” I ask.
“I wanted to get a feel for it. See it for myself.”
“Not really your job. That’s something her lawyers should be doing.”
“True,” she says, pulling latex gloves from her bag and slipping them on. “But something Sadie said stuck with me. I want to see if it’s here.”
I arch a brow.
She doesn’t need me for this.
“I’m heading back to the office,” I say. “Drive safe.”
Robin pulls out her phone and plays back an old session through the speakers.
“He left something at the crime scene,” Sadie’s voice says.
“Too bad it wasn’t his DNA,” I’d replied.
“It was a memento, a thank you to our love.”
“I take it back,” I say, folding my arms. “This is something for a forensics team.”
Robin crouches by the bathroom sink and opens the cabinet. She shuts off the water, unscrews the pipe, and shakes something into her hand.
A skull-shaped ring that matches Sadie’s necklace.
Still exactly where I left it, where she was supposed to leave hers too…
I don’t have to come any closer to know what’s engraved on the inside:
O.L.I.F.
O.L.I.P.C.
Robin stares at it like it’s burning her palm.
“You told me to research what those letters meant when we started this project. It was the very first fucking thing you asked of me.”
“So, you’re just now getting around to it?”
“You know what those goddamn letters stand for.” Her chest heaves up and down. “Because this is your sadistic matching charm that goes with hers.”
I blink.
“What does it stand for, Dr. Weiss?”
“Words, probably.”
“What words? What. Words?!” She doesn’t give me a chance to answer. She’s losing it.
“Tell me. Tell me now.”
I lean against the wall, watching her unravel.
“I’ve been working with a psychopathic murderer and didn’t know it…” she whispers, her voice cracking. “This whole time… That’s why you didn’t care we didn’t have help. That’s why you wouldn’t listen and turn this case down… It’s personal—she’s personal…”
“You’re making a lot of wild assumptions, Robin.”
“You knew who Sadie was long before she hit the news, didn’t you?” She’s spiraling. “You had to have known her… What was she—your girlfriend? Your accomplice? How did you two even meet?”