I push back from the table so abruptly the legs of the chair scrape hard against the floor. “Get under my skin?” I can hear the sharpness rising in my own voice, but I can’t stop it. “Bennett, someone left a noose in our front yard. They used real blood. They had Whitney’s initials etched into the lid. That is not some bored teenager with too much time on their hands. That is deliberate.”
He stands too, crossing the room toward me, his expression tightening even as his voice stays measured. “I know it was deliberate. I’m not saying it wasn’t. I’m saying the police don’t think they have enough to classify it as anything more than intimidation.”
I laugh, but there’s nothing remotely amused in the sound. “Intimidation is still a threat.”
“I know,” he says, more firmly now. “I know that. But if they can’t prove who did it or why, then all they can really do is document it and tell us to call again if it happens another time.”
Another time.
The phrase lands in me like something cold.
I turn away from him and go to the window, staring out into the darkening yard where everything looks deceptively still. The hedges, the trees, the careful landscaping all sit there under the fading light as if nothing happened this morning, as if that rope hadn’t been swaying from the magnolia branch, as if I didn’t still feel the weight of that jar in my hands. Every shadow looks wrong to me now. Every shift in the leaves feels like movement.
“This isn’t just someone trying to scare me,” I say, quieter now, but no less certain. “Whoever did this knows about Whitney. They know about me. They know enough to make it personal.”
Behind me, I hear Bennett exhale, long and controlled. “Maybe they do. Or maybe they just know enough to make you think they do. Either way, if you let this consume you, then they’ve already won.”
I turn back toward him, anger flaring all over again. “So what exactly do you want me to do? Pretend it didn’t happen? Go about my day like someone didn’t leave a message on our property?”
“No,” he says immediately, and this time there’s more force in it. “I want you to be smart. I want you to document everything, keep the police informed, and stop handing over pieces of yourself to whoever is doing this. That’s what I want.”
“Trust the police,” I say bitterly, and I can’t keep the contempt out of my voice. “The same police who accepted Phillip’s version of events without question. The same policewho treated Whitney’s death like an unfortunate accident before the smoke had even cleared.”
Something flickers across Bennett’s face at that. Not disagreement, exactly. More like resignation. He doesn’t defend them. He just steps closer, his voice softening again.
“I know you don’t trust them,” he says. “And maybe you have good reason not to. But right now, we don’t have anything solid enough to do this any other way. You cannot fight shadows, McCullough.”
The worst part is that he’s right, at least partly. I don’t know who I’m fighting. I only know how it feels, how precise it is, how deeply it’s already begun to burrow under my skin. The knife. The photographs. The funeral wreath. The mock gravestone. The shoe in my car. The noose. The jar. Every gift more intimate than the last, each one crafted with the kind of knowledge that turns fear into something far more corrosive.
They are already in my head.
They got there a while ago.
I press my fingertips against the cool glass of the window and force myself to breathe through the panic that keeps threatening to rise again. “The jar meant something,” I say finally. “They left it for a reason.”
Bennett comes up behind me then, his hands settling on my shoulders, warm and steady. “Maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t. But you cannot let them decide what this turns into.”
I don’t answer him.
Because I already know what this has turned into.
An obsession, maybe. A mission, definitely. Something sharp enough to cut through sleep, through appetite, through every other concern that used to feel important. Whoever is doing this is playing with me, moving pieces around in the dark and waiting to see which direction I’ll run.
I have no intention of running anywhere.
I nod after a moment, more to end the conversation than because I agree with him, and Bennett seems to sense that. He doesn’t push. He just stands there behind me while I keep looking out into the yard, my thoughts already racing somewhere else.
Toward Whitney.
Toward Phillip.
Toward the appointment I have later tonight with Madam LaRoux, that ridiculous business card now tucked safely in my purse like a clue I still can’t make sense of.
Maybe she’ll tell me something useful. Maybe she’ll confirm what I already know in my bones. Or maybe she’ll only hand me another riddle to carry around with all the others.
Either way, I’m going.
Because if the police won’t take this seriously, then I’ll find another way forward.
