Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Babe!”
Bennett’s voice carries through the house the following morning, warm and familiar, threading its way into the quiet space between sleep and waking.
I stretch slowly, the remnants of last night clinging to me in fragments, then push myself upright.
Sunlight slips through the blinds in thin, golden lines, catching on the edges of the room as I pull on a satin nightgown and move through the bathroom before heading downstairs.
“Morning,” I say, rising onto my toes to kiss him as I step into the kitchen.
“Mm, morning.” He smiles against my lips, his hand landing absently on my hip before he turns back to the open fridge. “I thought we had eggs. I was going to make you avocado toast and bring it to you in bed, but—”
“Sorry,” I cut in lightly. “I hard-boiled them all yesterday. I was going to make deviled eggs for brunch.”
“That actually sounds better,” he says, already adjusting, pulling out feta and pickled onions before reaching for the avocado on the counter. “We can still do toast.”
I move automatically, taking slices of multigrain bread from the drawer and sliding them into the toaster, the small domestic rhythm grounding in a way I didn’t realize I needed. For a moment, it almost feels normal again. Almost.
But my mind drifts.
Back to last night.
To the journal now tucked into my bag upstairs, its presence lingering in me like something unfinished.
DAUGHTERS OF PERSEPHONE had been written across the first page in deep crimson ink, the letters sharp, deliberate, as if they had been carved rather than written. The paper was thick beneath my fingers, the edges uneven, deckled, as though each page had been handled, considered, claimed.
It wasn’t written like a story.
It was a collection.
Fragments. Statements. Confessions without context.
He said no one would believe me.
He was wrong.
He said it was a misunderstanding.
He said I wanted it.
He said I would regret this.
He said I would lose everything.
He said I wouldn’t do anything about it.
And in the margins, in a different hand, written in darker ink, came the replies.
They always say the same things.
They’re always wrong.
He said I would forget. I didn’t.
Another page:
We survive, we endure, and when the time comes, we strike.
We are the black widows they never saw coming.
No names. No dates. No beginnings or endings. Just voices layered over one another, warnings pressed into paper like something meant to be found, not written.
The more I turned the pages, the clearer it became that this journal wasn’t a beginning. It was a continuation. Something that had existed long before it ever reached my hands.
Maybe Madam LaRoux was right.
Maybe you don’t choose it.
Maybe it chooses you.
The toaster pops, pulling me back into the present. I blink, the kitchen coming back into focus as I plate the toast and carry it to the small table in the nook. Bennett joins me a moment later, setting down our plates before taking his seat across from me.
Outside, the morning is soft and bright. Dew clings to the palm leaves, catching the light as it lifts over the water, the bay shimmering in the distance. It’s the kind of morning I’ve always loved, quiet and unhurried, as if the world hasn’t quite decided to wake up yet.
We eat in that familiar silence, the kind that never felt uncomfortable between us. Bennett and I have always had that, an ease that doesn’t require constant conversation, a connection that exists in the spaces between words. Sunday mornings, especially, have always belonged to us.
And yet, even here, even now, my thoughts refuse to settle.
They drift back to yesterday, to the café, to the unease that settled over all of us as we talked about the Seminoles. To Maverick’s voice when he told me what Butch had said, the quiet threat of something bigger, something that hasn’t surfaced yet.
I haven’t told Bennett that part.
Not because I’m hiding it, but because I don’t want to give it more weight than it already has. Because I’m tired of thinking about it, of letting it consume every corner of my mind.
He’s right.
I have been fixating.
It’s been a month since Whitney died, and instead of grieving in any kind of normal way, I’ve been circling her death like it’s a puzzle I’m meant to solve. Without closure, I don’t know how to let it go. I don’t know how to move forward without answers.
And so I haven’t moved at all.
When we finish, we carry our plates out to the patio, settling into the soft warmth of the morning as the sun continues to rise. For a few minutes, everything feels still again, suspended in that fragile illusion of peace.
It is perfect.
We are perfect.
I look at Bennett and feel a swell of gratitude, of love, of something steady and real in the middle of everything else that feels uncertain. This life, this home, this man, it’s everything I once wanted. Everything I thought would be enough.
It should be enough.
At some point, I tell myself, I will have to accept that Whitney is gone. That whatever happened to her is no longer mine to carry.
At some point, I will have to let this go.
And then a scream tears through the morning.
It’s sharp and sudden, slicing cleanly through the quiet, through the illusion, through everything.
Bennett and I lock eyes.
We don’t speak. We don’t need to.
We’re already moving.
I follow him through the house, the sound echoing in my head as we push out onto the front porch. For a second, nothing makes sense. The street looks the same. The houses. The lawns. Everything exactly as it was.
Then I hear it again.
Not a scream this time.
A sob.
My gaze snaps toward Phillip’s house, and through the hedge I see movement, a figure bent low in the grass. Chrissy.
Bennett is already moving, cutting across the lawn, pushing through the hedge without hesitation. I follow close behind, my pulse roaring in my ears, my breath catching somewhere in my chest.
He stops abruptly.
I nearly run into him.
“McCullough, stop.” His voice is different now. Firm. Protective. “You don’t want to see this.”
My stomach drops. “See what?”
“Trust me,” he says tightly. “Go back inside and call the police.”
“The police?” I shake my head, already stepping around him. “Why—”
The words die in my throat.
“Oh my God.”
Phillip lies crumpled in the grass, his body twisted at an unnatural angle, the front of his head… gone in a way my brain refuses to fully process. Blood has soaked into the lawn beneath him, dark and spreading, staining everything it touches.
Chrissy is on her knees beside him, her hands pressed to her face, streaked with red. Her nightgown is smeared with it, the pale satin ruined, as if she’s been dragged through something she can’t wake up from.
This isn’t a nightmare.
This is real.
Death has come to Tigertail Beach again.
“I—” My voice falters, then steadies by force. “I’ll call the police.”
I turn and run, the world narrowing to the singular need to act, to do something. I barely register the stairs as I take them two at a time, grabbing my phone from the nightstand before rushing back down, already dialing.
By the time I reach the yard again, the line connects.
“There’s been a murder at Tigertail Beach Estates,” I say, the words spilling out before anything else.
The next minutes blur together, my voice distant to my own ears as I answer questions I don’t have answers to. A man is down. A gunshot wound. No, I didn’t see it happen. Yes, we just found him like this.
Behind me, Bennett has pulled Chrissy away from the body, holding her as she shakes, her sobs breaking through the morning air in uneven bursts. He murmurs something to her, steady, grounding, the same way he always does when everything else is falling apart.
I want to go to him.
I want to collapse into that steadiness.
But I stay where I am, the phone still pressed to my ear, the scene in front of me refusing to let go.
Sirens cut through the distance, growing louder, sharper, until the first patrol car swings into the driveway, followed quickly by another, then another. The ambulance isn’t far behind.
I hang up just as the chaos begins.
Officers move quickly, efficiently, their voices low and controlled as they assess the scene. One kneels beside Phillip’s body, checking for something we all already know isn’t there.
“He’s dead,” I hear one of them say.
The confirmation lands heavily, final in a way that makes everything else shift.
Chrissy must hear it too, because her sobs deepen, her body folding in on itself as Bennett holds her tighter. An officer steps closer, speaking gently, asking questions she can’t seem to answer.
They’ll take her in.
They always do.
Her eyes are glassy, unfocused, her face pale beneath the streaks of blood. She looks younger than I’ve ever seen her, stripped of whatever composure she usually carries, reduced to something raw and shaken.
Innocent.
Unless—the thought surfaces before I can stop it—officers will probably assume she’s caused this horror show.
I push it down just as quickly.
Because right now, all I know is this.
Phillip is dead.
And whatever was building beneath the surface of this neighborhood has finally broken through.