Chapter 10
The bathroom door was half open. Derek pushed it the rest of the way with his foot.
Liv was crumpled on the tile, one arm bent beneath her at an awkward angle, her cheek pressed against the base of the toilet. Her hair clung to her face, damp with sweat and vomit.
For one terrible second, Derek didn’t move.
“Oh my God,” Beckie whispered behind him. “Is she—”
Derek dropped to his knees. “Liv?”
He shook her shoulder once, gently. When she didn’t respond, he tried again, harder. Panic surged hot and fast, tightening his chest. He pressed his fingers to her neck, fumbling, searching for something that felt reassuring.
“She’s not—” he started.
Then her chest rose. Just barely.
“She’s breathing,” he said, the words breaking out of him like a sob. “She’s breathing.”
Relief moved through the doorway in a thin, unsteady wave, but it didn’t settle anything. It didn’t undo the way Liv looked folded into herself, or the way her eyes stayed closed.
Derek slid his arms beneath her and lifted. Her head lolled against his shoulder as he carried her down the hall, careful not to bang her limbs against the doorframe.
As they passed, Erica stepped aside and glanced into the bathroom.
The smell hit first. It was pungent and sour, distinctly vomit.
It clung to the air and coated the back of her throat.
The room itself looked exactly as it should have, tasteful and tidy with soft neutrals everywhere.
The marble vanity was wiped down to a shine.
The hand towels were folded with care. A small eucalyptus plant perched by the sink, decorative rather than alive.
Nothing was wrong, except the mirror.
It was fogged over, condensation beading and sliding slowly down the glass, as if someone had been breathing against it for a long time.
The rest of the room was cool and dry. There was no steam or running water, so there was no reason for it to be there.
Erica stood there a second too long, staring at it, waiting for the fog to fade.
It didn’t. The mirror stayed blind and breathing.
She had the sudden, overwhelming urge to wipe it clean—not to see herself, but to make sure nothing else was there. She didn’t touch it. The hairs on the back of her neck lifted.
Erica followed Derek back into the living room, every step measured, her thoughts locked away as she sorted through them. Liv was practical, not emotional or dramatic. She had no medical issues that Erica knew of, and she didn’t scare easily.
“What happened?” Zach asked. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know!” Derek snapped, lowering Liv carefully onto the couch.
“You heard that scream,” Beckie said. “Something scared the hell out of her.”
“Or maybe she slipped.” Chad scratched his head with the handle of the gun.
“Just like the medium?” Zach said flatly.
Derek adjusted Liv’s head onto a pillow and pulled a throw blanket over her. Liv’s eyes fluttered once, then closed again. She didn’t wake.
Erica hovered at the edge of the room, heart pounding, skin buzzing in that same electric way it had since Elias hit the floor. She glanced back down the hall, toward the bathroom.
“The mirror,” she said.
Everyone turned.
“It was fogged up like someone had just taken a shower.” Erica forced her voice to sound steady.
Chad scoffed. “So?”
“So,” Erica said, “that’s not possible, not without running hot water, and there wasn’t any.”
Beckie squinted. “So you’re saying Liv screamed because she couldn’t see her reflection?”
No one answered.
Beckie shrugged. “What? I’m just trying to help.”
Chad rolled his eyes. “That’s enough Nancy Dumbass.” He pointed the gun toward Elias’s body. “Let’s get back to wrapping him and cleaning up the blood.”
“Screw you, Chad,” Beckie muttered.
“I’m not doing anything until Liv wakes up,” Derek said, lifting his chin in defiance.
Chad’s jaw tightened. “We don’t have time for this.”
“I don’t care.”
Erica turned toward the kitchen. “I’ll get some ice.”
“Phone,” Chad said.
She stopped and stared back at him. “What?”
“Your phone,” he said. “On the coffee table.”
The absurdity hit her late, like a delayed echo. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
Chad raised his gun, not high, just enough to show he was serious. “Does it look like I’m kidding?”
She reached into her pocket, yanked her phone free, and slammed it onto the table hard enough to make it bounce. It felt like being disarmed in a way she hadn’t known was possible.
Zach stepped forward. “She shouldn’t be alone. I’ll go with her.”
“No,” Chad snapped, swinging the gun toward him. “Wrap the fucking body.”
“Look at what happened to Liv when she was alone,” Zach said, gesturing to her. “And I can’t wrap it by myself. So unless you’re helping, it’s not happening.”
Chad paused, then nodded. “Fine, but your phone stays.”
Zach set his phone beside Erica’s.
Chad’s eyes flicked between them, then back to the body. “Go. And make it quick.”
The kitchen felt like another world—immaculate and untouched, just as they’d left it. It felt extra clean without a body bleeding out on the floor. Erica leaned against the island, suddenly dizzy. The citrus cleaner still clung to her hands.
Zach hovered a few feet away, hands flexing at his sides. “Are you okay?”
She laughed once, breathless and snappy. “Do I look okay?”
Silence stretched between them.
“You knew,” she said finally.
Zach’s shoulders slumped.
“You knew about Chad and Beckie.”
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“So you hired a medium to do your dirty work?”
“It’s not my dirty work,” Zach said. “It’s Chad’s.”
“You lied to me. You said this was about me. About my sister.”
“I wanted that for you too.”
“Did you tell him?” Erica demanded, stepping closer. “About Joslyn? About me? About how she died?”
Zach didn’t answer.
Her heart raced, a tight, painful flutter that made it hard to get a full breath. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, nails biting into her palms, and the words spilled out of her anyway—hot and unchecked.
“Did you tell him it was my fault? That if I hadn’t been running late, she wouldn’t have been sitting in her car waiting for me—wouldn’t have been rear-ended by some asshole who lost control?
Did you tell him that I blame myself every single day?
That I plan everything and cling to it like life itself, because when things don’t go according to plan, people die?
” She swallowed hard. “Did you tell him that!?”
Zach crossed the space and gripped her shoulders. “Enough.”
She stilled.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “You running late didn’t kill her.”
Erica stared at him unblinking.
“The person who lost control of their car killed her. You have to stop punishing yourself.”
Her eyes burned—not because she didn’t believe him, but because she wanted to.
“But did you tell him?” she asked again.
Zach shook his head. “I swear. I didn’t.”
Something in her loosened, just a little. If he hadn’t told Elias, then maybe—
From the living room, a voice suddenly rose. “Liv, put the gun down!”