Calla Parker had become something of an expert in the art of blackmail.

I suppose I have Gerald Michaels to thank for that, she thought, running her tongue along the lip of the envelope she'd bought at the post office earlier that morning. She'd written no return address, nor anything else that might indicate the letter had come from her. Only an address at the center and, above that, the recipient's name.

ASTRID BAKER

Calla dropped the envelope—heavy with the weight of the USB sealed inside it—in a mail receptacle on the corner, whistling merrily as she did so. The idea to feed the flames of Astrid's paranoia had come to her last night. Astrid, who had a nasty secret of her own. Astrid, who had found happiness in life.

Astrid. Astrid. Astrid.

She would receive the envelope in two to three business days, and when she did, Calla knew exactly what she would find inside it: on the USB, video evidence of the murder of Rachel Smith, copied over from Calla's computer; and at the bottom of the envelope, a photocopy of the same note the detective had hidden inside of Calla's graduation cap—I KNOW YOUR SECRET, spelled out in no uncertain terms, the black ink faded with time but no less ominous. An anonymous threat. A promise.

This wasn't a fairytale, had never been a fairytale—but at that moment, Calla couldn't help but recall one of the poems Cory—and through him, Stephanie—had once left for her to find.

Kill her, and bring me back her heart as a token.

The tale appealed to her more than it had before. Calla smiled as she edged open the heavy wooden door to her favorite cafe, taking savage delight in the knowledge that the contents of the envelope would shake Astrid to her core. 

She couldn't wait to watch the bitch squirm.

She had her reasons for baiting Astrid, which included satisfying her own vindictive nature. But it was more than that. It was a risk, and a calculated one. Astrid's paranoia had ruined her relationship with Gareth, and Calla wanted to know why. 

What did Astrid Baker have to fear? Besides the obvious, she mused, catching her reflection in a nearby window. Perhaps she'd been blackmailed, as Calla had been. Or perhaps Cooper was right, and the twins had warned her about what Calla was capable of, as a precaution.

Whatever it was, she hoped that this would be the push Astrid needed to confront her, and if it was, Calla wanted to be there to watch her unravel.

The thought of Astrid's glorious torment sustained her for most of the morning, the activity of the cafe a steady hum in the background; but not even her morbid daydreams could dull the monotonous task of proofreading an essay about amino acids. Calla sighed as she read and reread the same paragraph, the words blurring together.

Realizing the essay was a lost cause, Calla typed in a new search: Gerald K. Michaels, Greenwitch.

The detective is the missing link. Cooper's words came back to her then, grim and sure. He'd been right, of course. After combing through the detective's old case files, they'd found more than enough evidence linking him to each of the six targets Calla had been tasked with eliminating. Old cases, long-forgotten and buried by the public. Mistrials and fuck-ups that had weighed on Michaels' conscience for years. 

Until now. Until her.

Calla hadn't dedicated as much time as she should have to the task of unearthing Michaels' weaknesses, occupied as she'd been with thoughts of the professor and how she might be his undoing. She figured a coffee shop was as good as any place to begin her search.

A quick sweep of the detective's socials didn't tell her much, which was just as she'd expected. None of his accounts were active. Even his profile pictures were outdated—his smile that of a happier time, before his son's death and the revelation that he'd raised a monster.

Curious, she clicked through his tagged photos. There at least, she found a more recent, if sparse, timeline of his comings and goings, including a photo of the skyline over the old baseball fields at Greenwitch High. The picture had been uploaded almost a year ago. 

Bored, Calla clicked onto the next image, uploaded earlier that same spring. She squinted at her screen, trying to make out the dingy interior of what she assumed to be a dive bar. Michaels hovered at the edge of the photo, staring out at her, unsmiling. And there again, another picture at the same bar. Six months ago. Three.

Curious, Calla entered a search for the bar and stared at the results, stunned.

Lansing, New York. A small town. Barely a blip on the map.

And just ten minutes northeast of her apartment.

He's here. Calla verified his address by accessing an online directory. He followed me here. To Ithaca.

The thought infuriated her beyond reason. She'd kept tabs on the detective over the years, of course—had researched him almost obsessively in those first few months after graduation, just as she had with Blake and Astrid and Stephanie and anyone else who might possibly know her secret. So how the hell had she missed this?

The move looks recent. I got sloppy. Let things slide off my radar.

There was truth in that. She'd been so caught up in her escape plan, in finding a way out of her predicament, that she'd missed this—

Fury overrode caution. Without pausing to think, Calla dialed the unknown number she'd never bothered to save to her contacts, knowing that if Michaels was the person on the other end of that phone, he would not answer, because he had never answered.

The call abruptly cut off. Calla swore viciously under her breath, her knuckles white around her phone. You can't afford a new phone, she reminded herself, sorely tempted though she was to shatter it against the floor. Don't be stupid. Think, Calla. Think.

She was tired of thinking. So she did exactly what Cooper would have done, had their situations been reversed: she lifted her middle finger and snapped a cheeky selfie, her smile broad and false, and then she sent the image along to the unknown number with a brief message.

Calla: I know your secret, Detective.

Foolish and impulsive, the small, careful part of her whispered. But the larger part—the part that had been holding the beast on a tight leash all these long months—snarled in challenge.

Maybe she was wrong and Michaels wasn't the person actively trying to destroy her life, in which case she risked coming off as hopelessly outclassed and outmatched. And if it was Michaels, as she was sure it was—well, maybe he would destroy her for this, for presuming too much, but Calla didn't think so. She still had a name to cross off his little list, and he didn't seem the type of man who would let her antics get in the way of what he ultimately wanted: revenge.

We have that in common, at least, she mused. The comparison brought her no comfort.

She waited, heart hammering, for her desperate ploy to play out. She would have an answer soon, she was sure. And then—

Two words flashed across her screen: Unknown Caller.

Calla answered the call with bated breath. "Hello, Gerald."

"Hello, Calla." She recognized his voice immediately. Michaels. It is him. "You finally figured it out. Honestly, I didn't think it'd take quite this long."

"I've been busy." She braced her elbows against the table. The adrenaline in her veins made her restless. "We need to talk."

"We are talking."

"No, Detective. I'm thinking something a little more...face-to-face."

He barked a laugh. "I don't think you're in any position to dictate the rules." She drummed her fingers against the table and waited, knowing well what it was he really wanted. His greeting had all but confirmed it.

He wanted to gloat. And he couldn't do that over the phone. Not properly.

Cory had been just the same. He hadn't been able to resist the thrill of the game, had strung her along gleefully with his morbid clues—clinging to a prideful streak that had been his downfall, in the end.

"Fine," the detective said at last. "I see you're at that awful hipster cafe you like so much."

She stiffened, eyes darting to the window. He's watching me. Or he's got my phone tagged, somehow. She stifled a curse. "Yes," she admitted, indulging his power trip. "I am."

"I'll meet you there shortly, then."

He ended the call, brokering no room for disagreement. Calla set aside her computer and drained the last of her coffee, determined to face him with a clear head. In her mind, Michaels—who, for so long, had simply been the unknown caller—had become larger than life, a shadowy, omniscient figure that haunted her footsteps and tangled her thoughts, bleeding into her nightmares.

The real thing, as it turned out, was not quite so grand as all that.

Calla had repositioned her seat to better monitor the front door, and so she knew the instant Michaels entered the cafe. A line formed in front of the registers, momentarily obstructing her view; but as it cleared, their eyes met.

You.

The accusation burned between them, the length of the cafe a no-man's-land neither party was willing to breach—she perched in her chair, he leaning against the wall by the front door, a small, taunting smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

Seeing him here, now, unsettled her more deeply than she'd anticipated. They'd last crossed paths at graduation, Michaels lingering at the edge of the milling crowd. She'd thought, at the time—half-blinded by the stadium lights—that he'd been studying her with a disconcerting intensity, the note she'd hidden in her cap burning like a brand as their eyes had met across the chain link fence circling the football field.

I know your secret. The thinly veiled threat had drowned out the commencement speech, tainting her victory. She had survived. She was alive. And someone knew her secret.

Not someone. She monitored the detective's every languid step as he pushed away from the wall and approached her. Him.

Gerald Michaels was not the same man she remembered. Calla cataloged the changes in him, as she often cataloged the bodies brought into the funeral home, their skin laid bare on the autopsy table. He'd grown a beard, for one—a neat gray thing that emphasized the same strong jawline he'd passed down to his son. His salt-and-pepper hair was longer, too, and styled in the careless manner his son had favored. He'd never gained back the weight he'd lost after Cory's funeral, but he wore his smaller frame well, disguising the empty spaces his grief had left behind with crisp black slacks and a white button-down.

It was unfair, she thought. The photos hadn't done him justice. He didn't look like a madman. If anything, he looked like a businessman, and that wasn't what she'd been expecting. He wasn't what she'd been expecting.

His eyes, she thought, had changed the most—they captured and held her attention, flatter than they'd been before. Colder. Meaner.

This was a man who'd confronted his demons, and rather than simply survive, he'd chosen to become one himself.

She said nothing as he claimed the empty chair across from her. "You look well," he said, and his voice was so pleasantly deceptive, she almost smiled.

Almost. "Never better," she deadpanned, folding her hands demurely under the table.

He watched her as she'd watched him, drinking her in. Her skin crawled, the weight of his animosity for her an electric charge between them. Finally, his eyes lingering on the column of her throat, he said, "There's no need for the two of us to play pretend."

"In that case." She sat back, attempting to put as much distance as possible between them. "Go fuck yourself."

His mouth twisted in disdain. "There's that charm my son fell for."

"Pity, that." Mindful that his eyes had not moved from the curve of her neck, she mustered a wistful sigh. "Cory was quite the handsome boy. Y'know, before..." She ran a finger down her throat, grimacing in mock sympathy.

Her petulance was swiftly rewarded. "Watch your mouth," Michaels hissed, the hatred in his words palpable.

Calla, one. Over his shoulder, she noted one of the baristas frowning in their direction. Michaels, zero.

"Calm down before you cause a scene," she warned him, secretly delighted.

He folded his hands on the table, the picture of ease, though he couldn't quite disguise the strain in his clenched jaw. She wondered, gleefully, if he would crack a tooth. "If you're trying to get a rise out of me, it isn't going to work."

"Seems like it's working pretty well, actually."

He ignored her. "You seem to be laboring under the delusion that there's still a move here for you to make." His knuckles had gone white from strain—no doubt he longed to reach across the table and slap her. "I can assure you, my dear, that the board is already set, and you are in check."

My dear. Her eye twitched at the mocking endearment. "I know who you are now. I know where you live."

"And I know who you are." He lowered his voice, forcing her to lean forward to catch the rest, and she hated him for that. "I've seen your kind before, Calla Parker. Emotionally deficit sociopaths with no concept of empathy, no regard for life. You're nasty and cruel and violent. Disrupting polite society with your perversion." His lip curled. "Oh, you hide it well enough. But you're just like the rest of the scum on the street."

"You've never seen anything like me before," she promised quietly. "I ruined your son, Detective. And I swear to you, by the end of this, I'm going to ruin you, too."

He had the gall to laugh at her. An angry flush swept across her cheeks. She silently hoped it looked like humiliation. Just a silly little girl playing a silly little game, she thought, willing the detective to think that of her.

His laugh petered off into a dark chuckle. "You can do better than a few idle threats, I think." He sighed then and scratched at his beard, contemplative as he gazed at the ceiling. "I don't think you fully appreciate your situation. You're mine, Calla. Until I decide you're not."

"Or until I decide to end your miserable life," she fired back. "Problem solved." The thought that she belonged to anyone rankled her, and he knew it. She clenched her hands into fists beneath the table, attempting to reign in her temper. She'd let it slip once—just the once, to gauge his reaction. And so far, her only reward had been smug satisfaction on his part.

Cory is his weak spot. She let her anger drain away into impassivity. If I can keep picking at those old wounds, maybe—

"You won't risk killing me." He slipped a finger into the collar of his shirt, revealing a thin silver chain secured around his throat. And hanging from the end of that chain—a black flashdrive. "Not when I can ruin you."

He let the chain disappear down the neck of his shirt and the flashdrive with it, and Calla knew what that flashdrive represented, knew the evidence that it contained. 

I can ruin you.

She briefly considered reaching for the pen on the next table over and using it to puncture his jugular, but—no. She couldn't be rash. Not now that she was so close...

That can't be the only copy. If he has a flashdrive, then he definitely has a backup file somewhere on his computer. Calla let that thought sink in and take hold. Even if she managed to break into his place and destroy whatever other copies remained, she would still have to take care of that goddamn flashdrive. Somehow. She wondered if she slept with it on. But just knowing the flashdrive exists...it's a start, at least.

And hadn't that been her goal, to glean whatever information she could from the detective while she still had the element of surprise on her side? Yes, she thought bitterly. And now that element of surprise is gone. He knows that I know his identity, and we're back to square one.

No. Not square one. Calla tried to convince herself that showing her hand hadn't been a complete waste. She used her frustration to her advantage. "Fine. Ruin me, then," she snapped, her agitation real enough. She reached for her backpack. "I'm done with this conversation, and I'm done with you. Find someone else to kill Professor Plum."

"There is a way out of this, you know."

"Not one that I can see." But she hesitated all the same, curious for what he might say and hating herself all the more for it.

"Lenny Li is the last." Michaels assessed her reaction to this statement, but Calla had played this particular game before, and for much longer than he had. She kept her expression carefully neutral—neither interested nor disinterested in the outcome of their conversation. After a significant pause, his lips flattened into a thin line. "Lenny Li is the last," he repeated. "Finish the list, and I'll destroy the evidence against you. You and I..." He considered her at length. "We can walk away from this."

Oh, Michaels. If only you were half the liar your son was. She stared at the floor, pretending to consider her options. You'll never let me walk away. You can't. Not until my body is buried alongside Cory's. Another soul for the ferryman to carry into the bowels hell.

Slowly, she shook her head. "There's no guarantee you'll keep your word."

"No."

"You could turn on me in an instant."

He smiled at that, amused. "I could. I might." He shrugged. "But I might not."

She glared at him. "That's not much incentive."

"You don't need incentive." He stood. "I've given you a gift, you know. A license to kill." His smile vanished. "You really should be thanking me."

What a thought. She almost laughed. "Don't hold your breath." She quickly reconsidered. "Actually, do hold your breath. And choke and drop dead while you're at it."

He fiddled with the cuffs of his shirt. "Speaking of the professor..." He didn't look at her as he asked, "What's your timeline looking like?"

Such a casual question. He spoke to her the way a manager might speak to their employee about a particularly vexing project. Calla wanted to scream. "Not long. A few weeks." She waited, and when he said nothing, she added, "It'll look like an overdose. He'll be just another unfortunate statistic in the national fentanyl crisis."

Michaels did look at her then, expression unreadable. Amusement, perhaps? Fear? Both, I hope.

"Ingenious," he said blandly.

The praise left her hollow.

She said nothing as he left, her backpack dangling from her fingers as she considered her next move. There were certain measures she needed to take now—now, not later, because confronting Michaels as she had in public had been more than an impulsive decision, but a deliberate one, and she intended to capitalize on it.

With a sigh, Calla pulled out her phone. And waited.

She didn't have to wait for long. Her mother answered on the second ring. "Hey, honey."

"Hey, Mom," she said, injecting a note of enthusiasm into her voice. "How're things?"

"Oh, it never changes around here. What about you? Anything new?"

"Actually, yeah." Calla stood and shouldered her backpack. "You'll never guess who I just ran into."

Her mother paused to consider. Overly hopeful, she asked, "Cooper?"

"Nope." Calla smiled tentatively at the barista who'd been eyeing her exchange with the detective as she made for the front door. "Detective Michaels."

Rosalind made a strangled noise. "Michaels? Gerald Michaels?" Calla rolled her eyes. Who else? she refrained from asking. "What on earth is he doing up there?"

"I dunno. He stopped by the cafe I like to study at..." Calla trailed off. "It was weird."

"What do you mean, weird?"

"Mom," she complained. "I don't know. It just was. He wanted to talk."

Those words immediately put her mother on the defensive, just as Calla had hoped. "After what happened with his son...I don't think that's altogether appropriate."

"Don't be dramatic."

"Don't be naive," Rosalind fired back.

"Mom, relax. Maybe he was just passing through town, or something." Calla smiled at how perfectly their conversation had unfolded. "Could be a coincidence."

"Maybe," Rosalind conceded, but she didn't sound convinced, and she spent the next ten minutes trying to coerce more information out of her daughter, who insisted there was nothing more to be said on the subject. Calla was just beginning to regret the whole enterprise when her mother finally caved. "But if that man bothers you again—" she began to warn her.

"I know. I'll call," Calla promised, and when her mother told her she loved her, she repeated the words back, just as she'd rehearsed them all her life. 

Calla pocketed her phone just as she began to ascend the stairs to her apartment, and didn't check it again until after she'd taken an excruciatingly hot shower that left her skin pink and raw and warm. Wrapped in her favorite purple towel, she threw herself down on the bed and immediately called Cooper to fill him in on the details of her afternoon.

No answer.

Muttering to herself, she tried him again. Pick up, moron. Her impatience boiled to a breaking point as the call went to voicemail. Again. And again. On the seventh attempt—she would not be denied by Cooper fucking Daniels—he answered.

Sounding irritable and somewhat off-kilter, he asked, "What do you want?"

She fiddled with the edge of her towel. "Are you drunk?"

"You called to ask if I'm drunk." He sounded amused. "Aw. That's nice. You're nice."

She sat up. "You are drunk."

"Well, yeah. My ex asked me out to dinner. I deserve to be drunk."

"Lauren wants you back," Calla said. The words felt like lead in her mouth.

"Um, obviously. Have you met me? I'm amazing." He paused to take a noisy sip of what she could only assume was alcohol. "Maybe I should text her. It kind of sucks being alone all the time."

Calla readjusted her towel as she stood. "Where's Vincent?"

He sighed. "With Nat. I like Nat. I think you'd like Nat." He made a noise in the back of his throat. "Yeah. I'm gonna text Lauren."

"Cooper," she admonished, heading for the bathroom. "Do not text that horrible girl."

"Why not?"

"Just..." She sighed, letting her phone drop to her side. Why not? Why not let him have this? Why not let him have her?

Cooper's voice drifted up to her from where her phone hung by her hip. "Calla-a-a-a-a..."

She put the phone back up to her ear. "I'm coming to you. Alright? Don't go texting anyone and drink some water, dumbass."

Before he could ask how she was going to pull something like that off without a car, she hung up and shot off a text to Olivia, explaining the situation with as much graphic detail as possible, knowing that she would ask Calla a thousand questions otherwise. As she'd predicted, Olivia answered almost immediately, offering to loan Calla her car for the weekend. So you can go see your man, as Olivia put it. Ignoring that last bit, Calla rushed to thank her, promising her endless bottles of wine as repayment.

Don't do anything stupid, Cooper, she thought as she left the apartment, an overnight bag slung over her shoulder. I'm on my way.

# # #

Three hours later, Calla found herself pounding a fist against Cooper's apartment door while some lunatic across the hall screamed for her to kindly shut the fuck up, won't you, because some people had tests to study for.

"Oh, pipe down, Billy—" The door popped open beneath her fist, revealing a rather disheveled-looking, rosy-cheeked Cooper. He stared at her, open-mouthed, a half-empty bottle of wine cradled against his chest. "Oh, no."

"Good to see you too, lover boy." Calla squeezed past him, nudging him aside with her overnight bag. "God, you reek. What have you been drinking?" Just then, she spotted the empty bottle of wine on the kitchen counter. "Nevermind. That explains it."

"You're here," he whispered conspiratorially, locking the door behind them. "Oh, no. No, no, no."

"You can stop saying that." Calla tossed her bag on the floor and turned to him. "Did you text her?"

He swung his bottle of wine a bit sheepishly. "No-o-o-o-pe." He popped the p. "You told me not to."

She held out her hand. "Give me that."

He immediately shielded it from her, scowling. "No."

"I want a drink."

He continued to glower at her, no doubt trying to figure out if she really meant to drink with him or not, before shrugging and passing the bottle into her waiting hand. "Fine."

"Generous of you." She took a small sip to appease him and set the bottle on the counter. "Come on. You look like you're going to yack."

"I do not. I look great."

"Yes." She reached for his hand. "And you can look great with your head over the toilet."

He allowed her to lead him, stumbling, into the bathroom, and not a moment too soon, either. As soon as his hands gripped the porcelain toilet, he started heaving. Calla wrinkled her nose in disgusted amusement and leaned against the doorframe, content to play babysitter—especially if it meant she could give Cooper hell for it in the morning and guilt trip her way into a free breakfast.

"I feel...like...dog shit," Cooper groaned, propping his back against the wall when he finally came up for air.

Calla strode forward and flushed the toilet. "You look like it, too."

He grimaced. "Ouch."

"Up." She held out both hands. "Rinse your mouth and brush your teeth."

He waved her off. "I don't need mothering."

"Prove it."

With a groan, he pushed himself to his feet and stumbled over to the sink. Confident he wasn't about to fall over and bust his head against the floor, Calla left him to grab her bag and, after a moment's hesitation, deposited her things in his room. Vincent wasn't home, but that could change any minute—a realization that alarmed her only because she hadn't thought of it until now. She'd been in such a rush, she hadn't stopped to think, even for a second, how her arrival might unbalance Cooper's life here.

It's too late to do anything about it now, she thought mildly.

Sighing, Calla shook out her hair, letting it fall loose around her shoulders. She'd just finished changing into an oversized shirt when the bathroom sink cut off and Cooper shuffled into the bedroom, pausing in the doorway when he saw her there amidst his things.

He scratched the crown of his head. "I'll, uh...I'll take the couch."

She arched her brow. "I can sleep on the couch."

"Vincent," he explained lamely. "He could come back anytime, and...well..."

"I know."

The silence between them stretched, and—feeling very strange in her own skin—Calla abruptly left for the kitchen, wanting, needing to keep her hands busy. She opened three cabinets before she found where the boys kept their plates and cups, and even then she had her doubts about how clean they were. I hope Cooper's OCD extends to his dishware, she thought, downing half a glass of water before she mustered the nerve to go back into Cooper's bedroom.

Nerve! As if she needed nerve to go where she pleased. What the hell had gotten into her?

It's Michaels, she reasoned. He's got me all twisted out of order. As if he hasn't ruined my life enough already...

Cooper had already settled onto the couch, no blanket or pillow in sight, one arm thrown over his eyes. His chest rose and fell in a way that made her think he'd passed out the second he hit the cushions. Sighing, she placed the water she'd grabbed for him on the coffee table and, spying a spare blanket on the back of the leather chair in the corner, tossed it over his prone form.

"I don't need mothering," she said in a low, mocking undertone.

Still, she smiled as she slipped into his bed, the sheets cold against her skin but somehow...familiar.

It smells like him, she realized sleepily. And then she thought nothing at all.