Cooper nearly had a heart attack when his phone rang.

He'd been waiting for this call for three days. Three days. That's how long it had been since he'd last seen Calla at the station. Since his interrogation. Since his world had been rocked with the revelation of who the killer might be.

He hated it, but he understood the radio silence. That was the only reason why he hadn't blown up Calla's phone with a dozen calls already. He may not have been a murder suspect, but he was being watched. Closely. Everyone was.

But now she was making her move. And he was ready.

He snatched the vibrating phone from the coffee table, half-hanging off the couch when he answered it, breathless. "Hello?"

"Come over. We need to talk. And try to act casual about it, please."

She didn't have to say anything else. Cooper hung up and sprinted to his room. With no real conscious thought, he fell to his knees and yanked the shoebox out from underneath his bed, ripping off the top to expose the array of photographs stowed inside. He shuffled past a dozen images of Calla, ignoring the burn in his face. At last, he found the polaroid he was looking for. On a whim he grabbed a second photo—the one of Ryan and Jacob, stupid grins on both of their faces—before shoving the shoebox back into darkness, burying his secrets.

In his hurry to get dressed, he almost headed out the door in only a hoodie and his boxers. When the cold air hit his legs he yelped and jumped back inside, thankful no one had seen. Or at least, he hoped no one had seen.

Once properly dressed, he practically sprinted to Calla's house. He kept reminding himself to stay calm—to act casual, as Calla had told him to. He was just going to see his neighbor. Say hello. Nothing weird about that, right?

No. Not at all. Unless you considered discussing murder weird.

He paused at her door, trying to catch his breath. He didn't even have time to ring the doorbell before the door flew open and Calla was there, a look of irritation on her face.

"Do you know what the phrase act casual means?"

He shrugged, his cheeks flushed. He decided to blame it on the cold air.

She rolled her eyes and turned. "Come on, you moron."

Cooper took that as a signal to let himself in. He closed the door behind him and twisted the lock for good measure, glancing around the empty house. The bright afternoon sun filled the space with a warm glow, lighting up the kitchen in brilliant golden beams. Calla rummaged around the cabinets, flitting through the shafts of sunlight, her hair glowing like a flame with each pass.

Cooper hesitantly walked over and took a seat at the circular dining table to watch her. Something about her felt different. Off. He was about to ask what it was when he realized she was wearing her hair down today. The thick curls floated down her back, framing her face.

"Did you do your hair?" he asked suddenly, surprising himself.

She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow—her usual what the hell are you talking about look.

"Never mind," he muttered, laying his head on his forearms.

He felt like he was going to explode if he didn't tell her what he knew. And soon.

Six names. Six faces. Six suspects.

"One feather is of no use to me," Calla finally said. "I must have the whole bird."

Cooper raised his head and twisted in his chair to face her. She had her back to him, filling two glasses with ice from the refrigerator.

"Sorry?" He cleaned out his ear with his pinky finger. "Come again?"

She poured water in one of the glasses, focused on her task. "It's from Grimm's Fairy Tales. The full excerpt was cut off. Thank God for Google."

It took Cooper's brain a moment to catch up. "You're talking about the missing page. Jacob's death note."

"Correct." She walked over and handed him a glass. He sucked half of it down quickly, shuddering as the icy water hit his throat. "Pages, actually. We were right. The killer left a note in Jacob's locker. And he left a note at the crime scene."

Calla set her phone down on the counter and slid it in front of him.

"How did you find these," he muttered, analyzing the evidence. The first picture had clearly been taken at the crime scene; the words on the page were barely legible through the massive bloodstain dominating the right side of the page. The second picture took him a moment longer to piece together.

"I went to Cory's place. After the station." Calla pulled out the chair across from his and stared down at her glass, tracing patterns in the condensation with her index finger. "We had a nice...chat. And then I snuck into his dad's office. Goldmine."

"You what?" Cooper pushed his glass away, alarmed. "What if you'd been caught!"

She propped her chin in her hand, leaning against the table.

"Well. I wasn't."

"And if you had?" he insisted.

She shrugged. "My problem. Not yours."

He blew out a breath, his eyes falling back down to the evidence on her screen. "So. What am I looking at?"

"Besides the obvious?" She leaned forward and tapped the screen, zooming in on the bloody page. "That's the page the killer left behind at the crime scene. And a duplicate of that page." She swiped across the screen. The second picture appeared. A gloved hand held up a much cleaner, crisper copy of the page, a row of lockers in the background. "Which the killer left in Jacob's locker. As a warning."

"Duplicate?" Cooper swiped back and forth between the images, surprised. "They're identical pages?"

"Not identical." Calla sat back in her chair. She clutched her glass, contemplating the quickly-melting ice inside. "They're from the same book, yes. But not from the same copy. It's not possible." She flicked her fingers in his general direction. "Look at the page left at the crime scene. The edges are gilded."

"A special edition, maybe?" he murmured, narrowing his eyes at the screen. His hand went to his pocket, where he'd tucked away the polaroid. He drew it out now and compared it to the image on the screen. Now that he knew what to look for, he could see it: a muted shimmer of gold ran down the edge of the page.

"That's what I think," Calla confirmed. "The killer is using one copy to leave his little..." she trailed off and then smiled. "Death notes. And with the other..."

One note to warn. And one note to taunt.

Cooper thought back to that horrific night at the Halloween party. He could still smell the bitter aroma of the beer in his hand, could still see the smoke billowing down from the third floor, the fog machine left unattended. He replayed the moment he stumbled over Tracy's body. The realization that his hands were braced against a warm, wet floor—soaked with Tracy's blood.

Cooper closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair—once, twice, three times. "It's looking more and more like the killer stole the first book from the Smith's personal library. So where the hell did the second copy come from?"

"He could already have a copy on hand. Or he could have borrowed it from a more...convenient location."

"The school," Cooper surmised, following her train of thought. "But I already checked the library. I never found the book." He paused. "Which...I guess I wouldn't have. Not if the killer had already checked it out."

Calla smiled. "Bingo."

They stared at each other, eyes lit from the high of their discovery.

"I think it's time we brush up on our reading." Cooper grinned, practically giddy. "But that's not our only lead."

Calla's eyes sharpened, filling with hunger. "What are you saying?"

He leaned forward, ready to burst. "You're not the only one who found something useful last week."

I can pull my own weight. I'm not helpless, he thought, watching her expression change to one of fierce triumph.

"Spill," she demanded, tapping her index finger on the tabletop.

It made him nervous. She made him nervous. But the secret he'd been holding inside for three days, utterly consuming him, made it easier to face her.

"I didn't know why the hell the detective wanted to talk to me," he explained. "Not at first. He kept going on and on about our outdated tech—"

Calla rapped her knuckles against the table. "Focus, Cooper. Let's skip the prologue and get straight to chapter one, yes?"

"Sorry." He cleared his throat. "Anyway. That's how it all started. But it got better."

"If you don't tell me what—"

"Patience is a fucking virtue. Ever heard of that?"

Her eyes narrowed.

Cooper raised his hands, relenting. "Chill. Don't get your murder panties in a wad. Long story short, the detective mentioned something about 'holes'," he quoted with his fingers, "in the stories they'd been told about the night of the gala. Things weren't matching up. So they started asking me about these six people—if I saw them and when and who they were with."

Calla went still. Very still. "Who were they, Cooper."

So he told her.

"Ryan Kane." He pulled the second photograph from his pocket and laid it on the table. He ticked the rest of the names off his fingers, one by one. "Jessica Sneider. Gareth Walker. Mike and Blake Richardson. And Astrid Baker."

"Six names. Six prints," she breathed. And then, faster than he could blink, she slammed her hands on the table. Cooper jumped back, startled, as she slid out of her chair and began pacing the kitchen, her hands like iron at her sides.

Ryan. Jessica. Gareth. Mike. Blake. Astrid.

One of them was going to be dead soon. Very soon. And Calla would be the one with her hands around their throat. He watched her pace, a caged beast prowling her perimeter.

The thought of Calla's bloody hands had kept Cooper up at night, tossing and turning in bed, plagued by nightmares. It was the same thought that constantly found him on the precipice, torn between wanting to tell the entire town about his neighbor, while simultaneously wanting, needing, to take the secret with him to the grave. Someone he knew was a cold-blooded killer. Someone he knew wanted him dead, the sixth victim in some sick game being played out. And while that was disturbing enough, the one thing that haunted his steps even after he woke wasn't the face of Ryan or Jessica or Gareth or Mike or Blake or Astrid.

No. It was Calla's face. The caged beast he was unleashing upon one of them.

"The beer bottle."

Her words were unexpected, even more so in the silence that had enveloped the house after Cooper's declaration. He stared at her, wondering if he'd pushed her too far. If, somewhere deep in the recesses of her brain, he had broken some important connection.

She didn't bother looking at him. But she didn't have to. He could feel her fury, could feel her impatience, even from this distance. With each pass—from the kitchen sink and back again—she drew closer, making him flinch.

"The murder weapon," she finally explained. She continued to pace, but her steps were less frenzied, her face relaxing into one of cool concentration. "Do you remember seeing the broken beer bottle that night, when we found Rachel? It had blood all over it. The edges were jagged enough to cut."

To cut flesh and veins. Blood and bone.

Cooper only vaguely remembered that night. Horror made his memories fuzzy and uncomfortable. It seemed to be the opposite for her—a great irony, considering how unreliable her memory could be, especially when it mattered. He still couldn't believe she'd entrusted him with the truth. Her memories from the Halloween party were gone. Kaput.

That she'd managed to tell him such a thing, such a weakness, had stunned him to his core.

But for this night—the night that she'd lost the only true anchor in her life—her recall was flawless. Each detail stood out in razor focus as she described the scene for him.

"It looked like the killer dropped the weapon as soon as the deed was done," she went on. "Sloppy. Someone had peeled the label off the bottle, too. Maybe trying to dispose of prints. A failed attempt."

Six names. Six prints, she'd said.

"I found a report in the detective's office." She didn't look at him as she said this. "They found prints on the bottle. Six separate sets. Not yet identified. But if what you say is true..."

She paused in the middle of the kitchen. He couldn't even be sure she was breathing.

But then she did breathe. A great, heaving sigh. "Tell me everything."

He did so as quickly as he could, afraid to incur her wrath. Don't shoot the messenger. Don't shoot the messenger! "I was confused at first. When they started asking me about those six." He fumbled and then elaborated at her questioning glance. "I mean, they were together. Gareth and Astrid. Mike and Jess. Ryan and Blake had their own dates. I assumed that their group hung out for most of the night."

She nodded, in agreement with his observation. He could have sang with relief.

Better not push my luck.

He spread his hands. "Apparently that wasn't the case. I could tell by the looks on the detectives' faces that something wasn't adding up. They asked me if I'd seen Jess at our table, right around when I went to check my phone. She definitely wasn't there. Questions like that. About if I saw Mike here, or if I saw Blake there. Obvious things, too. Places and times I would have remembered. I don't know, Calla. But it sure as hell sounds like those six were telling very different stories about where they were and what they were doing, which makes no sense."

And it's not just about conflicting testimony, he realized, understanding now why she had demanded more from him. It's about the murder weapon, too.

She waited for him to say his thoughts aloud. And so he did. "You think their prints are on the weapon?"

"I do," she said, breaking her silence at last. She walked over to the chair she'd previously occupied, clutching the back of it with hooked fingers. Her eyes were on the table when she said, "I don't think any of those six have an alibi. And you were right. They were together that night. I saw Gareth and Ryan sharing a drink. I would imagine they passed around a beer or two at some point."

"Which is how everyone's prints ended up on one bottle," he concluded, grim-faced.

She glanced up at him. Her dark eyes were fathomless.

Cooper chewed the bottom of his lip. "It can't be a coincidence. Six names, six prints," he repeated her words, grim. And then he hesitated. "And none of their stories from that night match up. Why lie unless you have something to hide?"

"Exactly." Calla drummed her fingers against the worn wood. And then, very softly, she repeated those six names. Over and over again. Like some terrible, wicked prayer.

After several seconds of this, she pushed away from the chair. Her wild temper had evaporated almost as quickly as it had come. She walked into the living room and, with an almost peaceful expression on her face, she sat on the couch. Cooper hesitated before joining her, sitting as far from her as was physically possible on the relatively small sofa, unsure what to do with his feet or his hands. He tried propping his elbow on the armrest, but it felt unnatural. He shifted positions.

Calla watched his antics with a bored stare. "You done?"

"Shut up," he complained. He settled for clasping his hands in his lap and staring ahead at the TV.

"I need your full, undivided attention," she began, folding her hands together. "Can you manage that?"

"I am full," he said through his teeth, staring at her. Hard. "And I am undivided. Proceed."

She pondered him for a moment. And then: "We need to start being very careful. Especially now that we have names. Because whoever it is, they haven't been caught yet. They're smart. Which means they're going to realize, sooner rather than later, what we're up to."

She didn't sound very pleased about that fact. One side of her mouth turned down and her nose wrinkled, as if she'd tasted something disgusting and was trying to hide it.

"Right. Tread lightly. Check." Cooper drew a checkmark in the air with his finger.

"We also need to get our hands on those autopsy reports."

"Ew?"

"If there's even the slightest chance those reports can give us useful information, we need it."

"Like what?"

She hesitated. Cooper watched her with growing fascination, until she finally said, "The more we know, the better prepared we'll be."

That sounded like the biggest pile of horseshit Cooper had ever heard. He was about to say so when she turned away and directed her attention to the TV, effectively shutting him out. He watched her, unease growing in the pit of his stomach. Something in her expression gave him pause.

Finally, he forced out: "Okay. Autopsy reports. Fine. How do we get them?"

She shrugged. "I'll work on that one. For now...you're friendly with Ryan, aren't you?"

"Friendly is sort of...an exaggeration. You could say that we've bonded in captivity once or twice."

"If you're not friendly, then get friendly. Talk to him. Feel him out. Find out what he was doing at the dance and why the hell the detectives think he's lying about it."

"I'm not exactly an expert manipulator here," he complained, giving her a desperate look. "Don't you have any theories on who it is? We're gonna draw attention if we start asking sketchy-ass questions. And that breaks rule numero uno about being careful."

"I have a theory or two," Calla admitted, glancing sideways at him. "None of them make sense."

"Well?" he prompted, kicking off his shoes and flexing his toes. "I've got time."

She sighed. "You're a pain in my ass."

He kicked his feet up on the coffee table and folded his hands behind his head, giving her a leisurely smile.

"Fine." She held up a finger. "Jess. Ryan. Astrid. In that order."

He lifted a skeptical brow. He couldn't exactly argue with Ryan. But the girls...

She folded her arms. "You wanted to hear my theories. Remember?"

He held up his hands. "I'm just saying. How many psychotic women can live in one fucking town?" He gestured to where she sat on the other end of the couch, as if to prove a point.

She didn't look offended by the idea. Rather, she seemed to ponder his words, taking the quip far more seriously than he had anticipated. "You're not wrong. It's not exactly common to run into a female serial killer. They're rare." She paused. "Or smarter than their male counterparts."

Valid point. He waved for her to continue.

"Jess," she started, her voice turning cold and nasty. "I would kill her myself and let us be done with this mess if I could."

He recoiled at the venom in her words. "You really need a therapist."

"She got into it with Rach. Maybe a week before the dance." Calla was relentless in the pursuit of this particular theory. "She said some pretty nasty things. Particularly about how Rach would regret defending me."

"Defending you?" Cooper tried not to sound completely lost. And failed.

She sighed. "Jess defended Astrid. She felt high-and-mighty about me taking Vincent to the dance. She wanted me to back off."

"And Rachel told her to shove it. Okay. I'm caught up." He made another vague gesture. "Please. Continue."

It took her a few seconds longer to compose herself, no doubt imagining all the ways she might hurt him in that moment. "Not to mention...she had to share the spotlight with Tracy as co-captain. And then, again, with Rachel. I bet it got old, splitting the attention fifty-fifty. Jess is older than Rach. It probably rubbed her the wrong way to have to share the title."

"Okay." He paused. "So the girl's got motive."

"Ryan." She continued as if he hadn't spoken at all. "Do I even need to go into the details?"

No. She didn't. They'd both seen the guilt-ridden apology written on the back of the photograph left at Jacob's impromptu memorial. Cooper himself had been to the station twice with the guy. It wasn't exactly a marker for guilt—Cooper was proof of that—but it also couldn't be a great sign that the guy kept getting roped into interrogations with the lead detectives on the case.

"Case in point," he muttered.

Calla needed no more prompting. She said the last name like a curse. "Astrid."

He grimaced. Out of all the names on the list, hers had cut him the deepest. She'd been the kindest to him over the years. And he practically worshipped her father. He hated to imagine the pain it would cause his biology teacher if he were to discover that his only child had become a ruthless murderer.

Yes. It would cause the man pain. But it would also cause his best friend a deal of pain, too. Vincent's unhealthy obsession with Astrid—to the point that he'd risked a longtime friendship to be with her, however discreetly—could only end badly. This only complicated matters.

Not her, he thought. Let it be anyone but her. Please.

"Why do you think it's her?" he asked, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

Calla shrugged, as if the matter were quite trivial. "She's got some territorial bullshit going on with Vincent. She told me to stay away from him, actually."

"When?" Cooper asked, dumbfounded. He tried to imagine Astrid squaring up with Calla—petite, shy Astrid—and couldn't.

"At Rachel's funeral." She sounded far too casual. "Killing Rachel could have been her idea of sending a message."

Cooper made a noise in the back of his throat. He still didn't want to believe it. "You're telling me Astrid killed Rachel as some kind of vendetta against you?"

A note of irritation crept into her voice. "I told you. My theories are watery, at best. But it's not exactly out of the realm of possibility."

"I guess," he conceded, and then frowned. He latched onto a flaw in her reasoning, determined to play devil's advocate. "I'm just trying to picture her offing Jacob...and I can't. She's five foot nothing. C'mon."

Calla put a finger to her temple, frustrated—as if she, too, had already tried and failed to imagine the scene he grappled with. She waved her other hand. "Jacob Stein is always the roadblock. Which of the six wanted him dead? And which of the six could actually take him down? There's something we don't know, some underlying motive. That, or this has something to do with a drug deal gone wrong."

"A drug deal?" Cooper lifted a hand. The gears turning in his head came to a grinding halt. "Time out. Explain."

"Long story short," she started, mocking his earlier declaration, "Jacob dealt. Weed, mostly. The detectives asked me about a dealer at the gala. Cory confirmed Jacob had been involved...before his untimely death, anyway. It sounds like someone took over the business. That, or he had a partner. Rach and I walked in on a few seniors doing blow in the bathroom at Trevor's party a while back."

She paused, letting the memory die with her words.

He exhaled. The new information triggered something. He thought back to that day at the station. Detective Schuster's rueful smile. Yes, we're aware there was alcohol going around. Among other things.

Among other things. Cooper held in a snort. "So someone killed Jacob over, what? A blunt?"

"Doubtful." She rolled her eyes. "But if the detectives are asking, it could tie into the murders."

"Someone is hella salty about their tree," Cooper muttered, still in disbelief. "How the hell are we supposed to find dirt on Jacob? A deal gone wrong, or whatever."

Calla crossed her arms, staring down at the blanket wrapped around her knees. "I'll work on that, too."

"Meanwhile, I'll just be sitting here like a useless houseplant, awaiting my demise at the hands of a serial killer," he deadpanned, sinking further into the couch.

"I told you." Calla gave him a look. "Talk to Ryan. Until we get some hard proof, or until the killer decides to invite us over for dinner and confess his sins, all we have to go on is a well-educated hunch that six of our classmates are lying liars. And we need to know which lies are the dangerous kind."

Cooper held up his hand, wiggling his fingers. "So. Let me get this straight. I need to break into the yearbook lab's drive to see if Sahein managed to get dirt on anyone. We've got to sweep the library for a very specific book—or find out who the hell has it, if they didn't have their hands on it already. You're going to get your hands on those autopsy reports. And we're, somehow, supposed to figure out why Jacob Stein was such a massive pile of shit, besides the complete and total obvious anger management issues?"

Calla considered him for a moment. And then she shrugged. "Sounds about right."

"Sounds about impossible. And overwhelming. Can we write this down somewhere?"

"Coop," she said through clenched teeth. "It's logic. We track down and collect evidence. We prove and disprove every theory we can get our hands on. And we nail down the son of a bitch who has the motive to kill our classmates—including you."

"Right. Logic." He tried to hide his expression of pain.

Calla's phone buzzed on the coffee table, startling them both. She leaned forward with a groan. "What now?"

He watched her read the text, a smile slowly spreading across her face.

"What?" he asked, craning his neck.

"We're in luck," she said slowly, her eyes darting across the screen. "Jessica's hosting a memorial for the dead. New Years' Eve."

"Oh. That's morbid." Cooper sat up, trying to look like he knew why, exactly, this was good news. "So...?"

"If I had to guess, all six of our new best friends will be there." Calla pushed the blanket off of her legs and stood, walking toward her room. "We can keep an eye on them. Don't forget—you're still number six on the killer's hit list."

"How could I forget?" he muttered, pushing himself upright and following her. "Wait. Calla?"

He found her in the back of her closet, combing through a rack of sweaters. "What?"

"If I'm cozying up to Ryan, what's your plan?"

Calla picked out a green turtleneck, holding it up to analyze it. "Stephanie."

"Why?"

She shot him a look. "You know why."

The queen of the school yearbook. Knower Of All Things. Yeah. I guess I do know why.

"Right." A moment of silence passed between them. "Calla?"

"Is this what having a child feels like?" she muttered from inside the closet, her back to him.

"How long do you think that note was in Rachel's purse?"

She paused. And then she turned, pinning him with her calculating gaze. "What do you mean?"

"Like..." He made a vague gesture with his hands. "Did someone put the note in her purse at the dance? Or did they somehow—"

Calla frowned, halting his train of thought. "It couldn't have been sooner. She never carries that purse around."

He sat on the edge of her bed, staring at his feet. "But the killer left that page in my locker weeks ago. Why not leave the note in her locker? Like me. Like Jacob."

Calla said nothing. He looked up to find her staring at him, stunned.

"Calla?"

"You're right," she murmured, dropping the sweater on the bed. She surprised him by sitting next to him, their thighs nearly touching. "Shit. You're right."

"The fact that you sound surprised is kind of insulting...but also comforting?"

"Shut up." She raked her hands through her hair.

Cooper ignored her. "So why break the pattern with Rachel? Why slip the note into her purse, knowing she might not find it in time to...I don't know. Realize what's coming? 'Cause that seems to be the killer's goal. To cause panic."

"Good question." Calla assessed him, eyes cold and dark. He looked away, choosing to gaze out of her window rather than face her directly. "Maybe you're an exception. An anomaly. That, or Rachel is."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe Rachel's death wasn't planned," she murmured, thoughtful. "This killer. Maybe he's got his list of victims all figured out, and Rachel was...an accident? But that doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense."

Cooper sighed, falling back onto the bed. He stared up at the ceiling. "This sucks. Blue's Clues did not prepare me for this."

"Did you just compare tracking down a serial killer to Blue's Clues?"

"Someone had to."

Calla scoffed and stood, snatching her sweater off the bed and grabbing a pair of jeans from her dresser. She disappeared into the bathroom, muttering under her breath about Blue's Clues and something that sounded an awful lot like just let him die.

Cooper propped himself onto his elbows as she came out of the bathroom, her hair held back by a black headband. He blinked. "Where are you going?"

"Dinner. Mother gets off work in thirty minutes."

Mother. She made the word sound so...distant.

"And you didn't invite me?" He pretended to be offended.

"Sorry. Family only for birthdays."

"Oh. It's your mom's birthday?" He sat up, smoothing the uneven bedspread behind him, making sure it was perfect. Obsessive habits die hard.

"No, you idiot. It's my birthday."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm being serious."

"Yes? So am I."

He looked at her in shock. "Wait. For real? Why is this the first time I'm hearing about it?"

"It's just a birthday." She shrugged, collecting her wallet and phone. "No big deal."

"Oh," he said again, uncertain. What was he supposed to do? He didn't think she'd appreciate a birthday hug.

As if reading his thoughts, she gave him a scathing look. "Don't even think about it."

He followed her out into the living room, where he shoved his shoes back on. "You're a Christmas baby?"

"I am not a Christmas baby. Christmas isn't for another week."

"You're totally a Christmas baby," he sang, avoiding her hand as she reached out to smack his shoulder. "Okay, okay. Whatever. I just think it's ironic that the Antichrist was born so close to the birth of our Lord and Savior."

"Cooper?"

"Calla?"

"I'm going to kill you in your sleep if you don't get the hell out of my house."

"Do me a favor and make it quick? Smother me with a pillow. Something gentle. I'm fragile."

She gave him a look and, despite his bravado, he hurried outside and slammed the door behind him.