For one black moment I could not breathe.

Cody was supposed to be at home with the neighbor I trusted, doors locked.

Every plan I had made, every careful piece of evidence in my bag, every hour of the cold clarity I’d been so proud of — all of it evaporated in the space of one text message, and what was left was pure animal.

I had thought, in the weeks since the will, that I understood what Dax was capable of.

I had catalogued it: the fraud, the crash, the poisoning, the man at the school fence.