A/N: Don't mind me, I'm just out here randomly posting on a Saturday. I'm sorry, guys. I have a new IRL schedule, and I'm still adjusting and figuring out when I can work in updates. No trigger warnings this chapter, just a whole lot of self-flagellation. Enjoy.

Chapter 40.

Served Cold

. . .

Several deep breaths later, Amanda emerged from the hallway to immediately be greeted by Frannie and Hamilton, as if they had been waiting for her return the entire time she was gone. Say what you wanted about the two energetic dogs—they knew how to conduct themselves when it mattered. Neither of them jumped up for more pets, though they had been known to practically knock people over in the past, and they both retired to separate corners when Amanda sent them off with pats on the rump.

Noah was in the armchair, drawing a picture in the art pad balanced on his knees. His younger sisters were playing the mail game, invented by Jesse, who dearly loved mail, even though she never got any. Amanda and Olivia had been planning on getting her a monthly subscription to a children's magazine or something of the sort, just so she would receive mail of her own once in a while. "Here you are, ma'am," she said, handing a stack of envelopes and circulars to Tilly. "That will be forty-two dollars, plus tax."

She hadn't quite grasped the process of delivery since seeing Olivia tip the doorman of their building for holding larger packages behind the front desk. Marco was only too happy to oblige, even without the twenty. Amanda suspected he had a tiny crush on Olivia; she used to tease her about it, making kissy noises as soon as they were on the sidewalk or the elevator doors closed. In the Before time. That's where all their memories were now.

"Okay, sissy," Tilly said, always ready to go along with anything her big sister suggested, no matter how outlandish. She dug into the little pink coin purse that dangled at her side. It had a cat's face on the front and snapped close at the top like the coin purses Amanda remembered from childhood, from seeing them on the shoulder of every old lady at church. "Four and two. I don't has tacks."

Tilly placed the fee on the coffee table, as if she were at a fast food counter. She had paid with some of Noah's construction paper, torn into deformed green strips, plastic pennies from her grocery store playset, and a ring from a gumball machine at some bodega or another. The latter made Amanda inexplicably sad, and she almost interrupted the imaginary transaction to correct the girls' logic.

Thankfully, she stopped herself before she ruined their innocent fun. They deserved to have as much of that as they possibly could, until life snatched it away from them forever.

"Okay, well, tax is free today, anyway. I have to charge you next time, though. This ain't a charity I'm runnin', lady." Spoken like a true New Yorker, albeit one under the age of seven. Jesse swiped her hand along the surface of the coffee table, pushing the fake money over the edge into a plastic Easter basket that served as the perfect collection plate. When that was done, she scooped up the mail—quite a lot had accumulated in the five days since Olivia's abduction—and stuffed it into Tilly's arms.

Bills they had forgotten to transfer to paperless, coupons for takeout, a manila envelope, and a pink envelope that looked like a birthday card fanned out against Tilly's chest as she hugged them tight. Most of them fell at her feet on the carpet. "Thank you, I love you. I be back tomorrow. G'bye." She exited the makeshift post office through an imaginary door, leaving behind a trail of letters and fliers as she struggled to keep her tiny purse on her tiny shoulder.

Amanda almost turned around and tiptoed back to the bedroom. She might have if she could have gotten away with not disturbing Olivia, but she wouldn't risk scaring her awake. Besides, Daphne had already spotted Amanda lingering by the archway and waved her in to take a seat next to her on the couch. Daphne was still holding the baby, who was sound asleep on her chest, all scrunched up like a little inchworm, bum sticking out. Sammie had slept that way since birth, and it brought tears to Amanda's eyes to see that she hadn't outgrown it in her mothers' absence.

Blinking away her shimmering vision, Amanda stepped into view of her children while there was a lull in their activities—Noah had taken to drumming a colored pencil on the open page of his art pad, a sure sign he was contemplating his next masterpiece. He and the girls finally looked up when Amanda cleared her throat, and for a moment the four of them just stared at each other as if they were frozen on the spot.

"Okay, y'all," Amanda said, clapping her hands together once, not very loudly. She went over and gathered the envelopes Tilly had dropped, pitching them onto the coffee table, where she then took a seat. "Huddle up. Let's go, time for a family meetin'." She kept her tone light so they wouldn't think they were in trouble, but there was some initial hesitation anyway. It was Jesse who rounded the coffee table first, arms crossed and a skeptical look on her puckish features.

Once Noah and Matilda had joined their sister, Amanda lassoed all three in her arms and drew them into serious discussion distance. "First off, I owe y'all an apology. I shouldn't have snapped at you like I did—"

"You said bad words too," Jesse interjected.

"Right. I said some real bad words, and I shouldn't have done that, either. You kids didn't deserve it, and I want you to know how sorry I am. I'll do my best not to lose my patience like that anymore, okay? Just . . . try to be patient with me too. I haven't gotten much sleep this week, and I've been so worried about Liv. . . "

The two older kids exchanged a funny look at hearing Mommy called by her first name, otherwise Amanda might not have noticed her mistake. "I mean, your mommy. I know you guys have been worried too, though. I'm sorry for that, and for getting so mad. Can you forgive me?"

Now it was Matilda's turn to go first. She squeezed past her siblings and scaled Amanda's legs as skillfully as a spider monkey, snuggling into her lap and wrapping both arms around her as far as they would go. "I fordgive you, Mama," said the sweet toddler, the one Amanda could always count on to accept her, warts and all. Noah had been a challenge at first, but once he started to think of her as his "Ma," he became much more receptive. He was sensitive, though; his feelings were easily hurt.

And then there was Jesse—angelic and sweet as an apple dumpling when you were getting along, but if you got on her bad side, watch out. That is all you, my friend, Olivia liked to tease when Amanda complained about their eldest daughter's feisty streak. It couldn't be denied. The Rollinses were renowned throughout northwest Georgia for their hotheadedness. Or Dean was, at least.

The good thing about Jesse was that she had a soft heart to level out that strong head. She didn't keep grudges any longer than necessary, either, and instead of punishing Amanda any further, she unfolded her skinny arms and joined in the group hug with Matilda and Noah. The kids usually liked to turn it into a match to see who could squeeze all the air out of Mama's lungs first, but this time there was no horsing around, just several uninterrupted moments of holding each other tight.

Amanda felt her soul replenishing with that hug, after all the darkness, the hopelessness, of the past week. At the same time, it drained her emotionally, and it was all she could do not to weep onto the top of the trio's heads. If she broke down now, she feared she wouldn't be able to stop crying. That would only confuse and frighten the kids even more than they already were, and that wasn't an option. "Hey," she said, sitting back to look into the three sets of blue eyes gazing up at her, "you guys know none of this is your fault, right? What happened to your mommy—there's absolutely nothing you said or did to cause it."

With a solemn nod of her curly head, Tilly agreed to the pardon of guilt for herself and for her siblings. Noah, however, wasn't quite so quick to believe, and Jesse's skepticism had returned, though it was more childlike than before. As if she were questioning the existence of Santa Claus, not making the grown-up decision to forgive. She even defaulted to her brother, allowing him to voice his concerns first, testing the unfamiliar waters of doubt and self-blame.

"But you were getting us bagels," Noah said, wary as a kid correcting his teacher in class. He played absently with Tilly's curls, twining them around his fingers and watching them unravel when let go. He was showing talent as a hairstylist, and Amanda liked to joke it was because of all the long hair floating around the apartment. Of course the kid was a natural. She couldn't make that joke to Olivia anymore. "The men took Mommy while you were getting our breakfast."

What tore at Amanda's heart most—his regression to calling Olivia Mommy, hearing him talk about the abduction, or his distorted view of what had caused it—was hard to stay. They all had claws, his little boy reasonings. Claws and fangs, for shredding the kind of innocence you could only have at eight years old. "Is that what you think, bud? That Mommy got hurt because she was out picking up food for y'all?"

Noah shrugged. He had whipped Tilly's ringlets into a red froth about her head, his fingers probing lightly at her ivory scalp.

"Hey, look at me." Amanda lifted his chin when he remained transfixed by his sister's hair, the ultimate distraction. "Eyes front, soldier. There ya go. Now, I want you to get that idea out of your head right this minute. Mommy and me love doing stuff like that for you guys, and we were so happy before— before the men showed up. Those men . . . they had a plan to abduct your mom, whether or not we were out buying bagels. And it wasn't because of anything you did. Or you. Or you."

She chucked the boy gently under the chin, then both girls, oldest to youngest. Or you, she thought silently for the baby, just in case. "They were just really bad people who wanted to hurt your mommy and me. Because of our jobs." And because I fucked a couple of them over—and another I just plain fucked—before you were even crawling by yourself. See, son, you couldn't be to blame.

It's me. I'm the one who destroyed your lives. And hers.

"Are they dead now?" Jesse asked. She'd been a little preoccupied with death since Amanda and Olivia had read Charlotte's Web to the kids at bedtime. To be fair, she asked if most people over the age of twelve were "dead now" when their names came up in conversation. But it still caught Amanda off guard to hear it put so bluntly, and unless she had imagined it, with a tinge of hope as well.

"Yes, they're dead. I killed them—except for the ones Dana and Kat took care of. I killed them, and I don't regret it for a second. And the instant your father makes even the tiniest mistake, the very goddamn moment, even if he's halfway across the world when he does it, I will know, and I will find him and kill him too."

She didn't really say it, but she heard it inside her head just as clearly as if she had. It was a vow to herself, she realized, a contract she was signing. She was taking out a hit on Declan Murphy, aka Lucky, and that made her feel exhilarated and powerful for the first time in days. Like the rush of endorphins during a run. A goal she could work toward, and something she would have control over, which also gave her the chance to protect her family. Redemption served cold.

"Mama?"

"They're someplace where they can't hurt anyone ever again, bug."

"That means dead," Jesse said knowingly, nodding to her brother.

Amanda saw no point in correcting her. She wasn't wrong. But steering her away from the topic was probably for the best. Against Amanda's chest, St. Jude burned like a penny plucked from a blaze—a self-immolation that went on long after the blackened form inside the flames stopped screaming. He was a medallion-sized brand, the tip of a lit cigarette. She knew what kind of scar he would leave, because Olivia's body was pocked by them.

"You don't have to worry about those men, okay? You just concentrate on treatin' your mommy real special, and being the sweet, loving kids you already are." Here, she scrunched her fingers against Matilda's belly, just enough for a giggle and a squirm. Her little Pillsbury ginger girl. "She's gonna need a lot of that for a good long while."

"Baby touches and indoor voices. Aunt Daphy told us already." Always the mouthpiece and proud of it, Jesse crossed her arms like she was negotiating a business deal. She and her siblings would behave, as long as certain criteria were met. But she made no demands, simply accepting the responsibility of obedience and putting an adult's needs before her own. It was as though she had grown up overnight. "It's okay, Mama. We got this."

Kids were forever surprising you with their insights and wisdom, but Jesse Eileen astonished Amanda nearly every time she opened her mouth. Amanda blinked at her, at the other two, who were equally astonishing, just in different ways, and fought back the urge to cry again. Perhaps it was exhaustion setting in, but she had never felt more grateful that they were hers—baby Sammie too. They were what would get her through this. And with any luck, they would do the same for Olivia when Amanda could not.

For that same reason, Amanda left the baby cradled in Daphne's arms after suggesting the older kids go play quietly in their rooms. Noah had been the most reluctant, and she sensed that he was full of questions she didn't want to answer, but she needed to give her friend the bad news first, before she lost her nerve. Promises of pizza for dinner had finally gotten everyone moving, and Amanda edged around the coffee table to face Daphne, their knees almost touching.

Dark shadows pooled in the recesses of Daphne's eyes, aging her features, while also making her appear startlingly young. She looked like an ancient little girl, or rather, the poppet of one, for healing or hexing was yet to be determined. Amanda knew very little about the folk magic some of her Appalachian cousins were said to practice, and she had laughed off most of her grandmama's and great-aunt's special blend of Christianity, voodoo, and plain superstition years ago; nevertheless, she was leaning heavily toward hex.

For Daphne, being friends with Amanda was a curse.

The thought filled Amanda with hollow sadness that gnawed like hunger. Maybe that's what she was—a pit that fed on the despair of others, one of those mass graves littered with skeletal, wizened bodies, as gnarled as ginger root, that you saw in intangible black-and-white photos from the Holocaust. Run, she wanted to tell her friend. Run while you're still just on the periphery of my fuckedness.

Too late, echoed the reply, her eyes falling on Daphne's cane propped against the end table. Too damn late. The clerk had finally made peace with keeping the cane close and the fact that she would probably always need it, but guilt still niggled at Amanda's brain every time she saw Daphne preparing herself to step up on a curb or not teeter in even the shorter heels. Things Amanda didn't have to think about much at all to achieve. What a lucky girl.

"Amanda, are you okay?" Daphne asked, right as Amanda was about to spew out the words like vomit. (Kat's dead, I got another one of your girlfriends killed, but hey, at least she wasn't viciously, sadistically raped by multiple assailants over a three day period, so count your—) "You don't look well. Have you gotten any sleep since . . . . Or had anything to eat?"

They were just delaying the inevitable, but Amanda was glad for the interruption. She could breathe again, if only for a moment. "Off and on. I pieced at stuff from the vending machines, mostly drank coffee. I'm okay. It was like finals week in undergrad." Or a gambling bender, after the winning streak turned to losing, her anticipation to dread, her dreams to dust. If she could stay awake forty-eight hours for a bunch of cards and some dice, she'd sure as hell do it for Olivia. "Ain't had much of an appetite anyway, and every time I close my eyes I see her being tortured. So."

She didn't mean for the last part to come out until she had already said it, and by then she regretted it. Daphne looked ill at the mention of the images forever seared into Amanda's brain; it was easy to forget that laypeople weren't used to subjects like torture. Even a lot of cops weren't, some going their whole career without seeing a single case of such wanton violence and sexual depravity. Talking things over with Olivia had always made the work a little easier to process, knowing they were in it together and someone else understood. Who was Amanda supposed to go to now?

"I'm sorry." Daphne sounded as if she were apologizing for a wrong she had done, not the criminal acts of others. She gazed down at Samantha, either searching for answers or trying to block out whatever torture looked like to her. A corpse with the eyes gouged out, most likely. Focusing on something new, innocent, and pristine was a good way to dispel from your mind all the ugly in the world, that was true. But even the peach-smooth face of a sleeping infant couldn't solve some things. Some things were here to stay. "I can't even . . . "

The expression set Amanda's teeth on edge and she gripped the lip of the coffee table too tightly. Daphne tended to speak in pop culture references and Internet memes, to the amusement—and occasional bemusement—of her less trend conscious friends, including Amanda. But Amanda hoped the situation warranted a more serious tone than a social media post for the younger woman. Nothing could lighten her current mood, least of all a goddamn hashtag.

"I can't even imagine what that must have been like for you. For Liv. I can't imagine what you're—" Daphne made a gesture with one hand as if miming her guts spilling out. The baby slept on, unaware she was being doused in imaginary viscera. "You know, feeling. I'm just so sorry. Is there anything I can do? If you want me to stay and take care of the kids so you can rest, I will. I can order the pizza and—"

"Kat's dead."

Daphne blinked like Amanda had flicked water into her face. So much for a gentle, compassionate reveal that would, hopefully, mitigate some of the trauma. No one escaped Amanda unscathed, friend or foe. "What cat? Honey, I don't— Oh. Oh my God. Oh my God, you mean Kat Kat? As in Tamin?"

Slowly, reluctantly, as if she were one-hundred years old and every movement was a chore, Amanda nodded her head up and down. All at once she felt so unbelievably exhausted she could have closed her eyes and fallen asleep sitting up right there on the coffee table, among the mail she was too tired to make sense of. She barely recognized her own name on the envelopes addressed to her. Rollins-Benson. It didn't sound real inside her head anymore. "Yeah, Tamin. I'm sorry. I . . . didn't mean for it to come out like that. But I didn't want you to hear it from someone else, either."

"No. No, it's— I'm glad you told me. I just . . . " Daphne swallowed with effort, blinked with even more. The floodgates opened in spite of her, and she swiped at her cheeks and under her nose, which seemed perpetually in need of a tissue. You could use that thing as Kevlar, Amanda had teased her once, upon catching a glimpse of the white tufts practically overflowing her shoulder bag. Too bad she didn't really have a shield to stop the bullets. "How? I mean, what happened? Was she on duty?"

It occurred to Amanda that she didn't quite know the answer to that one. Everyone was pulling OT in the hunt for Olivia, many doing so off the clock, but if Kat had even been expected at the precinct the day of her death, Amanda couldn't remember. She went with the more heroic choice, the one that made the officer's death sound a little less senseless, if dying in a crossfire before the age of thirty could ever be anything short of tragic: "Yeah, she was, uh, actually she was trying to rescue Liv. We think. She found the warehouse where they were keeping Liv, and there was this— this big shootout. She took a few of them out with her, though. Might not have found Liv in time if not for her. For Kat."

One lie after another after another. Amanda felt half-sick with them, her bowels as loose as her lips and roiling inside her abdomen. She wanted to tell Daphne the truth—that she'd been there when Kat was gunned down; that she had made the bastards who were responsible pay; that she wasn't sure if she really had gotten to Olivia on time or not—but it was better if the clerk didn't know. That way she wouldn't have to lie for Amanda or perjure herself on the stand if the deaths
(murders)
went to court.

"I'm sorry, Daph. I know you cared about her. She still cared about you too. Asked about you a lot." Amanda reached under the coffee table and patted around until she landed on the Kleenex box. The spot had proven handy for tearjerkers on Netflix, sniffling schoolchildren, and the rare dog "nugget" that didn't get fully deposited outside during potty time. She handed the box over to Daphne without comment, where she would normally crack a joke about her friend's tissue fetish.

"Did she? I didn't know that. I thought . . . " Leaving the thought unfinished, Daphne took a deep, shuddering breath and wept it into a Kleenex. She wasn't a silent crier like Olivia, who only sobbed when the pain became greater than any one human could bear, but she didn't turn it into a production, either. It lasted no longer than ten seconds, and she resolved herself to sniffing and wiping away stray tears as they fell. She was careful not to drip on the baby. "I told her being a cop was too dangerous for me. That I couldn't be with someone I kept waiting to get that call about."

Which call required no further elaboration. It was the call feared by wives of law enforcement officers and mothers of soldiers alike, by the loved ones of any worker whose occupation put them at high risk for injury or death. The people who threw themselves into the fray for a living, for their country, for the very family they would devastate with their loss. Jesus, it was all so senseless.

"I think she understood," Amanda said, though she had no way of knowing if it were true. Kat had inquired about Daphne from time to time, but that was the extent of their discussions about the young officer's love life. Amanda didn't make a habit of nosing through her coworkers' personal lives, especially now that she had a family of her own. "We all do. The job, the risks that go along with it—it's a lot to ask another person to take on. That's why there's so many divorced and single cops out there."

"Yeah. Must be why you and Liv work so well together. You just . . . you get it, you know? I mean, how many people would have stayed together after Orion and the brothel thing and— " Daphne blanched, her face nearly as white as the Kleenex she clapped over her mouth. It was too late to take it all back, but that was the face of someone who desperately wished she could. "Shit. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that the way it sounded. You guys are amazing together, and I just meant—"

She just meant that it was a miracle Olivia had stayed with Amanda through all of the crazy shit life threw at them in the past few years, most of it Amanda's own doing; that they had beaten the odds time and again in the great cosmic gamble that was living and loving in a world where it could all be taken away in an instant, on a dirty New York sidewalk, the smell of warm bagels and scorched skin in your nostrils. And maybe, just maybe, she meant that their good luck had finally come to an end.

Always did, always would.

"Daphne. It's okay. You're right. She and I have overcome some huge obstacles together." Amanda gazed at her sleeping daughter, who looked so like Olivia, despite having none of her genetic makeup, and who bore the name Grace as a testament to what her mothers felt they had been granted the day of her birth. She didn't like to turn her children into symbols, nor did she expect them to magically fix what was broken—a lesson her parents had never learned—but Samantha Grace had to be proof. Proof they would endure and make something beautiful out of even the worst circumstances. Even this.

"What?"

Sucking in a deep breath, Amanda widened her eyes at Daphne as if she were just waking up but still riding the coattails of a dream. "Oh, um, I said we'll get through this one too. Somehow. You know, like we always do." Anxiously she gathered up the mail and started shuffling through it, separating it into piles of hers and Olivia's. Olivia usually had the larger, more official-looking stack, the majority of Amanda's correspondences limited to Amazon and whichever niche online boutique she'd purchased her wife's gift from this year. "What about you? You okay?"

Daphne started to nod, then caught her bottom lip between her teeth, worrying it back and forth. Her small shoulders twitched up and down, half shrug and half slump, and she shook her head no. Each movement was slightly robotic, as if she had a short circuit that was firing it out of sequence. "Not really. But I will be. Once I've had time to process. It's just so out of the blue. I was thinking of calling her the other day . . . "

Anger, unexpected and unwarranted, bubbled up inside Amanda, and it took her at least five times reading the name on the cupcake pink envelope to realize it was addressed to Matilda. Miss Matilda Rollins, to be exact. Grammy Beth Anne's birthday card had arrived early and minus the hyphenate of her granddaughter's last name. That was infuriating enough, but what really pissed her off was Daphne's acceptance of Kat's death. Didn't Daphne think she, Amanda, needed time to process too? Didn't she think Amanda had wanted to just call Olivia up the other day, and hear her say that this whole godforsaken mess was just a bad dream?

Why wasn't Daphne crying, screaming, losing her faith, losing her mind—all the things you were supposed to do when someone you loved was taken from you? Anything but just sit there.

To keep from lashing out at her friend, Amanda tore into the pink envelope sealed with a gold Hallmark sticker. Definitely Beth Anne. She disregarded the card, a who's who of Disney princesses on the front and a long handwritten note on the inside flap, no doubt a request for Tilly to tell her mama to call her mama, and pocketed the fifty that fluttered into her lap. One good thing about Beth Anne Rollins, she didn't skimp on birthdays. She had way overspent on Samantha's arrival despite not receiving an invite to the shower or to meet her new granddaughter. Kim was no doubt the one who spilled the beans that Amanda had delivered, and probably issued the reminder of Matilda's upcoming birthday too.

"Christ," Amanda uttered, remembering that she still had a four-year-old's birthday party to plan in a few weeks. She snatched up the card with the simpering princesses and ripped it in half at its width, cramming the pieces into the cubby where the Kleenexes had been, underneath the coffee table. If Beth Anne thought she could weasel her way back into their lives with cash and an apology she'd probably plagiarized from a Hallmark movie, she was sorely mistaken. Tilly would get her fifty dollars, but not with Grammy's signature attached.

Noting the silence that followed her tantrum, minor as it was—especially compared to what she actually wanted to do, which was smash everything in sight, like a coked up rock star demolishing a hotel room—Amanda sighed and said, "Sorry." Daphne's mouth was open in a small "o" of surprise and she stole a curious look at the envelope Amanda crumpled up, chasing the bisected Disney characters into their cubby. "My mother. I can't deal with her shit right now."

"Oh." Daphne's eyes lingered on the now conspicuous spot where the tissue box had been. Amanda was tempted to grab it and shove it back in the quickly filling space, so she busied her hands with the rest of her mail instead. "You're not going to, um . . . You're not going to tell her what happened? To Liv?"

The addendum was spoken too softly to hear without double-checking the expression behind it: faintly aghast, for Daphne never did quite fathom the level of dysfunction in the Rollins-Benson extended family, living or dead; and a bit timid, because she knew she was overstepping. She knew, and she said it anyway. "Don't you think maybe you should—"

"No." A slammed door of a word, Amanda threw it shut with all her might, barring her friend from going any further with the inquiry. The inquisition. She would have to face it with IAB, and more than likely be burned at the stake, but until then she didn't want her judgment questioned by anyone, even her best friend. "That woman ain't getting anywhere near my wife and kids right now. You remember what happened last time? She slapped Liv across the face and broke that expensive watch her mama gave . . . "

"Amanda? What's wrong?"

Amanda was holding a dead rat, that's what was wrong. Or at least that's what it felt like. Lumpy and knotted in places where bone and organ, once buzzing with life powered by simple, singular goals—eat, sleep, scurry, eat, defecate, scurry, sleep, eat, mate, scurry—jutted from its limp furry body. She couldn't tell which end was the head and which was the tail with her hand inside the manila envelope, but its flaccidness made her skin crawl, the beady eyes and worm-smooth tail alive in her imagination.

With no return address and Det. Amanda Rollins printed on the envelope front in a neat hand, Amanda had guessed that the package contents were something she'd ordered for work: a backup holster, a new badge clip, the business cards which she thought should read Rollins-Benson but Olivia argued that her last name wasn't necessary. We know we're married, love; everyone at the precinct knows we're married. Victims and perps don't need to be made aware.

It just seemed like paranoia after years of having her privacy violated by everyone from Serena to IAB to a pair of children she never could have been mother enough to save, because no one could. But had the captain known? Sensed, somehow, that flaunting their relationship would lead to this—a dead rat in the mail, sent as, what, a threat that Amanda better not rat anyone out? That she already had snitched and now must pay the price?

Only the rat wasn't a rat at all. Withdrawing her hand, Amanda stared, bug-eyed, at the frizzy plait she immediately recognized. In her palm, lifeless and strangely ashen compared to the color it had been while attached, was a braid of human hair, about seven inches long and crudely cut at one end. Her reaction was slow, like a bullet fired into ballistics gel, every part of her trajectory, every striation, exposed in what should have been a quiet, killing secret, death meant for no other eyes but hers.

There was no such thing as privacy anymore. No safety left anywhere in the world, not even in her own home. Wildly she wondered who had delivered the amputated braid, had they been in her building, did it arrive today, yesterday, when? She still couldn't get past the sensation that she was holding a rodent carcass, and the revulsion coupled with her fury at the men who sent it, her fear of what they had taken, culminated all at once. "Jesus fucking Christ!" she shrieked, blindly hurling the hair away from her. She didn't care where it went, as long as she didn't have to see or touch it.

The braid thumped against the wall and dropped to the floor like a slug about to expire. "Jesus," Amanda repeated, wiping her palms on the front of her sweatshirt, down the thighs of her sweatpants. She did it several more times, invoking the name under her breath after each stroke. "Hsst," she said to the dogs when they trotted over to sniff the mystery clump. Hamilton's obedience skills were on the lackadaisical side, but even he backed away from the hair as if he smelled the evil on it. Tail tucked in, he returned to the dog bed and whined for Frannie, who paced a wide perimeter around the braid and growled, ruffling her lips, to join him.

"What the hell is that?" Daphne asked, shrill and breathy, like a woman encountering a mouse. Indeed, she had drawn her feet up from the carpet, hand splayed against her small breasts, preparing for whatever might scamper past. Sammie's tranquil face, creaseless and the color of creamed honey, scrunched in on itself at the disturbance. Two tiny fists thrust forward, ready to fight their way back to peaceful slumber, but the inclination faded without reaching the baby's eyes. They remained closed to the drama unfolding around her, and it was just as well.

At least someone didn't have to see the ugliness and the deep dark shadows that had crept into their lives, like a cancer or black mold. Spreading out of the corners, slowly at first, then gaining speed as it consumed everything in its path. Soon there would be only darkness, the hand Amanda always grabbed onto, counting on it to lead her back to the light—Olivia's hand, so steady, so sure—nowhere to be found.

"Was that—"

"Olivia's hair," Amanda said grimly. She didn't want to hear her wife's name coming out of anyone else's mouth right then, even Daphne's. Too many people had passed Olivia around in the last few days—there were parts of her still arriving, as if she needed reassembly—and it had to stop. Amanda had to stop it. Trouble was, she didn't know how. At this point, she was fighting ghosts. "Fucking bastards cut off her hair and sent it to me."

And when the surreality began to fade, "Jesus Christ, Daphne. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?"

The question echoed on in Amanda's mind long after her friend had gone home, long after the kids were settled in front of the television, and long after the braid had been collected off the living room carpet. What was she going to do?

. . .