One I decided to keep.
Well, except from you.
That piece of newspaper is still there in the painting, wrapped gently in all of Ruby’s letters, and I think about it every time I look into the eyes Andrew Miller so lovingly painted all those years ago.
The love of his life.
And his doom.
Here’s one final secret for you.
Sometimes, when I look up at Ruby’s portrait, I think about how happy she was when it was painted. She thought she’d beaten it then, the dark thing that was lurking inside her.
She thought it could be that easy.
And I think about me and Cam, how happy we are.
How easy it is to think the darkness has been exorcised from us both.
Even though Cam pressed a pillow down on his mother’s face until she stopped moving.
Even though I swung that poker at Ben without one second of hesitation.
Were we forced into the role of murderer? Did we have any other choice?
I think I know the answers, but sometimes …
Sometimes I lie awake at night, our child kicking inside me, half him, half me, and remember that Cam and I are both Ruby’s heirs.
Me by blood, him by a different, but no less powerful bond.
And I wonder.
* * *
I WONDER.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Camden McTavish might bristle at being called “The Luckiest Boy in North Carolina,” but thanks to the amazing team I get to work with on these books, I wear the title “The Luckiest Girl in Alabama” very proudly!
Ruby really put me through the wringer, and I would not have made it through without the guidance of my brilliant editor, Sarah Cantin. Thank you as always for your instinctive understanding of these absolutely wild plots I come up with, and thank you for always pushing me and the book to be as good as we can be.
Thank you also to Drue VanDuker for your sharp eye, smart notes, and truly excellent author care!
I am beyond lucky to have found a publishing home at St. Martin’s Press, and I am so grateful to everyone there. Jennifer Enderlin, Kejana Ayala, Marissa Sangiacomo, Jessica Zimmerman, thank you so much for all you do for me and these books.
I also owe a special thanks to the team over at Macmillan Audio. Mary Beth, Robert, Drew, and Emily, it was so lovely to get to spend time in the booth and to see all the work that goes into making these stories as fun to listen to as they are to read!
How delighted it makes me to thank Holly Root for the seventeenth time! As I’ve said before, and will no doubt say again, landing you as an agent was the luckiest break I ever got in this biz. Thank you also to Alyssa Maltese, for all that you do for so many authors. You’re the best!
Thanks to Heather Baror-Shapiro and her team, for helping these unhinged stories find homes all over the world, and thank you as well to Jon Cassir and Berni Barta over at CAA, who work to get these unhinged stories on your TVs/movie screens!
To my family, friends, and cats, thank you for literally everything. All of it.
And to my readers: This year was the first time I really got to get back out on the road and meet so many of you, and I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed that—missed y’all. Thank you, thank you, thank you. When you buy one of my books, you aren’t just spending your money. You’re also giving me your time, and that’s the most precious commodity we have. It’s an honor to get to entertain you for a few hours, and I hope I’ve made time in waiting rooms, during hours on flights, or a just a simple boring afternoon go by a little faster and a little more enjoyably.