“Richard,” I said, my hands up in front of me, my eyes on the body in the corner. “Calm down.”

Richard shook his head at me, a dry grin on his face.

“Oh, no,” he said. “No, I’ve tried everything else up to this point. This is the only other choice that I have.”

“What do you mean, you’ve tried everything?”

“I did the best I fucking could to get you out of this place,” he hissed. “I’ve been trying to get you to sell for weeks.”

“You set the fire,” I said. I wasn’t surprised. It was what I’d suspected, but I didn’t know how any other pieces fit in. I heard a sniffling noise then and turned my head to see a woman—Marilyn, huddled in the corner crying. She looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes.

“Help me,” she said in a soft cry, her eyes turning up to look at Richard.

“What else have you done, Richard?” I asked, looking over at Jerry’s body. “Why did you kill him?”

“Jerry was working for me. Working with me. He was a part of the plan all along,” Richard said. “See, I thought that if you thought you had a ghost problem—”

“The man downstairs,” Logan said. “The one that Lily saw—”

“Jerry has been staying down here at my behest,” Richard said. “Causing trouble at the worksite, doing what he can to scare you off. But nothing worked. Not even threatening your precious Lily.”

I swallowed hard. “What did you do to Lily?”

“I warned her to stay away from you. I did it more than once. But she just wouldn’t stop. That’s where Marilyn here came in.”

Marilyn started to cry harder.

“This isn’t what I wanted,” she said. “I didn’t want anybody to die.”

“You wanted Lilian to die,” Richard spat.

“No,” said Marilyn. “No, I just wanted—I just wanted to make her suffer.”

“Marilyn was the one who turned me on to Lilian in the first place,” Richard said. “I caught her one night following Lily, threatening her.”

“I wasn’t—” said Marilyn, but she cut herself off, crying again.

“What were you going to do to Lily?” I asked.

“Oh, I thought that sending her to jail might be enough,” Richard said, but then he glanced over my shoulder and my heart sank in my stomach. I turned to see Lily standing in the doorway, her eyes wide as she stared at the gun that Richard was holding. Her gaze turned to the body on the floor and she gasped, backing out of the room.

“Not so fast,” Richard said, gesturing for her to enter. “Come in, Lilian. Come on.”

“Don’t,” I said to Lily. “Go, Lily.”

She shook her head, stepping into the room.

“What do you want, Richard?” I asked him. “You want your money? You want me to sell this place?”

“It’s too late for that now,” said Richard. “No, all I want at this point is good old-fashioned revenge for ruining my life.”

“So kill me,” I said as he pointed the gun at Lily. I stepped close to him. “Just kill me. Let her go.”

Richard shook his head, pulling Lily against him quickly and holding the gun to her head. She stared at me with wide eyes, eyes that pierced my chest and ripped my heart from me.

“Let her go, Richard,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm as I stepped toward them. “Just let her go, you’ll get your money, we can move on. I won’t tell the cops about this, okay? We can say—we can say that all of this was Jerry.”

Richard laughed, opening his mouth to speak, but was cut off by a loud shriek as Marilyn threw herself against him, knocking both him and Lilian over. They all tumbled to the ground in a pile of limbs. Marilyn thrashed against Richard. Lilian tried to wrestle herself free from his grip. I ran over to them and grabbed hold of Lilian, pulling her away and free. She scrambled backward and away from where the two were grappling on the floor. I watched as Richard climbed on top of Marilyn, wrapping his hands around her throat. He started to choke her and I rushed over, yanking him off, throwing him hard against the wall. He hit it but didn’t fall, managing to stumble back onto his feet. I saw him glance at the floor and my eyes followed, seeing that he’d dropped the gun in the fight with Marilyn. I didn’t hesitate to dive for it, grabbing it in my hand, rolling away from him as he tried to fight me.

“Give it up,” I said, getting to my feet and pointing the gun at his head. He smiled at me, lunging forward, and I didn’t know what I was doing before I pulled the trigger.

The room went silent and still, the only noise was the sound of Richard’s body hitting the ground. The blood began to pool around him and I stared, gaping at him, watching as the puddle grew. The door flew open and the cops appeared there, both pointing their guns, holding them outright as they looked at the bodies on the ground.

“There’s your killer,” I said to them, pointing down at Richard’s body.

“He’s the one who pushed Michael Banks?” the cop asked.

“Yes,” said Marilyn from the corner. “Yes, he—he did it. I saw him.”

“Why did you tell people that it was Lilian Jackson?” the cop asked.

“Because—he threatened me. He told me that he would kill me if I told.”

The cop stared at her, then turned his eyes to Lily.

“Is this true? Richard killed Michael Banks?”

“Yes,” she said. “He told me not to tell, too. I thought—we thought he was going to kill us.”

“Who is that?” asked the cop, pointing to Jerry’s body.

“That’s the kid,” I said. “The one who went missing.”

“The one who doesn’t exist?” the cop asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yep,” I told him, giving him a cold look. I looked over at Lily, who was shivering in the doorway, her eyes fixed on the body on the ground.

“Can she go warm up and go to bed?” I asked them.

They both looked at her, then nodded. “We can question her tomorrow,” they said.

I went to Lily then and wrapped my arm around her waist.

“Come upstairs, angel,” I said to her softly. “Come wait for me in my room.”

She didn’t say anything as we got on the elevator, only took my hand and held it, squeezing it tight. I brought her up to my room and undressed her, then laid her down othe bed under the covers.

“I’ll be back soon,” I said to her softly, kissing her lips, her cheek, her neck. She looked up at my face, stroking my lips with her fingers.

“Is the curse broken?” she asked. I smiled at her, nodding.

“Yes, angel,” I said to her, leaning down to kiss her eyelids, which had already fluttered shut. “It’s done.”