“We wake him up, and then we hang him outside,” Hans says, and he takes the tape off Eric’s eyes, but leaves the one over his mouth. “We let him get a good look around, and then we drag him back in. I’ll slap him around a little, and we don’t ask questions, what we do is we give him statements. We don’t say Did you kill those girls? What we say is We know you killed those girls. Got it?”

“I got it,” Jerry says, his stomach turning at the thought, but not turning as much as Eric’s will be.

“Don’t drop him,” Hans says.

“I won’t.”

“And I want you to keep thinking about where you hid your journal, okay?”

“I’m trying.”

“Then try harder.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Jerry says.

“You ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Hans wraps duct tape around Eric’s ankles, pinning his feet together. Then from his pocket he pulls out a small vial. “Smelling salts,” he says. “Trust me, Jerry, everything is going to be okay,” he says, and he opens the top and waves the vial under Eric’s nose.

DAY SOMETHING

You need to start trusting yourself. You are Jerry Grey, you are not a killer. Unless you killed your wife. And the florist. And, now that you think about it, just how did your cat die six years ago?

Today is the WMD plus something, and the day of Sandra’s death plus one. You spent last night not phoning the police. You spent last night sitting on the floor in Sandra’s blood, holding her hand as she got colder and colder. Your clothes soaked up her blood, and you had to shower and change earlier because you couldn’t stand it any longer, and when you came back she was exactly where you had left her. You were hoping—well, it’s obvious what you were hoping for.

Spending all night watching over Sandra, you thought mostly of how your actions had tainted all the good times you’d had. Your amazing life together, the passion with which you loved her. You poisoned all of that by taking away her future. You wondered what the future without her would be. The answer was simple—it would be empty. And Eva? The news will destroy her. Days after tying the knot, she has to go to her own mother’s funeral. She will never talk to you again. You hope her anger towards you doesn’t cloud the way she sees the world, that it doesn’t darken her music.

And of course you wondered about Hans. About Nurse Mae. The discrepancy between what they told Sandra. There are answers you need, but how can you look for them when you don’t even know the right questions?

You need to call the police but not yet. Aside from holding Sandra’s hand, you’ve also been reading the journal. There are things in here you simply can’t remember. Not just things when you were in the off position, like showing up at the old house or at the florist’s, but other things too—like forgetting you had lost the gun, forgetting about asking Doctor Goodstory what else we could do.

Before Sandra died, she asked if you had spoken to Hans, and you said no, but you had spoken to him. You’d called him the day after the wedding. He’d said There’s no point in worrying about something you can’t know about.

Worry if you learn more, but until then, just try to act normal.

You had even forgotten about Counselor Beverly, who spoke to you about the stages of grief.

You haven’t forgotten the wedding speech.

You still have no memory of the night after you snuck out your window, but the things that didn’t make sense a few entries ago still don’t make any sense now.

Where did the knife come from?

Did you have blood on your shirt and Nurse Mae missed it, or was Hans mistaken about that? It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing anybody, let alone Hans, would overlook. Either something happened between you walking out the door of Nurse Mae’s house and climbing into Hans’s car, or . . .

Now there are more questions. Why shoot Sandra? You don’t remember shooting her, is it possible you didn’t? But you don’t remember spray-painting the bad word across Mrs. Smith’s house, and you obviously did that, so there’s no denying the fact you do things and then forget. It’s all part of the Alzheimer’s package.

The phone rang before and you let the machine get it. It was Eva. Hi Mom, hope you’re doing okay, just checking in before we leave for Tahiti tomorrow. We’ll try and head over in the morning to say bye.

She sounded so happy, like her life was just beginning. She and Rick are going away on their honeymoon tomorrow and you can’t let them know what’s happened. Not yet. Let them enjoy their week.

It means not calling the police.

You can do that. For Eva.

You’ll call her back tonight and say you’re busy tomorrow, that Sandra is taking you to check out a couple of nursing homes, and to make sure they call when they get to where they’re going.

Good news—it’s doubtful there will ever be good news again.

Bad news—Sandra is dead. You can’t fix that in the rewrite.

The smelling salts work. Eric opens his eyes and there’s a muted sound of coughing that can’t quite make it past the duct tape. He looks confused. He squints against the light and twists his head away from the light of the cell phone. He starts to fight the duct tape holding his hands behind his body. He starts squirming on the ground.

Hans punches him in the stomach. Hard. There’s a sharp intake of air through Eric’s nose. Jerry always thought his friend would be capable of something like this, but seeing it happen makes his own stomach clench.

“Calm down,” Hans says, then gives Eric a small slap. “Calm down.”

Eric can’t calm down, but he manages to stop coughing and he manages to stare at his two captors without struggling. He doesn’t manage to hide the fear in his face.

“You know what we want,” Hans says. “First there’s something we ought to show you.”

They get Eric to his feet. The orderly tries to struggle, but the duct tape is keeping the fight to a minimum. They stand him against the window so he can face out, then Jerry realizes Eric probably can’t see much at all. He takes the orderly’s glasses out of his pocket and puts them on Eric’s face.

“You’re obviously a bright guy,” Hans says. “You’ve proven that by getting away with murder. Since you’re bright, you must be able to figure out what’s going to happen if we throw you out the window, which we’re willing to do, unless you tell us about the women. First some facts. We’re two stories high, and if you survive landing on your head from that height you’re going to wish you hadn’t. Second, when we take the tape off your mouth, you’re going to have the urge to scream. I would advise against that. We’re in the kind of neighborhood where people are used to hearing screams. Maybe one of them will call the cops, maybe not. What’s doubtful is somebody rushing over to help you. What’s doubtful are the cops getting here in the time it takes for you to travel from the window to the patio. Do you understand what you’re being told?”

Eric nods. They turn him so his back is to the window. The whole time his eyes are wide, bugging out of his head is perhaps how Henry would describe it if Henry was in one of his less original moods, Jerry thinks. Or as big as saucers if Henry was being a lazy prick.

“We know you killed the girls,” Hans says, and Eric looks confused, or at least is trying to look confused. Jerry studies his face, his features, looking for recognition and understanding, but all he sees is fear and uncertainty.