Opening
In these chapters, Meghan learns how the afterlife works even as the world inches closer to finding her body. Brecia Collier shadows James Carson, documenting his double life and trying to derail his attacks, while police finally recognize the urgent danger around Skye’s disappearance. The timelines lock together as Meghan’s murder unfolds and investigators uncover what she left behind.
What Happens
Chapter 16: I Can Hear You, Bubbelah
Alone in the Oquirrh Mountains, Meghan’s spirit lingers near her coral shoe, waiting for the crying girl’s photos to lead someone back. Starved for company, she slips into a memory of making challah with her grandmother, Bubbie Rosie—and the memory shifts. Instead of watching her ten-year-old self, Meghan remains in the kitchen with Bubbie’s presence, who speaks to her directly, introducing the idea of Afterlife and Sisterhood.
Bubbie explains the afterlife as a “tapestry” woven from shared memories and “threads” connecting loved ones. Meghan can revisit her own memories and travel along Bubbie’s threads to meet relatives she never knew—her great-grandmother, her Uncle Ben—but if she follows those strands too far, she risks losing her tie to the place where her body lies. Longing for her family yet unwilling to abandon the hope of being found, Meghan chooses to hold on. She returns to the dirt road just as a Forest Service worker arrives and studies her shoe.
Chapter 17: Good Kitty
Brecia watches James’s online life wobble when his MatchStrike account is suspended after a complaint from a woman named Nicole. Fresh to Utah with his wife April Carson and daughters Emma and Kimmie Carson, he performs the perfect husband act, embodying Deception and Duality. Then he creates a new persona—“Jimmy Carlson,” a widower—and resumes hunting.
Committed to Vengeance and Post-Mortem Justice, Brecia tails every date, flickering lights and stirring dread to warn women off. Sometimes it works; often it doesn’t, laying bare the machinery of Predation and Violence Against Women. James drugs and assaults a woman named Elle, stopping only when April texts about their sick child. When Elle ghosts him, he stalks her, sees her with her dad, and slashes all four tires. Back home, he returns to MatchStrike and messages a new woman: Meghan with the light-brown hair and sarcastic grin.
Chapter 18: Possibly Endangered
Skye’s parents fight through a balky FroYo employee to get surveillance pulled before it’s wiped. With Officer Willis’s help, they secure the footage and watch their daughter climb into a dark Kia Sorento with an unidentified man. Skye’s mother argues that none of this fits her daughter’s patterns; the officer listens.
Willis checks the coffee shop next door. The same SUV loops the lot several times; a zoomed frame yields a partial plate: 2C 3405. The angle and resolution are bad, but the pattern is enough. He elevates the case to “missing person, possibly endangered,” moves to pull phone records, and runs the plate—the first official break in the search for Skye.
Chapter 19: Are You Here, Meghan?
A police cruiser finally reaches the mountains. Detective Domanska bags the coral shoe, reads a report from “Brenda Maxwell,” and starts methodically searching. Hope surges in Meghan—then collapses when the detective moves the wrong way. Meghan decides to say a last goodbye to her bones and then join Bubbie for good.
She drifts toward the hidden spot, only to sense Domanska following the nearly vanished path. Panic spikes. Pine needles and debris mask the remains. The detective stops, lowers her voice, and asks, “Are you here, Meghan?” The question cracks something open—police know her name. Meghan urges her on without words. Domanska slows, looks again, and walks straight to the partially visible skull and ribcage.
Chapter 20: I Couldn't Face Her
At a pub, Brecia watches James slide a drug into Meghan’s wine. Despite silent warnings, Meghan accepts a ride. Her phone slips from her purse onto the pavement, unseen. James claims he knows her address, then steers into the Oquirrh Mountains. Brecia kills a headlight, tries to stall the engine—nothing holds.
He parks on a remote trail, drags Meghan into the dark, and strangles her with her scarf. As her body stills, her spirit bolts toward the trees. Brecia calls; Meghan’s ghost turns, then vanishes into the woods. James walks back to his car. Faced with the choice to comfort Meghan or tail the killer, Brecia—wracked with guilt—chooses the hunt. She cannot face the woman she failed to save.
Character Development
These chapters crystallize the trio at the novel’s core: the murdered, the hunter, and the hunted. Each encounters a boundary and decides whether to cross it.
- Meghan: Learns the contours of the afterlife and refuses to sever her tie to the living, choosing discovery over escape. Her name on a detective’s lips affirms her identity and purpose.
- Brecia Collier: Confronts the limits of her power, her warnings often too thin to stop real violence. Her guilt hardens into focus; she prioritizes tracking the predator over tending to the newly dead.
- James Carson: Perfects his split self—devoted dad at home, practiced predator in secret—escalating from manipulation to assault to murder, and lashing out when control slips.
- Detective Domanska: Quietly methodical and empathetic, she listens for what others miss and turns a faint path into a recovery.
Themes & Symbols
Predation and Violence Against Women pulses through every timeline. Dating apps become hunting grounds; the rituals—drinks, a ride, a lie about an address—are tools in a repeatable system. Brecia’s interference exposes how fragile individual defenses are against practiced predators, while the procedural grind of the investigation shows what it takes to counter that system after the fact.
Afterlife and Sisterhood reframes death as connection rather than void. Bubbie’s “tapestry” gives Meghan both comfort and a warning: there is love across the veil, but choosing it too soon severs the living world’s chance to name and honor her. Brecia’s decision not to comfort Meghan underscores the cost of vengeance; sisterhood remains possible, but trauma makes reaching for it hard.
Deception and Duality shape James’s every move. “Jimmy Carlson” formalizes his compartmentalization, letting him compartmentalize empathy from action. The gap between the family table and the mountain trail isn’t accidental—it’s engineered.
Symbol: The coral shoe anchors Meghan to the living. It draws officials to the mountains, survives the weathering of time, and becomes the fragile thread that leads Domanska to the bones beneath the pines.
Key Quotes
“I can hear you, bubbelah.” Bubbie’s address collapses the boundary between memory and presence, launching Meghan’s education in the afterlife. The tenderness reframes death as conversation, not silence.
“The afterlife is a tapestry… threads that bind loved ones.” This metaphor defines the rules: memory as geography, connection as pathway, and choice as consequence. It gives Meghan power—and stakes if she wanders too far.
“Are you here, Meghan?” Domanska’s whisper names the victim and invites her into the investigation as a person, not a case file. It also catalyzes the discovery, turning intuition and persistence into proof.
“Missing person, possibly endangered.” The procedural phrase marks a threshold. Emotion becomes action; assumptions give way to urgency and resources.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters braid the novel’s timelines into a single rope: the murder itself, the haunting pursuit of a killer, and the institutional response that finally starts to work. We see how James operates, how Brecia fights him, how Meghan is killed, and how she is found. The supernatural “tapestry” sets the rules for what the dead can and cannot do, raising the stakes for Brecia’s mission and Meghan’s choice to remain connected. Together, the chapters pivot the story from dread to reckoning, ensuring the investigation into both Meghan and Skye advances with purpose.