Opening
In these chapters, the dead refuse to stay silent. Skye learns she can nudge the living and guides police to her body, while Meghan shadows Detective Domanska straight to their killer, James Carson. A year earlier, Brecia Collier watches James uproot his family and polish his mask, even as the ghosts gather resolve.
What Happens
Chapter 21: Abide with Me
From her ghostly vantage, Skye watches the investigation crawl forward. Cell pings point officers toward Blacks Creek Road, and Officer Willis pulls the registration on the Kia Sorento: it belongs to James Carson and his wife, April Carson, in Utah. The fact that her killer has a family—a “living, breathing wife”—startles Skye, who wonders whether April is trapped or complicit. Skye rides along in Willis’s patrol car as he combs the canyon, frustration mounting with every wrong turnoff.
At dusk, she recognizes the exact pullout where James left her. Panic spikes as Willis approaches and seems poised to drive past. Remembering a moment she once influenced the world of the living, Skye concentrates—leaning into his ear, flooding her focus with the need to stop. Willis abruptly eases off the gas and pulls over on a hunch that isn’t entirely his. He finds her in a dry creek bed, notes three days of animal damage, radios for backup, and methodically secures the scene.
The investigation feels cold and clinical; Skye looks away when a technician swabs for a rape kit, then feels a flicker of gratitude when they button her jeans. While Willis waits in his cruiser, he softly sings “Abide with Me.” Skye slips away and travels home, finding her divorced parents asleep together on the couch, grief drawing them close. In her sleep, her mother cries, “I can find her.” Skye whispers an apology into the quiet.
Chapter 22: A Needle in a Haystack
Six months earlier, Meghan leaves her mountain grave and returns to the station with Detective Domanska. She reviews her missing-person file—now a murder case—and absorbs the timeline: her friend Sharesa sounded the alarm, her parents were unreachable on a rafting trip, and a waitress from Gracie’s Spot remembers her “off-my-face drunk” with a handsome man calling himself “Jimmy Carlson.”
“Jimmy Carlson” turns out to be a ghost of a different kind: a fabricated identity built with a fake email, VPN, and a quickly deleted MatchStrike profile. The only artifact is a low-res profile photo useless for facial recognition. Domanska releases the image anyway. Over 500 tips pour in, many from women describing eerie, dangerous dates—testimony that points beyond one killer to a wider pattern of Predation and Violence Against Women. Meghan trails Domanska from lead to lead, feeling her murderer dissolve into the crowd: a needle in a haystack.
Chapter 23: The Fox and the Hound
One year before the “now,” Brecia Collier watches James scrub his “Jimmy Carlson” footprint clean after murdering Meghan. Weeks later, he announces he’s quitting and moving, blaming coworkers who “undervalue” him. At home, he flattens April—belittling her work, dismissing her fears, and dictating what happens to their daughters, Emma and Kimmie Carson. Brecia’s rage rattles the lights, but power doesn’t follow anger.
She numbs herself and keeps vigil over April and the girls. Three months later, James claims a job in Idaho. That night, April reads The Fox and the Hound to Emma and Kimmie. Emma notices the hound “meant” to hurt the fox, while the fox only wants to escape. April calls it the hound’s “nature,” but Brecia sees the truth: James isn’t following nature—he is choosing cruelty. The moment distills the novel’s Deception and Duality: the polished family man masking a calculated predator.
Chapter 24: The Sleep of All Rest
Back in the present, Skye’s autopsy confirms strangulation, and her parents receive her remains. They hold a funeral at Hulls Gulch Park, a place braided with childhood memories. Her parents’ eulogy breaks open the crowd; friends and her former boss Ken share stories and scatter wildflower seeds. Ken tells Skye’s mother he’s still looking for “hot chocolate guy,” not knowing police have already named James Carson.
Skye watches her story slide from headlines to back pages as a new tragedy takes center stage. She wonders whether being a brown girl from a poor neighborhood helps explain the speed of that forgetting—and whether other ghosts keep their own mute vigils. The service closes with her father reading a Celtic blessing about returning home to “the rest of all rest,” a benediction for her body even as her spirit refuses to be done.
Chapter 25: Speak of the Devil
Six months earlier, Meghan skips her own funeral to keep hunting. An anonymous caller finally cracks the case open, giving a first name—James—and an office address. Domanska walks into the workspace, and Meghan meets her killer face-to-face. Lights stutter as James greets the detective with polished ease.
James lies fluently—denying the photo, pleading poor memory, dropping his wife into conversation, and noting he’ll be moving out of state in two weeks. Meghan whispers in Domanska’s ear—push him, he’s the one—and Domanska turns the screws with talk of a lineup. He bristles. She lets him go, but in the car immediately calls a colleague: he’s guilty, he expected us, move fast. She orders aggressive follow-up to secure a warrant before he flees. For the first time since death, Meghan feels real momentum, believing Vengeance and Post-Mortem Justice is finally within reach.
Character Development
Grief hardens into resolve. Across timelines, the ghosts stop merely watching and start shaping outcomes, while James perfects the mask that lets him hunt in plain sight.
- Skye: Moves from powerless observer to active presence, discovering she can influence the living and reclaiming agency in her own case.
- Meghan: Refocuses entirely on justice, becoming Domanska’s relentless shadow partner as hope returns.
- James Carson: Emerges as a precise, charismatic predator—adept at deceit with police and cruelly controlling at home.
- Detective Domanska: Displays keen instinct and tenacity, trusting her gut and escalating the case despite scant evidence.
- Brecia Collier: Withdraws into protective vigilance over April and the girls, her fury impotent against James’s control.
- April Carson: Lives under coercive control—financially and emotionally minimized, uprooted whenever James needs to disappear.
Themes & Symbols
Predation and systemic danger surface in the flood of tips after the photo release, revealing a pattern bigger than one man. James thrives because his performance of normalcy is convincing, and because the world often treats women’s accounts as noise until it’s too late.
Deception and duality define James’s life—competent professional, devoted husband, doting father on the surface; calculating killer underneath. The ghosts’ subtle power—flickering lights, nudged decisions—creates a counterforce, knitting an informal Afterlife and Sisterhood that refuses to let his crimes vanish into silence. The Fox and the Hound becomes a symbol that clarifies intent: predators like James choose harm; it is not inevitable nature.
Key Quotes
“Abide with me.”
- Officer Willis’s hymn turns a desolate discovery into a vigil. The song frames the scene with quiet reverence, honoring Skye while underscoring the loneliness of police work done right.
“I can find her.”
- Skye’s mother speaks grief’s instinct in her sleep. The line captures the ache of maternal certainty colliding with helplessness, and it deepens the tragedy of arriving just days too late.
“Needle in a haystack.”
- Meghan names the investigation’s problem as Domanska gets swamped by tips. The metaphor emphasizes both the killer’s camouflage and the scale of everyday risk women navigate.
The hound “meant” to hurt the fox.
- Emma’s insight reframes the children’s tale as moral diagnosis. Intent, not nature, separates accident from evil—and James’s choices place him squarely in the latter category.
“The rest of all rest.”
- The Celtic blessing at Skye’s funeral offers peace the living can’t yet grant in court. It closes her earthly story with grace while setting the stage for spiritual pursuit of justice.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
This sequence ties the timelines into a single hunt. Chapter 23 plants the move to Idaho after Meghan’s murder, bridging Utah to Skye’s case and loading the “now” with dramatic irony: we know the killer before the Idaho police do. Skye’s new ability and Domanska’s accelerated pursuit raise the stakes as James prepares to uproot again, turning grief into coordinated resistance. The ghosts’ agency shifts the narrative from a story of loss to a campaign for accountability—and a reckoning James no longer controls.