Opening
These chapters braid three timelines into one haunting momentum: James Carson relocates his family and hides behind a new name while suspicion blooms at home; two murdered women—Brecia Collier and Skye—find each other and form an unbreakable alliance; and Meghan, watching from the afterlife, helps spark the connection that finally links two cold cases. As evidence falters, willpower and sisterhood rise to fill the gap, forcing the story toward a collision of truth and reckoning with James’s carefully constructed lies—especially for his wife, April Carson.
What Happens
Chapter 26: A Sprawling 70s Rambler
Six months before the present, James has uprooted his family to Kuna, Idaho, under the alias “James Carlson.” April comes home from a “Mommy Meetup” in tears, exhausted by reinvention. Unable to stand James’s presence, Brecia follows April back inside and overhears James downstairs, raging into the phone. When Brecia trails him to the basement, she hears him spit defensive lines and sees the caller ID—Salt Lake City Police—confirming he’s a suspect in Meghan’s murder.
The basement is a museum of secrecy: a carefully curated “man-cave,” a coffee cup from the Daily Grind pitched in the trash, and James hastily hiding the cup when April appears. Later, Brecia watches April’s doubt take shape in the glow of a laptop. April finds a grainy photo of her husband in an article about a murder, then searches, “Can childhood trauma lead to violence,” trying to reconcile the man she married with the man in the news. A buried text from Nina—someone from their old Utah congregation—apologizes for telling police that the newspaper photo looked just like James. April erases her browsing history and deletes the message, sealing her denial even as terror creeps in at the edges.
Chapter 27: Skyebird
One month after her funeral, Skye hovers at the margins of the living world as James gets identified during a routine traffic stop. He immediately lawyers up and walks away with a $50 ticket; the district attorney declines charges, citing weak footage. Skye shadows her mother, noticing the small rhythms she missed in life—phone calls, quiet meals, the shape grief takes alone.
Detective Kittleson eventually secures a warrant for James’s blue Kia. Skye is there when police pull up to the Carson home. April corrals Emma and Kimmie Carson, trying to keep normalcy afloat. In the hallway stands another woman in a burgundy tracksuit with straight brown hair—Brecia—staring at Skye as if she’s seeing the impossible. Their eyes meet. Brecia breathes a single question that cracks open the novel’s core alliance: “Are you dead?”
Chapter 28: Hunch
In Salt Lake City, Detective Domanska works a stalled investigation into Meghan’s murder. A witness can’t firmly identify James, and his lawyer stops communication cold. Meghan keeps vigil anyway, following Domanska home, watching Parks and Recreation, winning over her dog Joey. Meghan’s “unfinished business” is the case, not her family—she believes she’ll see them in the afterlife.
As Domanska heads out for the night, her assistant flags her down with a call to the tip line. The voice on the other end, a man from Idaho with a 208 number—Ken—says the suspect in a news photo looks exactly like the man he believes murdered his friend Skye three months ago. In an instant, two cases across state lines align with Domanska’s gut: James isn’t a rumor—he’s a pattern.
Chapter 29: The Impound Lot
Right after their hallway encounter, Brecia reaches for Skye, who “scatters” at the touch, confirming they share the same ghostly condition. Together they trail James’s Kia to the impound lot and slip into the backseat, trading the stories James stole from them. Brecia confesses she watched James murder Meghan and, shattered, stopped following him afterward. Skye explains what he did to her. Within minutes, grief becomes kinship.
Brecia also explains April’s slow-blooming suspicion since Utah police first called. As the forensics team combs the Kia, they lift a single unidentified print from the passenger side. It could belong to anyone, but it’s something. The ghosts wait in the dark car, clinging to that slender thread of proof.
Chapter 30: A Small Chance
The print runs through AFIS without a hit. A comparison to Skye’s post-mortem prints proves it isn’t hers. Kittleson notifies Skye’s mother and prepares to release the car. The hope collapses, and with it, Skye’s last illusion that the system alone will save her.
Brecia asks if Skye will return to her mother’s house. Skye chooses not to haunt her family’s grief; she chooses Brecia. Their partnership hardens into purpose. To vent, Brecia flickers the detective’s computer off. As Kittleson storms out, his phone records a voicemail: Domanska is calling about James’s impounded Kia. The two investigations finally meet, and the ghosts get their opening.
Character Development
These chapters pivot characters from isolation to alliance, and from suspicion to complicity.
- Brecia Collier: Moves from solitary vengeance to protective mentorship. Confessing her limits and fear after witnessing Meghan’s murder, she reclaims purpose by teaming up with Skye.
- Skye: Transitions from raw grief to resolve. The failed evidence teaches her the limits of procedure and the necessity of a different kind of pursuit.
- April Carson: Teeters between dawning awareness and strategic denial. She researches in secret, recognizes the danger, then deletes the proof, choosing survival over confrontation.
- James Carson: Tightens his mask—aliases, legal threats, concealed trash—revealing a practiced deceiver who anticipates scrutiny and reroutes it.
- Detective Domanska: Doubles down on instinct and persistence. Her openness to a tip finally links distant victims and confirms her hunch’s scope.
Themes & Symbols
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Afterlife and Sisterhood: Brecia and Skye’s meeting transforms isolated hauntings into a collective mission. The question “Are you dead?” doesn’t mark an ending—it inaugurates a partnership, reframing ghosts not as lingering sorrows but as agents with shared purpose and power.
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Vengeance and Post-Mortem Justice: A traffic stop goes nowhere, the DA demurs, and the lone fingerprint fails. Each institutional shortfall strengthens the case for a parallel justice born from the victims themselves. The ghosts don’t reject the system; they supplement it, pushing from the margins where official channels stall.
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Deception and Duality: James plays devoted family man while burying evidence in plain sight; April presents dutiful normalcy while secretly researching her husband. Their household becomes a stage where performance and reality diverge, with denial functioning as both shield and trap.
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The Fingerprint: A symbol of tantalizing certainty and recurring disappointment. It offers a fleeting sense of concrete truth—then dissolves, forcing the narrative away from tidy forensic answers and toward unconventional, relational proof.
Key Quotes
“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer... I already told you everything I know, which is nothing.”
James rehearses legal intimidation as performance. The line reveals his reflexive defensiveness and comfort weaponizing procedure, a hint that he’s navigated suspicion before—and survived it.
“Can childhood trauma lead to violence”
April’s search query captures a mind reaching for an explanation that preserves her marriage and her safety. It’s a bridge between love and fear, and a strategy for delaying the moment her life must change.
“Are you dead?”
Brecia’s whisper breaks the isolation of the afterlife. It’s both recognition and invitation—naming the truth and immediately offering Skye belonging, the first step in their collective pursuit of justice.
“Unfinished business”
Meghan’s phrase reframes haunting as purpose rather than pain. By tethering herself to the investigation instead of her grieving family, she chooses to serve the living by advocating for the dead.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
This sequence functions as the novel’s hinge. It draws three strands—Brecia’s long haunting of James, Skye’s fresh grief, and Meghan’s stalled case—into a single pursuit. The impound-lot fingerprint dangles the promise of an easy solution, then vanishes, forcing the story into the hands of the ghosts and the women who believe them. With Domanska’s call, the investigations finally converge; with Brecia and Skye’s alliance, the victims stop being evidence and become actors. The result is a new engine for the novel: a unified, driven story of women—living and dead—closing ranks where systems fail.