Chapter 7: The Lantern

"I picked up the lantern instead."

Erin said it again before Hart could stop her.

"I thought if the room disappeared, then it would be before. Before the hammer. Before he looked at me like that." Tears ran down her face, but her voice was steady now. "I put the bag in the hall. I used the lantern. I thought he was gone. I wanted everything to be gone."

Mara felt the old instinct to ask the next question, to build the cleanest possible record. She looked at Hart.

"Counsel?"

Hart swallowed. "Erin, you need to stop talking."

Erin nodded. "I want a lawyer."

"Interview ends now," Mara said, and switched off the recorder.

The confession did not solve every legal question. It did not need to. The knife carried Arthur's blood and Erin's fingerprints. The hammer had traces of both their DNA. The nail from the doorframe bore a partial print matching Erin's right thumb. The camera footage and fire analysis completed the timeline she had described.

Mara did not release the voicemail to the press. She did not give them Erin's notebook. She gave them a statement with Arthur's name, the charges, and the fact that the investigation remained active.

"People are going to make a monster out of her," Daniel Bell said when he came to collect Arthur's personal property.

"Some will," Mara said.

"And you?"

Mara sealed a box of old tools. "I think she made choices that killed your uncle. I also think he spent months trying to keep her from falling apart. Both things can be true."

Daniel sat on the edge of a chair. "He told me she was trouble."

"Did he say he was afraid?"

"He said she needed more help than he could give."

The parish prosecutor offered Erin a plea on charges that reflected the evidence without pretending the case had been simple. Her evaluation would determine where she received treatment, but it would not erase responsibility. Hart explained each condition slowly, pausing whenever Erin's attention drifted.

On the day Erin agreed to the plea, Mara asked permission to play one final voicemail.

Hart watched her carefully, then nodded after speaking with Erin.

Arthur's voice came through the small speaker, softer than it had sounded in the interview room.

"Erin, it's Art. I know you're mad. Lena found a place for tomorrow. It's got a little courtyard, and they said you can keep your drawings. I know you think I'm sending you away. I'm not. I'm trying to get you somewhere I can still visit. Call me when you're ready."

Erin made it to the word tomorrow.

Then she covered her ears.

"Stop it," she said. "Please stop it."

Mara stopped the recording.

No one spoke for a long time.

Outside the courthouse, reporters waited behind a metal barrier. Their cameras rose when the transport van pulled away. Mara stood in the shade of the courthouse steps and watched it disappear into traffic.

The fire had given the city an easy story: a dead old man, a dangerous woman, a house in ashes.

Easy stories were often the ones that left the most important things burning underneath.