Page 82 of Rich Little Liars

I try to move and immediately regret it. Pain flares through my shoulder, and something pulls at my arm. An IV line, I realise, taped to my hand. There are wires attached to my chest, presumably connected to the beeping machines. A pulse oximeter clips my finger like a tiny plastic claw.

How long have I been here?

The room offers no answers. It’s a standard hospital room – single bed, blue curtains, a window showing grey sky that could be morning or afternoon or any time at all. There’s a plastic chair in the corner, empty, and a small table with a jug of water I desperately want but can’t reach.

I’m trying to work out how to summon a nurse when the door opens.

Two police officers enter. Not Harvey – the thought arrives with a jolt that makes my heart monitor spike – but strangers. A woman in her forties with close-cropped grey hair and a younger man who looks barely old enough to shave. Both wear the neutral expressions of people about to deliver news they’ve rehearsed.

‘Ms Reynolds.’ The woman speaks first, her voice professional and gentle. ‘I’m Detective Kirsch. This is Officer Slovis. How are you feeling?’

‘Like a house fell on me.’ My voice is hoarse, and I can barely recognise it as my own. ‘What happened? How did I⁠—’

‘You were pulled from the wreckage early this morning. A neighbour about half a mile away reported hearing what sounded like an explosion. Turned out to be the structure finally giving way.’ Detective Kirsch moves closer, positioning herself where I can see her without straining my neck. ‘We sent a unit to investigate the noise complaint and found the collapse. Search and rescue located you under a section of wall.’

‘You’ve been unconscious for about fourteen hours,’ Officer Slovis adds. ‘The doctors say you have a dislocated shoulder, a concussion, and more bruises than they could count. But nothing life-threatening. You were lucky.’

Lucky. The word feels absurd given the context. But I suppose he’s right. I should be dead. By all rights, I should be buried in that rubble alongside⁠—

‘Harvey,’ I blurt. ‘What about Harvey? Is he…?’

The officers exchange a look. That brief, loaded glance that tells me everything before either of them speaks.

‘I’m sorry,’ Detective Kirsch says. ‘Officer Harvey didn’t survive the collapse. His body was recovered about an hour after you were found.’

I hear the words – understand them – but they don’t seem to connect to anything real. Harvey is dead. The man who terrorised me, who broke into my home and put Richard in hospital, then dragged me back to the ruins of my old life and held a gun at me.

That man is dead.

I should feel something. Relief, maybe. Or satisfaction. Or at least the grim acknowledgement that justice has been served in its own brutal way. But all I can summon is a hollow kind of numbness, like pressing on a bruise that’s gone past pain.

‘Ms Reynolds?’ Officer Slovis has stepped forward, his young face creased with concern. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I don’t know,’ I hear myself say. ‘I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel.’

Detective Kirsch nods like this is a reasonable response. Maybe it is. Maybe there’s no right way to react when your would-be murderer dies in the same collapse that almost killed you.

‘We’ll need to take a statement from you,’ she says. ‘About what happened at the property. How you came to be there with Officer Harvey, what occurred before the collapse.’ She pauses. ‘But that can wait until you’re stronger. The doctors want you to rest for now.’

‘A statement.’ I try to process what that means. What I’ll have to tell them. The truth – some version of it, at least – about the notes and the stalking and Harvey’s obsession with his brother’s death. About how he lured me to that house.

But not all of it.

Never all of it.

‘There’s something else you should know,’ Detective Kirsch continues. ‘We found evidence at Officer Harvey’s apartment. Notes. Photographs. What appears to be months of surveillance on you and your movements.’ She shakes her head slowly. ‘It seems he developed a fixation after his brother’s death. Blamed you for what happened, despite the official investigation finding no wrongdoing on your part.’

‘His brother.’ I let that fact sit there. Let them think I’m only just learning this information. ‘Daniel was his brother?’

‘Half-brother, technically. Different mothers. They’d been estranged for years, but apparently the death affected him more than anyone realised.’ Detective Kirsch’s tone drops into something more sympathetic. ‘He was a good officer, by all accounts. Respected. No one suspected he was capable of something like this.’

No one ever does, I think. No one suspects until the mask slips and the monster underneath shows its face.

‘The important thing,’ Officer Slovis adds, ‘is that you’re safe now. Whatever he was planning, it’s over.’

Over. Such a simple word for something so complicated.

‘We’ll let you rest,’ Detective Kirsch says, moving towards the door. ‘A family liaison officer will be in touch to arrange your statement. And if you need anything – support services, therapy referrals – we can help facilitate that.’