When a police detective removed her parents from the hospital room, a secret logbook revealed thirty-six years of "accidents" were actually deliberate sabotage.

Two years after the trial.

It was a quiet Saturday morning in October. The autumn leaves were floating gently down over the streets of Seattle, crisp and cool.

I sat at Grandma Eleanor’s cherrywood vanity in my bedroom, brushing my hair in the morning light. The scar on the back of my head was completely covered by my thick dark hair, and the faint mark near my temple had faded into an almost invisible silver line.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand.

It was an official email notification from the Washington Department of Corrections:

Notification of Offender Status Change: Inmate: Hughes, Lindsay M. Status: Petition for Early Parole Review — DENIED. Next Review Date: October 2038.

I read the notification once, closed the tab, and set my phone down.

No panic spiked in my chest. My heart rate didn't elevate.

Lindsay was where she belonged, locked away from the world she had spent decades trying to destroy. Mom and Dan were living quietly in their small apartment, completely isolated from the social circles they had sacrificed their souls to maintain.

And I was here.

I opened the bottom drawer of the vanity and pulled out a small, framed photograph.

It was a picture taken when I was eight years old, sitting on Grandma Eleanor’s porch in the mountains. I was wearing a yellow sundress, laughing hysterically as Grandma held a freshly picked sunflower up to my face.