Page 110 of Don't Cross Mo Ellery

Read the room, Sheila.

Though to be fair, this does officially strike her from the suspect list. She wouldn’t ask for my Venmo if she had Tond’s money. Once we’re inside my apartment, I turn the dogs loose, remembering how it felt to have all those hundred-dollar bills spread out across the floor. I miss them so much.

Seriously, what is with this neighborhood and its high-profile criming??

I should have moved to the neighborhood that smells like chocolate.

Thatthought sends me into the kitchen where I help myself to a spoonful of peanut butter and chocolate chips. It helps a little.

Because no matter what, this is not an imaginary world populated by chaos and monsters. Underneath it all, flawed humans are involved, and there’s alogic, and I’m going to figure out what it is.

Chocolate peanut butter spoon still in my mouth, I crack open the package from my parents, hoping it’s more chocolate.

It is not. It is a tiny canister of pepper spray and a whistle, both of them SpongeBob SquarePants themed. Plus a note:

Stay safe out there!!!!!! Xoxo Mom

Hey kiddo. Just got these from a warehouse liquidation sale. Hoping you’ll be my first product tester. Your corner is perfect for a test run. Dad

I refuse to puzzle over whether he’s expecting me to pepper spray children.

I push the “gift” aside, and that’s when I take a closer look at the other piece of mail. Maybe it’s not a bill after all? There’s no return address. My name and address are typed on a sticker. I open it.

Inside is a single folded piece of paper with four typed words:

Stop or you’re next

Chapter 34

The murderer did not send a crumpled note. They sent a very nicely folded letter in an envelope. I think that freaks me out more.

I go sit in the tub with the pepper spray and the whistle.

I don’t turn the faucet on, I just sit there and take slow breaths to calm my heart rate down.

After about five minutes, Louis comes in to check on me, and within a few seconds all three dogs are sitting in the tub with me. It’s not a very big tub, but I’ll admit there’s something comforting about the three of them being crammed in with me, like I have a weighted blanket of punk rock dogs.

I lean my head back against the cool tile wall.

The murderer can’t want to kill me, or I’d be dead already.

Right?

I’m just gonna go with that.

So if they don’t want to kill me, and I just do what the note says—if I juststop—I’ll be okay?

I can just be a regular crossing guard or even get anewjob. I don’thave to avenge anyone’s death or find missing bribe money. I don’t have to doanything. I can go back to having a normal life.

But what does normal even mean? There’s no Chris. No Hannah. Not even Tasha.

Does it just mean a life without murder? Because that is a low-ass bar.

As I contemplate how incredibly low the bar is, Jean drives it home, ripping the worst fartI have ever experienced. It takes me so long to escape from underneath the three dogs that it’s verging on violating the Geneva Conventions, and the moment I’m out of the tub, I don’t even pause to think about it.

I reach for the green screen.

My first step to normalcy, whatever that looks like, is getting Sheila off my back and giving these adorable fart bags to someone who can appreciate them.