Jasper's house wasn't at all what she'd imagined. It wasn't a McMansion, or any other kind of mansion, for starters. A two-story craftsman, the hundred-year-old home with inlaid wooden cabinets in the dining room and a brick fireplace in the living room was a spacious dwelling for one person. It wasn't extravagant, though. Or pretentious. Jasper kept it clean, but it felt homey. It seemed more like the Jasper she was getting to know than like the Jasper she'd made assumptions about since they'd met.

"How long have you lived here?" she asked.

"Going on four years now. You seem surprised."

"It's not at all like Goldie's place."

"Why would it be? We have different tastes. When I bought this place, it needed major TLC. I spent three years renovating it. I still need to rip up the carpet in the spare bedroom. And the powder room needs new tiling. I wanted to keep the original, but the previous owners trashed it and it's not worth salvaging. My goal is to find antique tiles to replace them, but that's easier said than done. Why are you staring at me like that?"

"You are a man of many surprises, Jasper DeAngelis."

He grabbed her hand and led her up a staircase. "You're not going to like the surprise I'm about to show you. It's a risk, us being here, so let's make it quick."

He'd fought against them coming here, an obvious risk that she wasn't oblivious to. Even though they'd parked around the block and cut through the neighbor's yard directly behind Jasper's so that no one observing the house from the street would see they were there, what they were doing was still dangerous. The thrill of that danger coursed through her, tingling her skin in a not unpleasant way. She'd had more of her fair share of risk. Tam had tried so hard to adhere to a life where danger was something that happened far away and to other people, but it kept coming for her as though it was a paparazzi hoping to get close enough to take a photo.

"I have to see for myself," she insisted.

"I could have told you."

"You said you didn't even look through all of the box's contents."

He led her into a room that she took to be the spare bedroom he'd referred to earlier. Its worn beige carpet had been torn up in one corner. "All I had to see were the first couple of photos and printouts and the purpose of that Goldie Girl's care package was pretty evident."

He pulled out the bottom drawer of a wooden dresser and took out what appeared to be a shoebox that a crafter had gotten a hold of.

"Damn glitter gets everywhere." He placed the box on the bed and wiped his hands on his jeans. "Go ahead, open it."

She was here because she'd insisted on coming, but now, faced with whatever was in that box, she hesitated, finally throwing off the lid like she expected a snake to be coiled inside. The snake in this case was only paper, pictures and text printed out on card stock.

She picked up the first image. In it, the back of a building lit up against a dark sky. Goldie's building. That's all it was unless you examined the upper floors. There, a figure stood peering over a balcony. She squinted at it, her body tingling with the certainty that she herself was that figure. She placed that picture to the side and moved on to the next. There she was, again the focus of the photographer, only now, she was down at ground level hovering over the crumpled body of Goldie Finch. Her face, captured in profile, appeared unmoving, expressionless.

Her hand trembled as she placed that image side by side with the first on top of the bed. "What does she imagine she's trying to prove?"

Jasper stared at them alongside her. "That you pushed her, then rushed down to her body, making a show to the doorman that you were distraught, but when you were alone with the body..."

"I was in shock. Seeing her from up above wasn't the same as being there. Her face was still so perfect but everything else was wrong."

Gold flickers on deep red rivers. Life drained into the sewer.

Tam's body convulsed. She couldn't go back to that night, couldn't see that again, couldn't live it again. Jasper slide his arms around her, and she let herself be shored up by him. It had been his worst night as well.

"It proves nothing we don't already know about you, Tam, but it also shows something else."

She made herself twist slowly out of his embrace so she could once again face the box. "This Goldie Girl... if she was the one that took these photos, she was there that night."

"Exactly."

"Did she do it? Is she the killer?"

"I'm not ruling her out." He squeezed her shoulder. "Those two images are all I looked at before I threw the box in the drawer, but there's more. You said you came here to see it all."

She swallowed and took the rest of the contents from the box. The first was a folded sheet of paper, a printout of a news report from eight years ago with the headline Couple Indicted for Drug Trafficking After Daughter Delivers Evidence.

Tam glided her fingers over the words and then handed it to Jasper before the urge to tear it into tiny bits overwhelmed her.

"You're not going to read it?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I already know what it says."

She waited while he read.

"These... these are your parents? And you turned them in."

"It wasn't as simple as that, but yes. I'm the reason they got arrested. I'm the reason they're still in jail and my little sister is in a group home."

"Or maybe their decisions are the reason they got busted and fucked up their daughters' lives."

"I told you, it's complicated. They were running drugs. I was fifteen—old enough to help. Expected to help. The people they worked for wouldn't be happy unless I went into the family business, so to speak, but I swear, Jasper, I didn't want to. My mom—she hadn't really acted like a mother to me in years but even she tried to get me out. She bought me a bus ticket, told me to leave and not look back. I could have gone but Emelina was only a little kid. I didn't want to leave her."

"And so, you stayed."

"Yes. And when the police approached me a few months later, I did what I thought was right."

"It was right. You didn't do anything to feel remorse for now."

"It doesn't feel that way. My father hasn't spoken to me since, and my mother rarely does. And Em... she doesn't even have a family because of me."

"She still has you, Tam. You're her family. I hope you'll tell me more about what happened, but it can't be here. The longer we're in this house, the longer we risk the police showing up, or worse, one of Goldie's obsessed fans. Maybe even the one who left this box. She could be watching the house."

"In a way, would that be so bad? We need to find her and question her." But first, she needed to see what the last item was in the box. She took it out and furrowed her brow.

"What is it?"

She turned it over in her hands to see if something had been written on it. "It's a map of the zoo."

"The zoo? Does that have significance to you? Did your parents do business there, leave a stash in the primate house or something?"

"The only time I remember going to the zoo was on a school field trip in the third grade. My parents never brought me there. My mom said zoos smelled like shit."

"Then why the hell did that Goldie Girl include this in her care package. Does she want to make us feel like caged animals? Like she's the observer who gets to come and go freely while we're trapped?" He took the map from her, unfolded it and flipped it over, searching, like she had, for hidden clues.

"You're giving her too much credit. She wanted you to know I had a past connection with drug trafficking, That way, you'd assume I was connected to the fentanyl smuggling operation and then connect that with Goldie's death. After all, she also had photos proving I was there that night."

"Everyone already knows that."

"But everyone doesn't know that she was there too, able to take those photos. Maybe... she wants to claim she saw me push her and she's dying to tell you."

"All right. But why the zoo?"

"It's a map, Jasper. She's leading you where she wants you to go, now that in her mind, you've turned on me. Where do you believe she wants you to end up?"

He flicked the map onto the bed. "With her. She wants me with her so she can confirm your guilt and then probably soothe my sorrows all night long."

"Exactly." Tam refolded the map and placed it in the box with the rest of the items. "So, let's give her what she wants."

______

So, now you know: Shay wants to assassinate Tam's character so Jasper will assume her guilt and turn on her. What do you think of this new information about Tam's past? And what's their next move going to be? 

You'll find out in the next chapter!