Jasper almost didn't recognize the grimacing woman who opened his parents' door.

"Becca?"

"Jasper!" She raised a shaky hand and squeezed his wrist. "If I'd known you were coming, I'd have..." Her voice trailed off.

Becca seemed to have aged a decade in the days since he'd seen her last. Dark blotchy circles under her eyes, unobscured by makeup, made her hazel irises look like they were being dragged through a mudpuddle.

"You!" Becca let go of his arm and attempted to charge past him. He held her back from the cause of her sudden rush of energy.

"Tam's with me, Becca. She didn't kill Goldie, so settle down."

"Don't tell me to settle down, Jasper." She gave a halfhearted attempt at freeing herself from his grip. "She did kill her. Everyone's saying she did."

"Everyone's been wrong more than once." he scooted his stepmother to the side. "We're here to speak with Paul."

"He's not home. Take that awful woman and leave before I call the police."

"Mrs. DeAngelis," Tam stepped forward, remaining just out of striking distance from Goldie's mom. "Jasper and I have been working night and day to find out what happened to your daughter. We think Paul... we think he..."

"Paul might harbor information he isn't aware of." Japser said. "Information that could help us—and the police—bring Goldie's killer to justice."

"Paul has already been questioned by the police. We both have. What more is there to say? We were both home that night. We sat on the couch in the living room watching TV. We heard arguing, then silence. We had no reason to believe it was anything drastic."

He nodded. "What happened after that?"

"Honestly, Jasper, you already know this, don't you? I stayed in the living room reading while Paul retired to the bedroom. Then we both heard the scream from next door. I'd fallen asleep and it woke me up. Paul ran past and out the door and that's when he saw you." She pointed a finger at Tam.

"Yes, he saw me. Terrified and running because I hoped that what I'd seen wasn't real, not because I'd done it. We need to talk to him, Mrs. DeAngelis." Tam said. "When will he be back?"

Becca's lips twitched. "I don't have to let you in."

"Please listen to us. I would never have hurt her! She gave me the best job I've ever had."

"She gave you a place in her world, is what she did," Becca said, "but you never belonged to it."

"She never needed to belong to it," Jasper told her. "Besides, Goldie's world was only ever good enough for Goldie. We're going to come in now and wait for my father."

He took Tam's hand and led her to the living room, Becca following, muttering obscenities under her breath.

"I don't want you here. You two, what sort of trouble did you bring to my girl?"

"We're not the ones who brought trouble to Goldie." Jasper's resolve to keep a cool head faltered. "If you only knew the truth of it."

"Well, what is the truth?"

A familiar yip diverted their attention. Bailey Boo came charging into the living room. Tam scooped him up and cooed to him.

The dog's fondness for Tam seemed to have a calming effect on Becca. She sat them both on the couch and came back a few minutes later with martinis. "That dog. He's been in such a state since Goldie died. I try my best, but he doesn't seem happy here with us. Animals can be traumatized just like people. He's a witness, you know."

Jasper patted the dog's head. "I wish we could see what he did that night."

Becca slumped into the chair across from them. "He likes you." She nodded at Tam. "I suppose that says something."

This was an unexpected victory. Jasper hadn't imagined ever winning his stepmother over to team Tam, much less having it happen through the fickle nature of a traumatized dog. He stood up. "If the two of you are capable of talking without a mediator, I could use a minute of fresh air."

#

The outside world proved more stagnant than he would have liked. Smoke from nearby wildfires had begun to reach the city. Soon, everyone would be trapped inside, beautiful days waisted on toxic air, everyone breathing in the ashes of trees, houses, and people as they burned. All these tragedies playing out daily, and here he was, unable to come to terms with only one of them. The last time he was out here, he couldn't give Goldie's adjacent balcony more than a cursory glance. Tonight, he forced himself to study it, as if doing so would give him Bailey Boo's memories so he could see the last moments of Goldie's life play out before him, like a scene filmed for one of Goldie's EpiGolds.

Her balcony remained void of its previous actors, but in Jasper's mind, a scenario formed. He walked to the closest corner. In between was a gap of several feet. Looking down gave him vertigo, the sky falling away into nothingness as his stomach threatened to heave. He patted the railing. Sturdy, strong. It was a good thing—or maybe a bad thing depending on how this played out—that he'd come out here before he'd drunk the martini Becca had handed him.

He grabbed a patio chair and dragged it over, stood on it, wobbling a second before steadying himself. He didn't need it to grab onto the wall and hop up onto the railing, but it was helpful. It gave him balance, steeled his resolve.

Goldie's balcony taunted him. So close, but the space in between required a literal leap of faith. It had been night too when she died. As dark as it was now, the outline of her balcony shadowy, but not invisible.

A reasonably athletic person could probably make the jump.

Probably.

Steel was slippery. The slightest mistake and he would meet Goldie's fate. Part of him wanted that. To have it all over, to not have to face his failures. Or the truth. He may hate where that truth led him; nonetheless, it remained his destination.

He breathed in, counted to five, and jumped.

#

A scream.

It could be his, it could be the thought of hers. The last bit of sound pushed from lungs until there's nothing left, no scream, no air, no beating heart.

It could have been Tam's the night of Goldie's death, echoing from the past as he stood where she had, peering over the edge towards the horror in the alley below.

It could have been Tam, screaming now from the apartment next door. That's all it took to revive him, pump air back into his lungs, get his heart beating.

There was no fear of falling on his way back, only the fear of what he would find when he landed.

Back inside, through the bedroom, into the hallway and a quick right into the living room.

The world paused again, the scene before him like a frozen vignette, almost as if Goldie had staged it for her EpiGolds' dramatic grand finale.

Becca, backed into a corner, eyes like those of a terrified child, a vase broken on the floor where she'd knocked it from its shelf. Tam, front and center, face flushed, scream already ripped from her throat. Paul, the one doing the ripping, his hands pressed around her neck.

"Dad!" He closed the distance between them, pushing his weight into Paul like a linebacker. Paul toppled backwards, releasing his grip from Tam, who crumpled to the ground.

Before Paul could rebound, Jasper punched him, fist against jaw.

"Stop!" Becca yelled. "Everyone, stop. This is all a mistake!"

"It's not a mistake." Jasper's heart pumped. Rage like a waterfall. There was no stopping him. "Get on your feet so I can punch you while you stand."

"Jasper!" Becca stepped forward, then back again. "He's your father."

"Get up." He waited for Paul to rise.

"You listen to me." Paul rubbed his jaw where Jasper had struck him. Words could not be easy for him right now. "Tam deserves to pay for what she did."

Still gasping, Tam turned onto her side, dragging herself across the floor. Jasper moved in front of her, blocking her from Paul. Paul lunged, striking Jasper in the chest. Hitting the wall, wind knocked out of him, Jasper couldn't react in time to prevent Paul from taking a swing at him. He absorbed the hit, then raised his hands to counter, only to have his father's face crumple. Paul winced and swore as he toppled to the side, leaning against the doorway leading to the bedroom.

A jagged edge of glass stuck out of his shin. Tam had regained her feet, but not before grabbing bits of vase from the floor. She held a second shard, ready to plunge it into the next bit of Paul's flesh that presented itself.

Jasper stumbled to her side, facing Paul. "Five feet."

Paul's brow furrowed. "What?"

"The distance between your balcony and Goldie's. Give or take. A man can jump it if he's motivated."

"Jasper," Becca said. "What are you saying?"

"Did she threaten to cut you off? Fire you?"

"Of course not," Paul said. "You think I killed her?"

Jasper's hands became grenades. Pull the pin and he would make his father explode. "Everything you've done since her death—it's all been to throw the cops off your trail. Make an innocent woman take the blame."

"I haven't done anything."

"Bullshit!"

The doorbell buzzed. Jasper's grenade hands quivered.

"Jasper," Tam's voice came in a wheeze. "I texted Maris before we arrived. That must be her."

"Answer the door, Becca," he nodded towards his stepmother, who inched her way along the wall. "The police will want to have a word."

Fear, desperation, hatred—he read into these emotions as they played out on Paul's face, and then Paul was running, blood from his leg leaving a dotted trail along the beige carpet. He didn't want Jasper's grenade hands, or the roar of his waterfall rage crashing down on him, but he didn't want the slap of handcuffs around his wrists either.

Seconds. Five feet. Jasper chased after Paul, certain of what Paul was planning.

Through the bedroom, out the door, onto the balcony.

Not to the side, to Goldie's side, to the five-foot gap between balconies, but straight forward. Jasper tackled him, grenade fists back to being hands that grabbed and twisted and kept this terrible man from crashing over the waterfall's edge.

"You don't understand at all," his father panted as Jasper held onto him. "She could have been one of the most powerful people in the world and it would have been because of me. But she made her choice. What was I to do?"

_____

Woah.... his own father? I'm feeling pretty bad for Jasper at the moment. Okay, who guessed it?

Also... do you think the twists are over? You'll have to wait for the last several chapters to find out!