“Okay,” Tim says, “I’m going to need you to rate this birthday compared with all other birthdays you’ve had in your life.”

Tim and I are in the car driving back from the restaurant. After my freak out over the snowflake necklace, we ended up having a wonderful time. It was nice just the two of us. We could be as affectionate as we wanted without worrying about freaking out Josh. And Tim is very affectionate. Especially after a glass of wine.

“Rate it on a scale of one to ten?” I ask. It’s hard to break my habit from nursing school of rating everything on the visual analog pain scale.

“No.” He grins at me as we come to a stop at a red light. “I mean how does it rank compared to your other birthdays? Like, are we talking top five…?”

“Top ten,” I say.

“Top ten!” He looks affronted. “I told you that you should have gotten the lobster. That would’ve definitely taken it into top five.”

I laugh. “Stop it—the chicken was great.”

“I just feel like…” He rests his right hand gently on my knee as he starts driving again. “I mean, you don’t remember your first, like, five birthdays. So really, top ten isn’t that good.”

“It’s pretty good.”

“Well, maybe I can do something else for you tonight that could take it into the top five…”

“Maybe you could…”

Although the real reason tonight can’t make the top five has nothing to do with dinner tonight, which was delicious, or with what he will do in the bedroom tonight, which I’m sure will be amazing as usual. The second he presented me with that snowflake necklace, the night was ruined. As much as I tried not to think about it, I couldn’t put it entirely out of my head.

“Also,” he adds, “I have some good news.” “What’s that?”

“I got a great lead on a new job for you.” He squeezes my knee. “I have a friend who works at a primary care practice like fifteen minutes away from here, and he said they’re looking for a nurse practitioner. They’re desperate, actually. They want to meet you ASAP.”

“Oh,” I say.

“Isn’t that great? It sounds perfect for you. And then you wouldn’t have to work at that prison anymore.”

“Yes, but…” I tug at the hem of my black dress. “I have a one-year contract at the prison, so…”

“Oh, come on. They won’t hold you to that. Just give them like a month’s notice.”

“I don’t know…”

Tim turns to look at me at another red light. The whites of his eyes glow slightly in the moonlight. “You do want to leave that job, right? You don’t want to keep working at a men’s penitentiary, do you?”

I squirm in my seat. “It’s not as bad as you think. Most of them are just so happy to be getting medical care.”

“And not to mention,” Tim continues like I hadn’t even spoken, “the fact that Shane Nelson is a prisoner there. I don’t know how you could even work there knowing he’s around. What if you had to treat him?”

We talked briefly about the fact that I was working at the same prison where Shane is incarcerated. Tim was flabbergasted, but when I explained it was the only job I could find, he eventually calmed down. But I had to swear to him that I never treated Shane.

That is to say, I lied.

“If I had to treat him,” I say, “I could do it.”

“Seriously? Because you took one look at a necklace that reminded you of that night, and you looked like you were going to have a panic attack. And Christ, what if he found out about Josh?”

I frown. Tim is worried about me working at a maximum-security prison, but it’s not as bad as he thinks. And maybe Shane isn’t as bad as he thinks either.

“What if…” I clear my throat. “What if I got it wrong? What if Shane wasn’t the one who tried to strangle me that night?”

Tim’s hand abruptly leaves my knee. “What?”

I hug my chest. “I’m just saying, it was so dark in the living room. I couldn’t see a thing. I never even saw his face.”

Tim slams down on the brakes, inches away from rear-ending the car in front of us. “You have got to be kidding me, Brooke.”

“I just think—”

He swerves the car to pull over to the side of the road. I can make out a vein throbbing in his temple. “Maybe it was too dark for you to see him, but I saw him. He came at me with a goddamn knife and buried it in my gut. All I could do was hit him with that bat, but the bastard didn’t go down. He looked right into my eyes, Brooke, and he told me you were next. Trust me

—it was him.”

The police found Tim unconscious and bleeding on the floor of the farmhouse with a stab wound in his belly. In the last month, I’ve had the opportunity to see the scar left behind from that night. It’s a one-inch line of raised skin a few inches from his belly button. I always thought it would be bigger.

“It was just very dark that night,” I murmur. “That’s all I’m saying.”

Tim turns away from me. He looks down at the steering wheel, his eyes glassy. After a second, he puts the car back in drive. We travel the rest of the distance to my house in silence.

“I’m sorry,” he says as he pulls up in front of my house. “I shouldn’t have… look, I get why you might have mixed feelings about Shane, given…”

“Right,” I say before he can complete that thought.

“But you need to know that he is an evil human being. He’s sick. And if you ever see him at the prison, you need to turn around and run the other way.”

I lower my eyes. “I can take care of myself, Tim.”

He doesn’t have anything to say to that. I unbuckle my seatbelt, but he is still quiet. I don’t offer to let him come inside, and he doesn’t ask. I think this birthday has officially fallen out of the top ten.

When I get back into the house, it’s quiet except for the sound of water running in the kitchen. Margie is probably cleaning. She may be old, but she never sits still. Honestly, I wish I had her energy.

I walk into the kitchen in time to see Margie scrubbing at a pan and humming to herself. “Hi, Brooke!” she chirps. “Josh is asleep. Did you have a nice time?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh, I’m so glad!” She sighs. “To tell you the truth, I miss dating. I love my Harvey, but I sort of miss that excitement. And Tim is so handsome.”

“Yeah…”

“He has great eyebrows,” she adds. “Does he?”

“Oh yes. You can tell a lot about a man from his eyebrows. Nice eyebrows mean he’s wise.”

“Interesting…”

“Also,” she adds, “he has a nice butt.”

Oh my God. Although she’s right—Tim does have a nice butt, but I’m sort of embarrassed that Margie noticed. “Uh, thanks?”

“And that’s such a beautiful necklace he got you! But you should put it in your jewelry box, where it will be safe.”

My stomach drops. I had abandoned the necklace on the kitchen table and then forgotten all about it. Well, I didn’t forget about it so much as I hoped it would vanish into thin air while I was out with Tim. Or at least, he would know enough to throw it in the garbage bin, where it deserved to be.

But he didn’t. He left it there for me.

Margie grabs her coat and takes off for the night. It’s only after she’s gone that I dare to approach the blue rectangular box left behind on the kitchen table. It looks like either Tim or Margie put it back in the box, so all I need to do is toss it in the garbage.

But instead, I find myself opening the box.

I hold up the necklace, letting the snowflake charm swing back and forth. It looks exactly the same as the one I used to wear—the one Tim bought me for my tenth birthday. It’s a gold chain with a gold snowflake with white diamonds set into the six spokes of the snowflake.

I look closer at the necklace and notice something else that makes my heart stop.

The second spoke on the snowflake is missing a diamond from the edge. Exactly like the one I used to wear.

This necklace is identical to the one I wore in high school. And it has the exact same defect in the exact same place as that necklace did.

Is it possible that it’s the same necklace?

I never found out what became of that necklace. After it broke, I never saw it again. I had assumed the police kept it as evidence, but maybe they didn’t. Maybe somebody else had it this whole time.

Tim claimed he got it at the town flea market. A flea market? What flea market is he talking about? I have lived in this town since I was a baby, and I never once heard about any sort of flea market.

Was he lying?

Stay away from Tim Reese. He’s dangerous.

Is it possible that Shane was telling the truth about that night? Is it possible he wasn’t the one who tried to strangle me with that necklace? I never got a look at his face. The only person who testified with absolute certainty that they saw Shane with a knife was Tim. Even though my testimony was damning, Tim was the one who put the final nail in his coffin.

What if Tim was lying about everything?

No, I can’t think this way. Tim is my boyfriend. I’ve known him my whole life. He’s a good guy. He wouldn’t lie, and he sure as hell wouldn’t kill anyone. I know it better than I know my own name.

But then how did he get that necklace?