Page 107 of By the Time You Read This

The river ran cold over her legs. Even in the summer like this, with the sun beating down, the snowmelt kept it near freezing. She couldn’t feel her feet anymore. But standing in the water itself, the bugs biting, the tourists chattering too loudly on the far bank—all of it made her believe she was human once more.

She needed the reminder.

There were plenty of variations of the golem story throughout the past six hundred years. One of Delaney’s favorites, though, was the one where the golem did as he was told, and he saved a community of Jewish people who lived in Prague. But during the fight, the golem’smaster lost control of him, and thus felt compelled to destroy him before he did any harm.

The master succeeded, but as he did, the golem turned back to clay and then shattered into—heavy, devastating—pieces. Those pieces fell on the master, crushing him to death.

And, so, in the end, they destroyed each other.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Delaney

Day Seven

Delaney left Roan of the Carolina mountains at the motel and wondered if she’d ever see him again.

Part of her thought that, if she didn’t, it might be because she would simply leave town without checking in on him.

Part of her wondered if it was because she didn’t have that much longer to live.

That had always been a possibility, once she’d received that first letter.

Now she had to finish what she’d started.

Roan might think her foolish, he might think she’d fallen for St. Ivany’s scheme, but Delaney knew now how right she’d been.

Gabbi had inserted herself into the investigation, not the other way around.

Delaney touched the knife at her thigh and realized it wasn’t enough. She pulled off to the side of the road into town. There wasn’t much traffic, so she simply popped the trunk of her beaten-up, but now sort of beloved, car and found her go-bag. At the bottom was a gun that couldn’t be traced back to her.

Let’s play a game . . .

She dropped it into her pocket, right next to the AirTag that she’d found in her purse the morning after she’d slept with Roan that first time. She’d disabled it by taking the battery out, but she’d kept it in case it could come in handy later. Perhaps as her own little panic button, if she found herself in a situation she couldn’t get out of.

Finally, she pulled out her laptop and brought it around to the driver’s seat with her.

She needed to try to get in front of Gabbi.

Delaney’s research had been sound. She had lurked on every forum or social media site that hosted conversations about Isabel.

Gabbi was smart and callous and overly invested in Isabel. She pictured both herself and Isabel as vigilantes, not realizing that was antisocial behavior worthy of a diagnosis. The trauma in her past relationship had solidified the rigid moral superiority that had been born into her, and turned it outward. She looked at herself as the only person in the community willing to dole out justice—the way she told herself Isabel had.

Delaney was good at this, she knew she was. It hadn’t taken long for her to land on Gabriela Cruz after that. And everything about her speech patterns, her posts, her videos, led Delaney to believe she’d been swept up in Isabel.

The thing that had cemented it all for Delaney, though, was that Gabriela claimed she had actually spoken to Isabel. No one else in the community could say that.

Gabbi didn’t make it well known that she had—for obvious reasons now. But she was a bragger; she couldn’t help but tell her inner circle of online friends. Just as she had when the police had used her to try to “catch” Delaney.

After that, Delaney was convinced.

Not only was she incredibly dangerous but she was escalating.

Gabbi would have a next target.

Delaney could call St. Ivany and join forces. After all, Delaneyhadn’tkilled Emily Logan. St. Ivany might try to arrest her, but Delaney could at least make her case against Gabriela.

But Delaney didn’t actually have any evidence. Why would St. Ivany—and Raisa—take Delaney’s word on it, when Raisa thought she was no better than Isabel?

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