Part 8

The inspector’s face softened. “Listen, Mrs. Brody. I’m not here to threaten you. I’m doing my job. If the seller wants to escalate, we’ll take information from both sides. But I’ll be honest, looking around your home and how you present, it might not be worth their time to pursue a costly suit. That’s not a legal opinion. It’s just… how these things usually shake out.”

“Excuse me?” she raised her voice in offence.

He closed his folder and stood, rising the jacket collar. “Mrs. Brody,” he looked around, “People who buy large farms don’t live in trailers. But if, let’s say, someone’s threatening you, if there’s coercion, or if the bank calls us about suspicious activity, please, call me. You understand?” He handed her his wet and crumpled business card.

“I do,” Salem said in a voice of a victim. “Thank you, Inspector Reese. I appreciate you checking in,” she said and stood up.

“All right, Mrs. Brody. You take care of yourself.”

The door clicked shut behind him, and her mask came off. Salem let out a long breath into the silence of the house, and the exhale turned into a sharp manic laugh. She dropped onto the laminate kitchen table, hands slapping down against it. Her smile fell away; the voice she’d used with Reese suddenly snapped like a bow under the weight of wet snow.

“They’re circling me,” she murmured, lips pulled tight. She stood abruptly, breath quickening, and urgent energy overcame her calm. “They think they can wait me out. They think I’ll fold.”

She moved through the trailer with the speed of someone focused, her hands checking drawers, the shopping bag dumped open on the table: towels, rubber gloves, duct tape. Her eyes locked on each object, measuring the tools in a plan she rehearsed in her mind since she met Jessica.

“No,” she said, whispering into the hollow of the room. “If they want to see, then I’ll show them. If they’re keeping time, I’ll make time stop. They won’t take this away.” She kneeled and pressed her forehead to the cold floor. She smiled and packed the kit into a tote, hands steady now, purpose replacing panic.

* * *

The screen cast a pale glow across Salem’s face. She sat cross-legged on the floor, notebook open, pen moving fast, and a raw ham sitting on a baking tray. Surgical videos played in a loop: hands in blue gloves, scalpel lines, careful incisions, all blood carefully cleared by clean instruments. She paused and watched again, repeating each step, murmuring technical terms like incantations. “Clamp the uterus.” “Retract the bladder.” “Use suction to clear the blood.” She scribbled arrows, diagrams, notes in the margins. She absorbed every frame and every motion. She picked up a kitchen knife, examined the weight, and rolled it in her palm. She imitated the motions, slicing through the pig’s skin repeatedly, until the skin peeled, until the pink flesh was shredded.

The night stretched on. Salem kept watching, kept writing, her mind sharpening, rehearsing, committing each motion to memory. She didn’t eat, didn’t drink, didn’t breathe too loud.