A Slow Fire Burning

At his home, Theo reflects happily on what he has heard about the murder case. When Theo ran in to the police officer at the crime scene, the officer confided that they had located the murder weapon, arrested Laura, and are going to charge her with the crime. After learning this information, Theo feels immense relief and hopes that he and Carla can finally move forward with their lives: “the Sutherland mess, all that poison they had injected into his family, into his marriage, it could start to drain away now” (228). Now, he is preparing dinner for himself and Carla. Theo recalls how, on the night he saw Laura walking by covered in blood, Carla was not in bed when he went to sleep. When he woke up in the morning, Carla had just finished showering and seemed to have washed herself vigorously. A knock at Theo’s door interrupts his reverie.

Laura is now being held in jail. After she left Irene’s home, she went to her apartment, where the police were waiting for her. Laura was confused as to why the police were searching her apartment and asking her questions about Daniel. The police reveal that they analyzed Laura’s bloody shirt, and it contained both her and Daniel’s blood.

Laura explains that during her altercation with Daniel, she bit him. She got his blood on her face and mouth, which she subsequently wiped with her shirt. Daniel had also cut his hand on a broken glass during their struggle, and that blood may have gotten on her shirt as well. Laura thinks back to the cruel comments that Daniel made and how she became enraged. These comments were what led to their altercation.

The police show Laura a small knife and tell her that they had found it in her apartment. She denies owning the knife and does not know how it got into her apartment. Laura then remembers that Miriam had the key to her apartment and could have snuck in and left the knife. The police are intrigued by this information but wonder why Miriam would have wanted to put the knife in Laura’s apartment. Laura argues that Miriam seems to have a grudge against the Myerson family and that Carla could have been involved in the murder. Miriam could also be the murderer: “[S]he’s seriously damaged, you know? […] I know what you’re thinking, you’re looking at me like, look who’s talking, but sometimes it takes one to know one” (236).

The police continue to question Laura about the key, revealing that they already know about her altercation with Miriam on the boat. Despite Laura’s arguments, the police charge her with Daniel’s murder. In desperation, Laura physically resists arrest and the officers have to drag her out of her apartment.

Carla has now decided that she will go to Theo’s, spend one last night with him, and then slip away in the morning, leaving a note behind. After leaving Theo’s, but before catching her train, Carla will stop at Angela’s house one last time to retrieve some items she doesn’t want Theo to see.

Carla thinks back to the day that she took Daniel’s sketchbook from the boat. Once she got home, she looked at the drawings and was impressed with Daniel’s talents: “[H]e captured movement, he registered nuance, he was empathetic on the page in a way he never seemed to achieve in real life” (240). Daniel had depicted recognizable scenes and individuals from his childhood, making it clear that he loathed both his mother and himself. In contrast, Carla and Ben were depicted in a loving and idealized way.

The scenes in the sketchbook tell the story of the visit during which Ben stayed with Daniel and Angela. Daniel drew scenes of himself catching Angela having sex and scenes that expressed the rage he felt afterwards. There was also a scene showing Daniel waking Ben up and luring the toddler towards the broken balcony with a toy truck. The doors to the room off of the balcony are depicted closed, but Daniel opens them. The final image implies that Daniel intentionally sent Ben to his death and then passed it off as an accident.

When Theo opens his door, Irene is standing there. Irene explains that she urgently needs to speak with Carla; she doesn’t have Carla’s address, but she knows Theo’s from the envelope containing the drawing of Carla. Theo tells Irene that Carla will indeed be arriving shortly and invites her to come inside and wait.

Irene is hesitant to talk with Theo before Carla arrives but reveals she has come because she found a notebook containing a series of Daniel’s drawings. Theo asks Irene why she was in Angela’s house, and Irene isn’t sure how to explain. She heard on the news that Laura had been charged with Daniel’s murder and became distressed. Desperate to speak to Carla and advocate for Laura, Irene went to Angela’s house with a vague hope she would find something with Carla’s contact details. Looking through the house, Irene found a pile of letters and a notebook. The contents alarmed her and made her even more determined to find Carla.

Theo becomes increasingly insistent that Irene give him the notebooks, but Irene refuses. Theo wonders if the notebooks contain similar themes to the drawing Daniel sent him, asking, “are there pictures of Carla in it? He was fixated on her, you know, in an unhealthy way” (248). Eventually, Theo grabs her handbag and seizes the notebook by force; it is “The Origins of Ares.” Theo begins to look through it, becoming increasingly distressed while Irene begs him to stop. Irene begins to feel faint.

The perspective switches to Theo as he becomes angrier and angrier. He throws the notebook into the fireplace and helps Irene recover, even as he contemplates how easy it would be for him to kill her.

The narrative switches to an excerpt from The One Who Got Away, in which the killer is dying at the hands of the surviving girl. The scene describes his surprise since “when he woke up that morning, he never though he’d be the prey” (251). Then, an extended scene depicts the killer catching up to the girl as she tries to run away. Rather than fighting him, she lies limply and continues staring him in the eyes. The killer becomes distraught and tells her to leave. However, the girl picks up a large rock and strikes him on the head with it. She continues beating him with the rock until he dies. She later tells the police that she fought back and killed him in self-defense.

Miriam reflects that she has felt shame and guilt ever since the incident. She also feels deep anger towards the man who killed her friend and also towards Theo, who stole her story. One day, Miriam found Theo’s dog on her porch, tearing into her garbage. In a fit of rage, she killed the dog and dropped the body into the river near Theo’s house. She is aware that Theo spent a lot of time looking for the dog, which she finds satisfying; she has kept the dog’s tag.

Miriam takes the dog tag to Theo’s house, intending to confess her actions. However, as she approaches the house, she is shocked to see Theo being led out by two police officers and getting into a police car. Miriam wonders, “had she won? Had some justice been done, at last?” (258). As Miriam watches, she notices an elderly man in a wheelchair across the street. The man in the wheelchair is picked up by a taxi, but something about him makes Miriam very uncomfortable.