The phone was still pressed against her ear, though she barely registered it.

“Miss Jiang?”

Vivian swallowed, her throat dry. “Yes. Speaking.”

“This is Detective Ryan Mercer with the SFPD. We’d like to ask you a few questions about Vincent Ma.”

Her stomach dropped, and for a moment, the room tilted slightly. Her grip tightened around the phone before she could stop it.

Her thoughts scattered, flashing through possibilities too fast to track.

Why were they calling?

What did they know?

Had they found something?

Had someone seen her?

Had they traced her footprints? The blood? The hammer?

She forced herself to breathe. If they had proof, they wouldn’t be calling. They’d be arresting her.

That meant they were still searching.

Her fingers curled tighter around the phone. She couldn’t hesitate. She couldn’t sound like she had something to hide.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and forced her voice to steady. “Of course. When do you need me to come in?”

“Tomorrow afternoon at the station. Does that work for you?”

She didn’t hesitate. “I’ll be there.”

A pause followed. Then Mercer’s voice returned, polite and almost too even. “Thank you. We appreciate your cooperation.”

The call ended.

Vivian lowered the phone, staring at the screen, her hands suddenly clammy. The words pressed against her skull.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions about Vincent Ma.”

She tried to breathe, but it didn’t help.

The nausea came first, curling low and deep in her stomach, sharp enough to make her gag.

Her fingers trembled. Her skin felt cold, her limbs weightless, as if her body had separated from itself entirely.

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She pressed a hand to her chest, trying to ground herself, but everything kept slipping through her fingers.

What did they know?

She didn’t know.

She couldn’t know.

But if they had real evidence, they wouldn’t have called. They weren’t sure yet. They didn’t have enough.

What would they ask?

That was obvious.

When was the last time you saw Vince?

What did he say?

Did he seem worried about anything?

She could answer those. She could work with those.

But then—

What if they asked about the bodies?

No.

They wouldn’t. Not yet.

She pressed her palms against her temples. Her breath came too fast, her mind too loud, her heartbeat pounding hard enough to feel it in her skull.

She had to stop panicking.

She had to think.

The fear wouldn’t help her. The numbers would.

She took another breath, slower this time.

This wasn’t chaos.

This was a math problem.

There were known variables and unknowns.

There were logical steps to take to get the desired outcome.

If she mapped it out correctly, she could eliminate risk.

She just needed to solve for the missing pieces.

Vivian exhaled, steadying her hands against the desk. Her fingers remained ice cold, her limbs aching with exhaustion, but her mind refused to slow down.

She had one day to prepare.

That wasn’t long, but it was enough.

She needed to focus, but the panic pressed against her ribs, clawing at the back of her throat. If the police looked too closely, if they asked the wrong questions, they wouldn’t just find out that she had been there.

They would find out what she had done.

And it wasn’t Vince’s murder that scared her the most.

It was the other one.

The one she couldn’t explain.

The hammer in her hands.

The way the man’s skull gave way beneath it.

The moment she had blacked out, swinging again and again and again.

Self-defense only stretched so far.

She had killed a man, and if they found out, it wouldn’t matter why.

It would only matter that she had done it.

Her stomach twisted violently.

And then—

Noah.

A chill ran through her.

Her chest tightened with a sickening realization.

Noah had cleaned himself out of the scene.

Not her.

He had wiped his prints, checked his shoes, ensured his DNA wasn’t left behind.

But hers—

Her hair could still be in that room.

She had thrown up in that room.

If they tested for DNA—if they really looked—they would find her.

The slow, methodical way he had worked, the ease with which he had wiped his own presence away, the calm way he had looked at her when he told her to go home—

He had known.

He had left her exposed.

Noah hadn’t been covering for her.

He had been covering for himself.

Her fingers dug into the wood of the desk, a tremor running through them.

If they tested for DNA, if they found her hair, her vomit, her skin cells in that room—

Her throat tightened, a bitter, acrid taste rising in her mouth.

They wouldn’t need to ask questions.

They would already have their answer.

She forced a slow breath through her nose.

No.

They hadn’t found anything yet.

If they had, the call would have been different.

They would have arrested her.

She still had time.

But it was slipping away.

Her pulse hammered, but she forced herself to breathe, to slow down, to think.

She still had to answer their questions.

She still had to walk into that station and act like nothing had happened.

She had to get this right.

She squeezed her hands into fists, pressing her nails against her palms, grounding herself in what she could control.

She had one day.

One shot to make sure they didn’t look any closer.

And she could not afford to fail.