Emily had attended four appointments, driving herself six hours each time, there and back. She told Jake she was working overtime. She told me she was fine. On October eleventh, while I was reading her the quote for the folding tables, she had already been carrying the worst news of her life. Priya was the only person who knew everything. Emily had called her from the scan unit’s car park on October second, unable to drive because she was so overwhelmed. For five weeks, Priya had begged her to tell her family. She even showed the police their messages. I later read thirty-one of them in my hallway.

The final message, sent on Thursday, said, “Em. Fifty people. You cannot do this to yourself. Please.” Emily hadn’t replied. So Priya had driven two hours and ten minutes in the early morning, entered my garage, replaced the pink balloons with black ones, and attached the hospital bracelet to the box. Then she deliberately faced the security camera for four seconds. She hadn’t been trying to escape. She wanted us to know exactly who had done it. The shocking display wasn’t a random act of vandalism. It was an attempt to force a truth into the open. And I was beginning to understand why Priya had believed something so drastic was necessary.