Mama Bear kept trying to close the door but Hudson put a palm on the panels and pushed it back open. He received a glittered glare for his troubles but Gia gazed at him with shadowed eyes, full of misery.

“You were there last night…?” she asked, her voice drifting off.

“I’m Hudson Walker. Glenn and I knew each other in high school.”

“Oh! Yes! Hudson.” Tears filled her eyes and she came flying forward, throwing herself into his arms, bawling like a baby calf. Mama Bear seemed startled by this turn of events, stepped backward, and Becca used the moment to squeeze in behind Hudson. She felt Gia’s pain like a live wire between them, though they weren’t touching. Her grief filled the room and it made Becca feel like a charlatan, given her reasons for being here.

“I can’t believe he’s dead,” Gia was saying over and over as they stood beneath a huge chandelier in the foyer. She was petite and soft, her round body giving her a cherubic look. “We wanted to have a baby. We were planning on it. Now what am I going to do? What am I going to do!” She pulled away from Hudson to the waiting arms of her mother.

Becca heard the word “baby” and her heart lurched. She hadn’t known the circumstances of the Stafford marriage, but this window into their now-unfulfilled hopes and dreams burrowed deeply into her own heartache.

Gia’s mom gave her daughter a hard hug, and Gia’s already red eyes puddled up all over again.

Hudson said gently, “I’m sorry to bother you right now.”

“It’s not a bother. You were friends. Glenn talked about you…all of you.” She swept a hand toward Becca. “I know you were all worried about the dead girl, Jessie.”

“Glenn believed Jessie was dead?” Hudson asked.

“No…I don’t know. I guess I just assumed.” She swallowed once, seemed to think about it some more, then her eyes flooded again. “And now Glenn’s dead, too. Oh, God, oh, God. I’m…sorry…this is all so new…so unexpected. He was my soul mate. We were going to be married forever.” Her voice cracked, but she huddled into the safety of her mother’s arms.

“We hate to bother you, but we wondered if you could answer a question for us.”

“Not now.” Gia’s mother bristled but Gia gazed up at him blankly.

“What?” she asked.

“Did Glenn receive any note recently?”

“What kind of note?” Gia asked emotionlessly.

“A nursery rhyme,” Becca said.

Gia turned to her. “Is that a joke, because it’s not funny.” She slowly released her grip on her mother.

“I think this has gone on long enough,” Mama said.

“I received one,” Hudson said, “so we wondered if Glenn had, too.”

“A nursery rhyme. Let me see it.” Gia stuck out her hand and Hudson, after a brief hesitation, reached into his pocket and handed over the note and the blue envelope.

“It came through the mail.”

Gia shook her head. “Who sent it?”

“We don’t know.”

“You think it was the dead girl,” she said with sudden understanding, and her mother drew in a hiss of breath and looked around as if evil spirits were about to materialize. “Glenn said something about nursery rhymes and that girl. She was a tease.”

“We don’t even know if Glenn’s note exists,” Hudson said. “Another friend, Christopher Delacroix, received one.”

“The Third. I know him. The same as this?” She glanced at the card, her nose wrinkling.

“That’s what I understand. I haven’t seen it yet.”

“And you think Glenn may have got one. Why?”

“It’s a mystery,” Becca said. “We’re trying to figure out who received them, who sent them, and why.”

“Well, if he got one, I never saw it.” After a moment, she said, “Have you told the police? Like maybe that’s why Glenn’s dead…something to do with that Jessie?”

“We haven’t talked to anyone but you,” Hudson said.

“It’s like she killed him,” Gia said suddenly, and her mother shook her head. “That’s what she did, that bitch! She reached right out of the grave and burned him up!” Gia started crying in earnest again, and after a few awkward moments where Becca and Hudson could only stand by while Gia’s mother rocked her daughter in her arms, they expressed their condolences again and took their leave.

“Are we going to see The Third?” Becca asked.

“Next on the list.”

Mitch Bellotti was in overalls that tightened around his bulging middle. He was wiping his hands on a gray rag as Mac slammed the door of his Jeep and crossed the asphalt apron that led to Mike’s Garage, a surprisingly clean establishment where tools hung on the wall in precise rows. An older-model blue Triumph was on a lift and Mitch was conversing with a skinny, sixtyish man whose craggy face practically fell in on itself, it was so lined.

Hearing Mac’s door slam, Mitch looked his way. There was a moment or two of blankness, then recognition dawned. He didn’t offer to shake hands, just kept wiping his own on the rag as his expression grew grimmer. Mac introduced himself but it wasn’t necessary as Mitch responded with, “I knew you’d come. You’ve talked to everybody else. But God, man, on this day? You know about Glenn, don’t you?”

“I went to the scene last night.”

“I don’t want to talk to you. Especially now.” The smell of oil and grease permeated the air and an old greyhound was lying on a rug near the back door.

Mac realized Mitch was fighting back tears and felt a twinge of pity. He’d never really thought Mitch had anything to do with Jessie’s disappearance, then or now, but he felt he might know something-maybe something he didn’t know he knew. “I’m sorry about Glenn,” Mac said, meaning it.

“You think it has something to do with-Jessie? Is that why you’re here, man?”

“Do you?” Mac asked curiously.

“I guess it could just be a coincidence.” He sounded as doubtful as Mac felt.

“We’ll know more after the fire investigator’s report.”

“Has to be arson, doesn’t it?”

“Why do you say that?”

Mitch gazed at him guilelessly. “Well, things like that don’t just happen. The restaurant just goes up. How? A gas leak? Or a burner on the stove left on near something flammable? Grease fire? Doesn’t sound like it from what I’ve heard.”

“What have you heard? Who called you?”

“Scott. He was freaking, man. Glenn and I were friends, but Scott was his best friend. They were kind of mad at each other, but it was like they were brothers.”

“Scott thinks it’s arson?”

“I don’t know for sure. He just said Glenn was inside and it shouldn’t have happened. He said she cursed us.”

“Jessie?”

“Yeah, Jessie.” His face flushed as if he heard the idiocy of his statement. “Who else?”

“What happened all those years ago, Mitch?” Mac asked quietly. He felt his pulse rush a bit, wondering if this was the moment someone finally opened up to him.

Mitch’s eyes watered as the tears he’d been fighting got the better of him and spilled down his cheeks. “Not a damn thing,” he said wearily. “That’s the problem, man. Nothing happened to her. She just left, but now she’s back even more than she was in high school. Sending notes. Burning down the restaurant. Killing Glenn. If she isn’t alive, then she’s making it happen from the grave. I don’t know how, but she’s behind all of this. She is. Back then some people thought she was weird, y’know. Like she had ESP or somethin’. I thought it was all just crap, but now…who the hell knows?” He reached a hand toward an upper, nonexistent shirt pocket, then dropped it. “I need a smoke,” he said and headed toward the office where he grabbed a pack of cigarettes from a jacket hung on a peg. He shook one out, then pushed through a back door to the rear of the building. Mac followed. The greyhound, long snout grizzled with age, didn’t move.

“What notes?” Mac asked quietly as Mitch cupped his hand over the lighted end of the cigarette and sucked hard on the other. Both of his hands were shaking, and as if noticing Mac’s stare, he clenched one and pulled out the cigarette from his mouth with the other, moving it to hide his tremor.