Crystal begins to write it down. Midway, her pen goes still.

Jaycee.

PC . . . BC . . .

J C

Jenna Coeur.

It was probably random; an accident.

But for some reason, Sheri Lorton can’t seem to let it go.

The guitar pick.

Why would Roger have had one in his pocket? He doesn’t—didn’t—play.

He’s the last person in the world anyone would ever imagine picking up a guitar.

He’s not—he wasn’t—into music at all. He wouldn’t know Jimi Hendrix from Jimmy Page from Jimmy Buffet. Hell, he wouldn’t know any of them from Jimmy Fallon. He didn’t watch television either.

A dedicated academic, all he really cared about was his work—specifically, higher math—and his family. Not in that order.

At first she had been convinced it had gotten mixed in with his belongings by accident.

But the more she thought about it, the less likely it seemed. The bag was sealed, and inventoried, and the guitar pick was listed on the contents log.

She’s considered—and dismissed—the likelihood that Roger might have found it on the sidewalk and picked it up. He’s a germaphobe; he never left home without his hand sanitizer. He scolded her whenever she stumbled across and reached for a faceup penny in a public place.

“But it’s good luck,” she’d tell him, putting it into her pocket.

“Not if you contract a disgusting disease from it.”

“I’ll take my chances. And since you worry about disgusting diseases, you might want to quit smoking.”

But of course, he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Not even for her.

“It’s my one vice, Sheri.”

“It can kill you. Don’t you want to stick around and grow old with me?”

“I’ll grow old with you. Don’t worry.”

Wandering around the empty house they’d shared, remembering that conversation—rather, those conversations, because they’d had it more than once—she wipes tears from her eyes.

Mingling with her intense grief is a growing sense of uneasiness about the damned guitar pick.

What if it’s a clue?

What if the killer accidentally dropped it . . .

Into Roger’s pocket?

Not very likely, but not impossible.

“Maybe I should tell the police,” she speculates aloud.

Maggie, ever on her heels, seems to agree with a jangling of dog tags. Sheri reaches down to pet the puppy’s head.

“I wish you could talk, Mags. I wish you could tell me who did this to him.”

Maggie wags her tail, but she, too, seems wistful.

Crying again, Sheri goes into the bathroom for tissues. Then Maggie is at the door, needing to be let out into the yard. Then the phone rings: one of Roger’s colleagues checking in to see how she is.

By the time she hangs up, lets the puppy back into the house, and feeds her, Sheri is utterly spent. Maybe even exhausted enough to finally get some sleep.

It’s not time for bed yet, by any stretch of the imagination. The late afternoon sun still beams through the screened windows, and the chirping birds beyond won’t give way to crickets for at least another four or five hours.

But sleep would bring a sorely needed reprieve from this living hell, and so she climbs the stairs to the bedroom.

Closing the windows to quiet the birdsongs and drawing the blinds to block out the sun, Sheri pushes away nagging thoughts of the guitar pick.

I’ll deal with it later, she tells herself as a mighty yawn escapes her. Or maybe I’ll just forget about it.

What does it matter? Roger is gone. Finding out who killed him won’t bring him back.

She slips into the bed they shared and rolls over onto Roger’s side.

There, on the bedside table, pushed up against the base of the lamp, she sees his silver lighter.

It hadn’t been stolen after all. He must have forgotten it that morning as he tucked the cigarettes and wallet into his pocket.

He must have been frustrated, reaching into his pocket for that first morning cigarette he always enjoyed so thoroughly and realizing he couldn’t even light it.

Landry resists the urge to check her watch, not wanting Detective Burns to get the impression that she’s anxious to leave this conference room—though that is, indeed, the case.

It’s not easy to sit here and reveal personal details to a total stranger . . .

Which is, ironically, precisely why she became involved with the Internet—and, by association, with Meredith and the others—in the first place. Now Detective Burns is pumping her for information not just about herself, but about her fellow bloggers.

Is it because she suspects that one of them killed Meredith?

Do I suspect that, too?

It’s not the first time Landry has speculated about it, but until now she’s been able to talk herself out of it.

They’re strangers, Landry . . .

With Rob’s comment echoing in her ears, and now this, suddenly, it seems not only possible, but plausible . . .

Still, maybe she’s just paranoid.

Who wouldn’t be, sitting here being interrogated by a homicide detective?

Okay, this isn’t an interrogation; it’s an interview. She knows there’s a distinct difference between the two, and Detective Burns made it very clear up front that she was interested in conducting the latter.

But now that the woman has abruptly stopped taking notes and is sitting there as if she’s just been handed an incriminating piece of evidence, Landry backtracks through the conversation, wondering what she could possibly have said to inspire the reaction.

She was merely spelling Jaycee’s name, and Detective Burns was in the midst of writing it down. Before that . . .

Shifting her weight in the chair as if snapping out of a trance, the woman resumes writing, then looks up again at Landry.

“Jaycee. You say she lives in New York? As in New York City?”

“That’s right.”

Detective Burns types something into her laptop, focused on the screen as she asks, “What else do you know about her?”

“She has some kind of corporate job—”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

Now the detective is looking at her. “But she told you this?”

Landry considers the question. Did Jaycee actually tell her, or did she simply infer it based on the fact that Jaycee was frequently traveling and talking about meetings?

“I’m not sure.”

The follow-up questions come fast and furious, punctuated by the tapping keys of Detective Burns’s keyboard: How long has Jaycee been blogging? Has Landry ever met her in person? Ever spoken to her on the phone? What does Jaycee sound like? What does she look like?

“I’ve never seen her,” is Landry’s response to the last question. “She doesn’t post personal pictures.”

Seeing the expression on the detective’s face as she utters those words, Landry realizes that they do, indeed, seem incriminating.

“But lots of people don’t post photos of themselves,” she finds herself hastily adding, struck by the instinct to protect Jaycee.

Why?

Because I’m sure she’s innocent?

Or just because she’s one of us?

That, she realizes, is the reason, pure and simple. It was the same back in her sorority days. She didn’t know some of her sisters nearly as well as others, and while she loved many of them, there were a few she didn’t even like very much. Still, they were bound by sisterhood and had each other’s backs, always.

Looking thoughtful, Detective Burns returns her gaze to the screen and rhythmically taps the same key on her laptop—as if she’s scrolling down a page, Landry thinks. Probably Jaycee’s blog.

She asks a few other questions about Jaycee—questions Landry can’t answer, like whether she’s married or has children; where she grew up; exactly when she was diagnosed; where she might be today, at this very minute.

“All right,” the detective says, in a shifting gears tone, “let’s take a look at something.”