Recalling every detail of an event can demystify it. The skeleton is there, but the nerves are silenced. Past events were never completely tamed, of course, but enough so that, with luck, I could channel the familiar nightmare toward one of my carefully crafted endings, which I also wrote down now. If I was careful, aware of possibilities, then I was as ready as I could be. And the good news was that these days, when the nightmare arrived, it hadn’t packed half a dozen suitcases and found a room nearby. It was a one-night stay, like a sad reminder of the past, in case I’d forgotten the night four years ago that Teo and I almost died.

The day that John Quayle invited me to interview him started out with a bang. After inexplicably finding Quayle’s email on my laptop, I’d gone to see Grant Telford, my immediate supervisor.

“He contacted me on his own,” I told Grant, holding up my hands to show I was innocent. “I promise I didn’t contact him, and I’m not sure how he got my email address. But apparently he heard I’ve been nosing around, and he said that it only seems fair for me to talk to him directly.”

Grant wasn’t much taller than my five-four and grouchy from a restricted diet that left him no extra calories for the pizza and beer that had packed sixty extra pounds on his stocky frame.

“Not your job,” he’d said without looking up from his desk. “Not on your contact list.”

I was feeling very Jimmy Olsen to Grant’s Perry White, but I stood my ground—never Jimmy’s strong point. “So what if he decides he doesn’t want to talk to a real reporter? Or if the mood to talk disappears, or he’s silenced by his lawyer? He must still have a lawyer, right? To keep him out of more trouble? What if by the time your real reporters come back on the scene, he’s as silent as a snake?”

“A rattlesnake shakes its rattles any time of the day or night, lawyers notwithstanding.”

I took the chair across from him, though I hadn’t been asked. “You obviously think he’s guilty.”

He finally looked up to glare at me. “I was in Seabank when Becky Drake was murdered, remember?”

“Yeah, and so was I. Remember? That’s why you have me doing the footwork.”

“Which does not include the big interview. Capisce?”

“I’m not sure he’s guilty. I haven’t turned up one piece of hard evidence to support it.”

“Turning up evidence isn’t your job, and if you think it is, then maybe you need to spend the rest of your time here color coding our files or making coffee runs.”

“My job is to make the job of your real reporters easier. Which is exactly what I’m doing and no more. But I’m asking questions and I’m listening. And along the way I’m sorting possibilities. Isn’t that why I’m being paid the big bucks?”

“Not for sorting, no.”