She sent an email to Tom with the business proposal, pretending to be Odilie. But the urge to snoop was too strong, so then Page started going through her apps. She clicked on Instagram and went into Odilie’s direct messages. There was nothing too wild there. But then she went into the Saved posts, where she found a gold mine of images, dating back months and months, all from the same account. Pictures that were almost identical to the ones that Odilie herself was posting on her grid.

At the time, Page didn’t think much of it: an aspirational account that her sister was mimicking, weird but not alarming. I had enough followers to call myself a micro-influencer.

It wasn’t until later, until she saw my name, my picture associated with her sister’s death, that she remembered. And she told the detectives straightaway—that her sister knew the woman her husband was having an affair with, had been obsessed with me for months, that maybe there was more to the case. She didn’t tell anyone else, though, not her parents or her friends. She knew it must be delicately handled information.

In another case, one where there were multiple living suspects, where there had to be a strong defense, they may have dug deeper. But they didn’t. This was an open-and-shut case. They wanted to move on.

“He sought me out,” I mumble mostly to myself, Colin Mallard’s words echoing in my ear, about how Tom started having an affair to deliberately piss off Odilie, the tipping point for my rage. I put my fingers to my temples, rub them. “Page, why the hell didn’t you tell me any of this? Do any of her friends know about her obsession with me?”

Her eyes harden and I have the strangest urge to arm myself, that I’ve brought a knife to a gun fight.

“No one else knows. Or if they do, they haven’t mentioned it. And I think they would.” She gulps back some of her drink, smearing red along her mouth. “Tom died a week after I sent that email to him. I don’t know if he even read it. And now it’s been another year with no progress. Odilie had every opportunity at her disposal without lifting a finger, but I’ve been working my ass off and getting nowhere. Until I realized I could use you. If Odilie thought you were sophisticated enough to emulate, surely you could be my way into this world. And I had everything I needed to guilt you into helping me.”

I unclench my jaw. “You could have just told me. I would have helped you.”

Page looks at me long and hard. “You said so yourself, when we first met. You don’t like helping people. You and I both know that playing on your obvious guilt was my best bet.