When I first saw her, I had backed away, into the house. Locked the door, had the wild urge to call the cops. But she wasn’t fazed. She knocked softly. “Vera, I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.” Her voice so silky smooth, a ribbon of a sound, like an old-time movie actress beckoning a man forward. And wasn’t that how they all spoke, before they knifed you, burglarized you, set your house on fire? I’d refused to open the door, palming my phone, ready to ask Quinn for help or dial 911.

“I just want to clarify a few things,” she called out again, in that beguiling tone. “I want to help you. I think you’re quite brilliant, Vera. I’ve seen your art. I bought one of your tote bags. You have an indescribable eye.” She waited a beat, waited for me to fall for her flattery. “You’re smart to be cautious. But I promise I’m coming in peace.”

And I opened the door a crack, asked her to lift her hands, empty her pockets, her purse, like I was some kind of TSA agent. But she wasn’t armed, except with sunglasses and cigarettes, a lighter. She didn’t even have her phone on her.

Unsurprisingly, Persephone is not a fixer. Persephone got a call a few weeks back from Mr. Bennington, who said an illicit picture had been taken from his home and he hadn’t been sure by whom; she asked what picture and he sheepishly answered, The picture you told me to burn.

“Obviously, he was still looking at the thing nightly or something. He always was a pervert.”

She tells me that ten years ago she and Tom stayed in that house, just as Jackson had told me. She tells me that they were into some kinky group sex together, everything consensual, she swears, though she knows how it looks. That they would sometimes take photos. That she left the house in a hurry at the tail end of summer, that in her haste she forgot one picture. She called Mr. Bennington and told him to destroy it, that it would destroy the company he was helping to build if the public knew Tom was a weird sex fiend. He didn’t hesitate, said he would in a minute.

Obviously, he never did.

She tells me, ashing her cigarette in the swooping stomach of one of my mother’s New Age hand-thrown pottery tchotchkes, that she started to freak out. She had a real life now, a kid, a husband who was obsessed with privacy. The last thing she wanted was to have that picture leaked anywhere. She’d already done such a good job of distancing herself from Tom that she was never linked to him when the murders occurred.