I feel like my skin is on fire I’m so anxious. I just decided to go to the police in the morning and tell them EVERYTHING. Who knows if they’ll care, but then I’ll be done with it. I have nothing to hide and no one to protect. And as soon as I do that, then I am hightailing it away from maine, and, look, I buried the lead (lede?): Can I come stay with you? Not forever, but for a few days. I’m done with new york, and I can’t stay here, and I really don’t want to move back in with mom, at least not right now. I know you’ve told me in the past that I can come anytime but I still wanted to ask. I’ll be in boston tomorrow. You’re probably asleep but write me back as soon as you get this. xoxo g

Caitlin shut her laptop. She’d shared the e-mail with Detective Dixon, bringing it up on her phone at the station to show him earlier in the day. He’d read it, then asked Caitlin if she could forward it to him.

“What do you think about it?” she asked him.

“I wish she’d come to us earlier,” the detective said, and the words made Caitlin’s stomach hurt. It must have shown on her face, because he quickly continued, “But who knows if it would have made a difference? It’s not a smoking gun. Plenty of people have affairs and don’t end up being murdered.”

“But the fact that Grace got killed must mean that Bill Ackerson was as well, that it’s connected?”

“There’s no indication that Alice was even aware of your sister’s existence.”

“Why? Because she says she wasn’t?”

“Can I ask you some questions about Grace?” the detective said, hunching his shoulders forward like he had a kink in his back. Caitlin noticed that he had a scar above his right eye where his eyebrow didn’t grow.