He snorts. “I haven’t written a letter in years. I got my hand broke in a fight. Can’t even hold a pen.” He flexes his right hand as if to prove his story. I watch the gnarled fingers stretch and then shrink back into a useless claw.

My breath stops. “You didn’t write to my husband?”

“Shit, Melinda. I didn’t even know you had a husband. Why would I?”

The letter had been handwritten, the writing neat and completely legible. My heart pounds. He’s telling the truth. Jay never wrote to him. Never asked to interview him. I let go a long breath, lean back in my chair.

The room goes silent, and I close my eyes. I hear the clock, which sits high on the wall, softly ticking. I look at the guard, and he nods slightly, as though he’s on my side. “I’m done here,” I say to him. He unlocks the door, and the other guard is standing there to walk me out.

I sit in my car in the parking lot and look at the winter sky. It’s gray, but the sun is up there somewhere. I feel weak in a good way, like you feel after a workout. Jay never contacted Keith. My heart swells. And Keith Russell can’t hurt me anymore. He’s paid a steep price, as he should have, for what he’d done to me and Indie, and he’ll never get out.

I start my car and drive out onto the street. The only thing that still lingers in a dark place in my being is the fact that someone out there, some unknown person, is trying to scare me. Would go to the trouble of calling me, harassing me, wrote me that letter. Someone who knows me well. Knows what was going on in my life, and that Jay was writing a book.

But I feel stronger than I have in a very long time. I can do this.

CHAPTER 52 - Rita

CHAPTER 52

Rita

MR. BRANCH COMES IN FIRST, LEAVING HIS ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER in the waiting room. His curly hair is in disarray, as if he needs a good haircut, and his glasses are smudged. He’s wearing a slightly rumpled tweed sport coat, like a harried professor.

The questions about the Fourth of July week have gotten routine by now, and his replies are the same as everyone else’s, and we hope for something more when we turn to his past.

“Mr. Branch, we’ve done a bit of poking around and discovered your wife died a few years ago.”

“Yes.”

“She was only thirty-four?”

“That’s right.” He clears his throat. His eyes flicker.

“That must’ve been tough,” Joe says.

He lets go a deep breath. “It was. It was awful.”