“My lights caught her. The road is narrow. I could see both sides of it.”

When they were just before the mile marker Edith thought she remembered seeing, she pulled the car to the side. “It was right about here that I saw her, and then the truck coming from the other direction, heading into town.”

Nic went through the rest of it with her. The things she’d already said on the phone, about her mother and how she’d waved them down. And the purse with the three letters. Nothing they asked now brought forth any more detail—not about the truck or the driver.

“Can you be any more specific? The color, license plate, symbols, bumper stickers—anything?” Reyes asked.

Edith thought carefully. “It was dark in color, like I said. It might have been black, a very dark gray. Charcoal. But not a light gray . . . maybe dark brown, I can’t remember much else about it. The rain was coming so hard . . .”

But then another thought seemed to come over her as she was trying to recall the truck.

“You know,” she said. “Now that I’m here—there is something else. But I can’t be sure.”

Nic looked at her with urgency. “What is it?”

She paused, squinted her eyes, lifted her arm and pointed at the road.

“When I saw it drive off with your mother and it passed me, I looked at it through my rearview mirror. I’m not sure I saw two taillights. I think one might have been out. At the time I thought it was just a distortion from the rain. It was so heavy it was like looking through a pool of water. So I thought the two lights had just looked like one.”

Reyes studied her face. “And now?”

“Now,” she said. “I think it’s possible there was just one taillight.”

“Which one was out?”

Edith Moore shook her head. She didn’t know. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get the plate number or the make and model. It wasn’t on my mind that I would need those things.”

Reyes was uncomfortably silent as he stared at Edith Moore. He seemed irritated, shifting into a more hostile stance.

“Let me ask you something else,” he said.

“Okay.”

“Are you sure you were coming back from New York City?”

There was a long pause.

“Yes. Of course I’m sure.”

“I see you have an E-ZPass. Did you leave on the east side or the west side? The east side would take you over the Triborough Bridge. There’s a toll scanner on that bridge.”

Edith Moore’s eyes lit up. “No—I definitely didn’t go that way. I went on the west side.”

Something wasn’t right about her answer. Nic could hear it in her voice and see it in the creases of Officer Reyes’s eyes. A little smile.