She sat cross-legged in front of the bookcase and skimmed through the final journal on the bottom shelf. She recognized the blue-and-white polka-dotted cover of the notebook Hope had been scribbling in the weekend they came out here in April. She found herself smiling as she read her friend’s account of the trip—ice cream, real estate prowling, fishing—it was all there. She studied an entry from the end of the month more closely as Hope recounted a second trip to East Hampton—this time alone to recon her living and employment options. Lindsay realized she hadn’t given Hope nearly enough credit for pulling it all together so quickly. She blinked back tears when she reached the final sentence: I just hope Lindsay will understand that this isn’t about her. She closed the notebook and returned it to its rightful spot.

What else could she do here?

She eyed the bed next to her, and then stood up to pull the quilt back tentatively with two fingers. Nothing of note, at least to the naked eye, but depending on how the facts unfolded, the police would eventually want the sheets as potential evidence. She had bought them for Hope’s birthday two years ago. Of course, there was only a 1 in 365 chance that the date was her actual birthday, but it did mark the date of her arrival in Hopewell. It was also the anniversary of the day Lindsay first found Hope.

She stripped the sheets from the bed and replaced them with fresh linens she had spotted in the small closet outside the bathroom. As she was inserting the used sheets into a garbage bag, she paused on the final pillowcase and held it to her face. It still smelled a little like Hope’s shampoo. She spread it out over a pillow on the bed and rested her head on it.

So far, she could justify her intrusions into Hope’s private thoughts. To dig further into the past felt like a deeper violation of trust. There was no way the diary entry she wanted to read would include any information related to Hope’s disappearance. But she needed to know. If she never saw Hope again, she would at least know.

Two notebooks back. She got out of the bed, pulled it from the shelf, and thumbed to a date committed to memory, nearly a year earlier.