“It was when I was in kindergarten. She was Caro and I was Dodo. That’s what our parents called us.” I didn’t understand why he was zeroing in on the least interesting part of the message. “There’s more to it than that. I keep thinking of Mom, and how you never believe you’re going to end up like one of your parents, until you do.” I took a breath. “That’s a reference to a letter my mother wrote a long time ago. It’s the real reason I know this email is from my sister. Literally no one else knows these details about my family.”

“What details?”

At that moment, it would’ve been easier to strip down to my underwear and hurl myself out a window than tell him the truth. But what choice did I have? “My father used to hit my mother. They argued all the time, and it would get physical. Especially when he was drinking, which was pretty often back then.”

“Were the police ever called?”

I started to laugh, before I caught myself. “We were supposed to act like it didn’t happen. In my family, it was a bigger crime to tell an outsider about private stuff than it was for my father to hit my mom in the first place.” My parents were immigrants from Northern Ireland; nothing was more sacred to them than their code of silence.

“Did your father hit you or your sister?”

“No. We were girls, so it was our mother’s job to discipline us.”

“Did your mother hit you?”

“That’s none of your business.” The words burst out of my chest. I wasn’t there to talk about my mother. She had died of cancer just before Teddy was born. We’d disagreed on a lot of things, but I’d always loved her.

He frowned, but he let that slide. “How bad did it get with your father?”

“When I was fifteen, I found a letter my mom had written, in case anything ever happened to her. She put it in the family Bible.” My chin sank toward my chest, as if I were in confession. The contents of her message were seared into my brain. Ryan Crawley is not a terrible man, but he’s capable of terrible things. If I am beaten to a bloody pulp, or die suddenly in an “accidental” fall, know that my husband is responsible. He’ll be contrite, but it will be too late. Please take care of my girls. I love them.

The memory made me shiver, even all these years later. Caro was away at college then, and I’d called her in a panic to tell her what I’d found. She’d been bizarrely calm. Put it back, she’d told me. Pretend you never laid eyes on it.

How can I do that? I’d cried. He’s going to kill her one day.