“Then what?”

“We wrote back and forth for years. Not often, but enough that we became close.”

“She never told me about you,” Stride said.

“Well, we had a bond because of Laura. Cindy and I both lost someone we loved. Neither one of us ever put it behind us.”

“Why the visit in Atlanta?” Stride asked.

Tish’s voice was soft. “Cindy knew she was dying. She wanted to see me. To say good-bye. And to tell me things. She told me everything that happened to her that night in 1977. With Laura. With you. In the lake. Everything. Things she had never told anyone else before. That’s why I chose to put so much of the book in her voice.”

Stride shook his head. He felt as if he were falling, fast and hard. “Why would she do that?”

Tish took his hand.

“Because she didn’t want me to let it go. She wanted me to do something. That’s why I’m obsessed. That’s why I have to see this out and do whatever it takes to get to the truth. Don’t you see, Jon? That’s why I’m here. I’ve resisted it ever since Cindy came to me, but I couldn’t resist it anymore. Coming back after all these years wasn’t my idea. Writing a book about Laura’s murder wasn’t my idea. It was Cindy’s.”

25
___________

When Serena arrived home after midnight, she found the door to their attic hanging open. The unfinished space had an Alice in Wonderland feel to it, like crossing over into a different dimension. The stairway was built right into the cottage’s great room, with five dark walnut steps leading up to two narrow locked doors. Behind the doors, a single lonely bulb gave light, and the old wooden beams climbed to a high ceiling. Several more steps ended in another set of doors, where century-old paint flecked off the finish. Tonight the upper doors were open, too. She continued to the attic level.

Up here, the heat gathered like a cloud during the warmer months, and during the winter it was frigid, and the old chambered windows collected frost. The space was wide open. The sharp peaks of the roof rose above her head. The unfinished floor was a minefield of splinters and nail pops. Spiderwebs hung like draperies from the beams. There was nothing but unpacked moving boxes strewn on the floor. They had plans to convert the upper floor into a master suite someday and take advantage of its quirky angles and lake views, but for now, it was a dumping ground for remnants of both of their pasts.

“Hey,” she said.

Jonny was seated on the floor in the middle of the attic. He wore only black boxers. His feet were bare, his hair damp and wild from the shower. The contents of two open boxes were scattered around him. She saw shoe boxes filled with photos, rubber-banded stacks of letters and postcards, and other paraphernalia from his marriage that he had long ago packed away.