“No.” He purses his lips. “I was a philosophy minor in college. At Commonwealth. When Sophia was killed, I started looking at the books I’d kept. I’ve been reading Marcus Aurelius. You know, the Stoic?”

“Sure.”

“It’s helped me accept what happened to her. Or at least try to. It’s helped me stay calm. I struggle with that sometimes. I’m trying to deal with stuff from my childhood. I get . . . Well, every day is a battle to do that. To make sense of where my life is.”

“I understand.”

“You married?” he asks.

“Widowed.”

“Shit. Then you get it. You really do.”

“Can I ask you something else, Zach? And I’m sorry to be so pushy.”

“Go ahead. It’s good not to feel so alone all the time.”

“Okay,” I say. “So you know that night you and Sophia were arguing, and I came in here. It seemed like you were arguing over another woman.”

Zachary freezes in place. His body is still. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

I think of the book. Madeline’s book. The relationship between the two women—Sarah and Lilly. Things get difficult between them when Sarah’s husband starts to hit on Lilly. And when Lilly tells Sarah, Sarah ends up dead.

If so many of the details of the murder are true to life . . . then maybe the details of the relationships between the three characters are true to life too.

“You and Sophia and Madeline . . . you were all friends, right?”

“They were friends.”

“But you all knew one another. And you and Sophia had that fight. And I’m just wondering . . . I mean, maybe you and Madeline . . .”

Zach’s body stiffens. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Look, relationships can get complicated. Especially when we’re young.”

Zach shakes his head again. And he looks at me with a combination of pity and disgust.

“I don’t think Marcus Aurelius has a chapter about this,” he says. He walks over to the door and pulls it open, letting in the cold air again. “You’d better go before my Stoicism wears off completely. And don’t ever come back, or I can’t be held responsible for how I’ll respond to you.”

I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. I wish I’d never come.

I do what Zach wants and walk out the door, which he forcefully slams behind me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

MADELINE

SUMMER, TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO

She wanted to go out.

Alone.

She wanted to be alone. But not by herself.

She understood the difference.