“You’re not in any trouble, Madeline,” Wallace said. “This is fairly routine. And I’m not even the lead investigator on the case. I’m just helping out.”

Madeline knew there was only one door. And if she went out a window, it was a three-story drop to the yard below. She took her life in her hands enough just by going up and down the rickety stairs every day.

“We went to get coffee sometimes,” Madeline said. “Just to talk after yoga. And I saw her out at a concert once. And we talked there.”

Madeline had noticed Sophia a month before they ever spoke. Sophia looked older than Madeline by a few years and wore a wedding ring on her left hand. Sophia’s body looked like it was chiseled out of rock, like it would take several good-sized men to be able to push her over. And maybe not even then. Madeline had once stood behind her at yoga and marveled at how gracefully she did every move, her blond hair in a long braid down her back. More than once, Madeline had opted to do child’s pose instead of something particularly difficult the instructor presented. But not Sophia. She had done everything, never missing a beat. Strength, beauty, and poise had radiated from her as if they came from a glowing core.

“What did you talk about?” Wallace asked.

Madeline knew she couldn’t tell Wallace everything they’d talked about. She couldn’t say any names, not in a town as small as Gatewood, a place where everyone seemed to know everybody else three times over. And Wallace was here to talk about Sophia’s life. Not Madeline’s.

“I guess I just told her some of my problems,” she said. “Mostly we talked about school. My future plans. My writing. I’m working on a thesis, and it’s kind of . . . Well, one of the characters is based on Sophia.”

“Is it finished? Can I see it?”

“Oh, no. Not even close. In fact, I might . . . I might trash it and start over. It isn’t very good.”

“How did Sophia feel about you writing about her?”

“When I first told her, I guess she thought it was a little weird. But once I explained it, she didn’t seem to mind. She was really supportive. And Sophia gave me good advice. She listened, and, you know, she was a little older, so she saw things the way my friends couldn’t.”

Friends. Madeline didn’t have a lot of friends. She had talked to Sophia in a more real way than to any of them. Sophia just seemed to invite that kind of openness.

“Did she ever talk about her own life?” Wallace asked.