If Madeline isn’t going to blow the lid off things on the publishing side—at least not yet—that means the biggest threat to me remains the police. They think I’m a killer because they think I wrote the book. They know I was lingering outside the Greenfields’ house. And they know I wandered around the neighborhood where she lived. That I watched them so much, Sophia thought there was something wrong with me. And maybe there was . . . but I was watching their normalcy. Nothing else.

Is it possible there’s a way to take some of the heat off with the police?

“I’m going out, boy,” I say. I grab my keys and my coat and head for the car.

It’s easy for me to find the little blue house north of the dog park.

It helps that Bowman gave me a refresher the night before, but even without it, I’d remember. For those months over two years ago when I walked Grendel there, hoping for a glimpse of the couple I now know as Zachary and Sophia Greenfield, that house and the street—those people—loomed larger in my mind than anything in my own life. I don’t think it’s overstating things to say they kept me going and gave me something to look forward to during the grayest time.

They gave me hope.

I park on Iroquois, a few doors down from the Greenfields’. It occurs to me as I lock the car and walk up the familiar sidewalk that Zachary may not live here anymore. Would he want to remain in the house that held so many memories of his late wife? He’s a young guy. He may be off in another part of the country.

But then I look at myself. I’m in the same house I shared with Emily and Jake. Why? Inertia, for one. Who wants to move? But when my family died, many people asked me if I planned to sell, to find a place not so haunted by their memories. My response was the opposite. I cherish the memories—the familiar scents and squeaks of that home. And those details keep Emily and Jake alive for me. My house is like a time capsule, sealing in the things I hold most dear. I can’t let it go.

As I mount the steps to the Greenfields’ wooden porch, I check out the yard. It’s not as pristine as I remember, not as well manicured and cared for, and that makes complete sense to me. If someone were to look at before and after photos of my house, they’d see how much things slipped once Emily was gone and my interest and energy flagged. Zachary must have been the same way, a guy who realized how much harder it is to maintain a life when half of yourself is gone.