Frank doesn’t say anything and I know why.

To Sophie’s father the prettiest girl in the world will always be the one in the refrigerator at the county morgue.

The guest room in the Flynn house says everything about my in-laws—and how they feel about actually having guests. In one corner is Frank’s antique humidor, a mahogany-and-glass piece that he bought in an auction in Tacoma. Paid a lot for it. Bragged about it. Then, like the moron he is, he refinished it from top to bottom. Stripping off the patina of the old wood, polishing the brass hinges, and making it look like it was something off the shelf at a Drexel furniture store. He ruined it. Sophie and I laughed about it. Neither of us said a word to him, however. Someone else must have had the pleasure. It was moved to the guest room from a place of prominence in his home office.

The bed, and no joke, is a rollaway. Not kidding. A torture device with a metal bar that never fails to dig into one’s back around two a.m.

The Flynns were never big on having visitors. I’m all but sure that’s because Frank doesn’t like to share his space with anyone. Frank doesn’t like to share anything. His wife. His daughter. His stupid antique humidor.

Helen had made up the rack anticipating I’d stay over. She even turned on the rummage-sale-reject light on the nightstand. I don’t get it. Everything else in Sophie’s parents’ house is of the best quality. Everything but this room. I sit on the edge of the bed waiting for it to spring shut like a mousetrap. I feel trapped. I want to take my daughter and go home. I want to pull in some air and breathe. I want to mourn my wife’s death before everyone I know tells me how they feel.

Too late for that, I know.

“Adam?”

It’s Helen in the hall outside my door.

“It’s unlocked,” I say.

She cracks open the door. “Linda London is about to give a report on Sophie.”

I get up and follow her to the enormous TV that Frank bought for himself last Christmas. A commercial is on advertising a Memorial Day appliance sale.

“Sit down,” Frank says, or rather commands. “Sophie is top story and she deserves it.”

Like being top story when you are dead matters.

When KOMO News comes back on, a pretty blond anchor introduces “veteran reporter” Linda London from “a tiny town on Hood Canal rocked by tragedy and shrouded in mystery.”

The news writer pulled out all the stops.

Linda stands next to the water’s edge. It’s a live shot, so she’s illuminated by floodlights that do her no favors. Every line on her face highlighted and edged in shadow. She recounts the “gruesome discovery” and how the family is devastated.

Frank shoots me a look. “I talked with her before you got here. Not on camera. Just over the phone.”