Her baby’s name catches in her throat.

“I decided when I found out what happened.”

“It’s a lovely tribute.”

“Sophie was amazing.” Tears roll down Janna’s cheeks. “I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to referring to her in the past tense. It’s so wrong. You have to catch the guy who killed her.”

“We’re working on it.”

She hesitates a little. “I don’t know who it is, but I just can’t imagine it’s Adam. I just can’t get there.”

“Why’s that?”

Janna takes a deep breath. “He’s a jerk. He’s insufferable. He’s stuck on himself too. He’s all of that. But he also knew that he was lucky to have a girl like Sophie. She was the best thing that ever happened to him. And Aubrey? She was icing on the cake. No marriage is perfect, and they had their problems. I hope you know how much I loved her, because what I want to tell you can come out wrong.”

She stares at me. I can see that she’s about to let her tears fall.

“Say it,” I tell her.

“Sophie and Adam deserved each other. They really did. She was private. Quiet. She also had a depressive, dark side, and he was oblivious half the time. A shitty match for survival if you ask me.”

Before the drive back to Shelton, I check my messages. There is one from Adam.

His voice is soft. He’s not whispering, but I get the impression that he’s talking in a low voice so as not to disturb anyone. Maybe his little girl?

“I hear you have identified a person of interest,” he says. “I’m still processing everything and wondering what I’m going to do now. Just wanted to call and thank you for everything. You were always special to me. Your entire family was.”

He’s thinking of Kip. Not me. I know it. He’s remembering how our father took him and Kip fishing on Neah Bay every year from junior high school to the summer Kip enlisted in the military. I went a couple of times when I was older. But it really was The Adam and Kip Show all the way. I was merely an add-on, the awkward girl with a crush on my big brother’s best friend.

For no reason I can name, I listen to the message two times more before deleting it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

LEE

The Kitsap County Coroner’s Office sits on a hill above a landscape quilted by rows and rows of shiny new cars, just off Auto Center Way in Bremerton. I drive up to the parking area alone. Montrose is ferrying his kids in three different directions before he comes in, since as he put it “Tuesday is Monday this week” and his family’s all upside down.

I’m thankful for the simplicity of my life.

To the left as I pull in I see some navy recruits working out on a field adjacent to the complex. I think of my brother whenever I see the young faces of the men or women who serve our country. They join for many reasons. Some to fight. Some to get out of a bad situation here at home. Others do it because struggling for something is the fuel for their very existence. Like Kip. He was that way. A fighter.