Back at my cottage, desperate to speak to someone about all I’d discovered, needing to understand how Vera could turn on me so quickly, still shocked and scared from my confrontation with Davis, I typed the message with shaking hands.

It’s Lucy. Any way you can meet me today? I don’t know who else to talk to.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Woodstock was eerily different at night – a still scene, empty and frozen, like a David Lynch film or an Edward Hopper painting gone wrong.

Every light was off as I drove down Tinker Street, passing Schoolhouse, a hippie candle shop, and a cluster of overpriced clothing stores.

Another block, and I spotted Platform, the only place still lit up. I slowed as I approached it. Half-covered with a dusting of snow, it looked almost like a postcard, or one of those overpriced paintings they sold in galleries at the mall. A shiver ran up my spine as I remembered what Vera had said. Sam apparently spent every night there. I wondered if he was there now.

I pressed the gas, passing Vera and John’s gallery, and two blocks down, I turned onto a quiet, winding street. I pulled up in front of the address I’d typed into my GPS, a small brick Colonial with white trim and a tidy red mailbox. Careful not to slip, I made my way up the stone walkway, already coated in a light sheen of ice. Above me, the moon was like a silver dollar. Nearly full.

On the porch, I glanced around me, behind me – it was hard to shake the feeling of being followed, being watched. I rang the bell, and while I waited, took in the odds and ends: Clay flowerpots arched with snow. A hummingbird feeder, sugar-water frozen. Remnants of summer past.

The front door opened, and she smiled, ushering me in.

Rachel was draped in a burgundy poncho, one she might have crocheted herself, from the looks of it. Without saying a word, she wrapped me in a hug, holding me so close I could smell her shampoo – something with apples or cinnamon, something warm.

She pulled back. ‘Tell me you like pinot noir.’

I nodded, my pulse slowing. ‘I do.’

‘Good,’ she said.

She gestured to a pale gray midcentury-style sofa and told me she’d be right back. I shrugged out of my coat, setting it on the rigid arm of the sofa, and took the room in. It was minimal to the extreme, just as she’d said, done in shades of gray and white, an unexpected contrast to the colorful sorts of clothes she always wore. The coffee table was all glass, with edges that looked almost sharp, topped only with a Diane Arbus photography book. Beside it sat the pristine Eames chair she and her ex-husband had argued about. The only points of departure from the absence of visual stimuli were the walls, which were covered in photographs.