I nodded and turned back to my drink, my face burning. At first I’d thought he was a bit young to be off work in the middle of the work day, coming to check out the star of his favorite true-crime sob story, but I guessed podcasts were a young person’s sort of thing. He took a stool at the bar two down from mine and put his arms on the counter. The owner had ducked away again, thinking I’d be the only person in the room for a while and wanting to give me my privacy. The young man was dressed neatly, like he’d just left the office to come down here. Deliberate short stubble and pomade in his hair. The quintessential hipster at work. Neither of us spoke, though I felt him watching me and tried to ignore it. I flicked through stories on my phone about Melanie Springfield, sent a text to Dale Bingley.

How’s the car hunt?

He got back straightaway.

None of the guys on the sex offender list had Falcons. Thinking some of these Falcons might have been sprayed at home or color not updated on rego. Losing faith.

The “losing faith” line made my blood run cold. If there was one thing I needed, it was for Dale to keep his faith that we could find Claire’s attacker. If he decided that her attacker was, in fact, me, there was no telling what he might do to my house. My birds.

Don’t lose faith, I wrote. He is out there. We will find him.

Dale didn’t answer.

Did you see this? I sent him a link to the story about Melanie Springfield’s retraction. If he knew I wasn’t guilty of that, perhaps it would help.

He didn’t answer.

Are you still at my place? I asked.

“I’m Kevin, by the way,” the young man said. He reached across the space between us awkwardly and offered a hand. When I shook it, it was limp. Cold.

“Ted,” I said. “But you knew that.”

“Yeah,” he said with a laugh. He was wringing his hands on the bar top, nervous, rubbing his fingers together too hard. “There’s so much I want to ask you. About it all. You know. How you could have … How you could have survived it, I guess.”

“Well…” I stared at the bottles on the shelves behind the bar, found myself lost for words. He’d asked the one thing I really didn’t have an answer for. How I’d survived it. How I kept going on. “I suppose you’ll get your chance…” I gestured toward the room, letting him know I thought I should probably keep question time for the audience when they arrived. He nodded vigorously. I felt bad for shrugging his question off. I was about to offer him something when two huge figures appeared at the edges of my vision and Linda and Sharon pulled out stools on either side of mine, groaning as they heaved their bulky bodies onto the creaking, struggling wood.