A small sphere of light appeared out of the blue. Emma spun around to see Ethan, holding a pocket Maglite out in front of him. It was attached to his key ring. He handed it to her. “We should keep the lights off,” he whispered. “We don’t want anyone to see us from the street. I’ll check the living room and Dr. Banerjee’s office. You take her bedroom. Meet back here in five minutes?”

“Okay,” Emma said, leaning up to kiss his cheek. Then she turned and slipped into the hall, sending the flashlight’s beam ahead of her.

Motes of dust swirled in the pale light. The pictures along the hall seemed to leer at her, grotesque in the dark. She flinched as she stepped on a squeaky floorboard, the low squeal sounding as loud as an alarm in the thick silence. What if Garrett chose this moment to rebreak into the house? What if he arrived only to find that she and Ethan had beat him to the punch? She shuddered at the thought of what he might do.

At Nisha’s bedroom door she paused. Even though she’d already searched this room once, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the evidence was here. She knew from her years as a foster kid that the only safe hiding place was somewhere personal, close to you.

Her heart thudding against her ribs, Emma paused in the doorway, sending the orb of light slowly over Nisha’s things but carefully avoiding the window. Everything was just as it had been the last time she visited. Crystalline vials of perfume sat on top of Nisha’s dresser, next to a small collection of tennis trophies. The creased spines of books faced out from the shelf, neat and alphabetized, and the bedspread was smooth and unruffled. Next to the Compaq laptop on the desk lay a DVD case for the BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries—Nisha must have been watching it before she died.

Nothing seemed out of place. Emma hit her fists against her thighs in frustration, her nails digging into her palms. Nisha had found something important—and it was still here. Emma could feel it in her gut. But where would she have hidden something that important?

The thought came to her slowly, like a lens coming gradually into focus. Emma had hidden plenty of things herself—she’d spent her childhood protecting her scant treasures from nosy foster parents and kleptomaniacal roommates. She inhaled sharply. It seemed too much of a long shot, too simple an answer. But it was worth a try. Creeping on the balls of her feet, she pushed the door to Nisha’s bathroom open. A small night-light flashed on from the outlet by the mirror. She knelt down by the cabinet and started opening drawers.

There, in the gloom beneath the sink, was an enormous, Costco-sized carton of Tampax.