Sam felt a tingle of sensation attack her backbone, which happened whenever she felt like she’d had a breakthrough in an investigation. “Can you think of anything from the last few weeks of her life that was suspicious or worrisome in any way?”

“There was one night, about a week before she died, when she didn’t come home, didn’t call or text to let us know she was staying out. That was wildly out of character for her since her last time in rehab. She knew how her mother worried about her and would never have given her reason.”

“Did you find out where she was?”

“She said she ran into an old friend and lost track of the time. She was all apologies for making us worry. I was a little hard on her that next morning. I let her have it for worrying her mother, and she broke down into tears. I felt bad about that for days, but she needed to understand how we felt.”

He glanced up at them. “Part of me couldn’t believe I was still having that conversation with my thirty-two-year-old daughter. They say parenting never ends, but I was ready to be done with that part of it. All our friends’ kids… They’re married with big careers and kids and mortgages. Morgan was so far behind them, but she was catching up. At least we thought she was.”

“Did her behavior change at all after the night she didn’t come home?”

He seemed to give that some considerable thought. “Now that you mention it, she did become a bit withdrawn. We figured she was upset with us for making a big deal about that night and that she’d snap out of it eventually.”

“And that lasted for the final week of her life?”

“Yes,” he said, tearing up, “and I’ll always regret that one of our last interactions was me screaming at her about being irresponsible and how sick I was of her bullshit.” He swiped at a tear. “I’m going to have to live with that for the rest of my life.”

“You said what any parent would after what you’d been through in the past,” Sam said.

Freddie stood. “Excuse me.”

Surprised by his sudden departure, Sam watched him go.

“My wife says the same thing you did about having every right to get after her, but still…”

“You couldn’t have known what would happen a few days later. Can you tell me about that?”

He blew out another deep breath. “Morgan was a night owl. That’s why restaurant work was good for her. She didn’t have to be there until four and often worked until after midnight. She was usually up and about by late morning, but that day, my wife got home from doing some errands and found it odd that Morgan wasn’t up yet. So she went to check on her…” He lowered his head. “I’ll never forget that phone call at work. She couldn’t get Morgan to wake up. EMS was on the way. She was completely hysterical.”