Stevie felt a light, floating feeling rising up from her heels, shooting through her spine and out the top of her head. David was coming. David was going to be here.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously.”

“When will you be here?”

“Couple days,” he said. “A friend of mine is going to lend me her car.”

“A friend? Who will lend you her car?”

“Jealous? You should be. She’s hot. She’s also sixty-three and has two grandkids. Does yoga every day. She’d put my back out.”

A feeling like warm, spreading sunshine crept over Stevie’s body.

She had a cold case, she had a locked-room mystery, she had her friends, and now, she would have David.

In that moment, it was possible that Stevie had never been happier.

12

STEVIE HAD AN INDIFFERENT RELATIONSHIP WITH BIKES. SHE KNEW how to ride one. At one point in her childhood she had owned one, but she never really rode it and the tires deflated, so her parents sold it at a yard sale. Bikes, however, were now her main mode of transportation.

Allison Abbott may have been able to do the ride in fifteen minutes, but for Stevie it was a sweaty forty-five-minute ride around the dirt trails that said they were excellent for biking but were actually uneven and pitted and unexpectedly narrow at times with surprise rocks. Also, where Allison lived at the far end was almost entirely uphill. By the time Stevie arrived, it was almost seven in the morning, which felt to her like a win. Judging from Allison’s face when she opened the door, she did not feel the same way.

“I thought you would be here a bit earlier,” she said, holding the door open for Stevie to come inside.

“Took . . . a while.”

“Would you like a drink?”

Stevie nodded heavily, sweat running down her face. Allison got her a large glass of water. As she gulped it back, Stevie took in her surroundings. This was a clean kitchen. It was more than that—this was a precise kitchen. The handles of the mugs on the shelf all faced the same way. The stainless steel fridge had no marks on the outside, and the inside, which Stevie saw momentarily, looked factory-pristine. There was nothing extra on the counter, no weird piles of stuff, no random pieces of paper or notes. The dish sponge sat up straight like a soldier, drying in the optimal manner. There were clear containers of things like cereals and grains in an open pantry. This place had shades of Hercule Poirot, who always needed things to be of perfect size and in the right place.

“I wanted you to come here because I have something to show you,” Allison said. “This way.”

Stevie followed Allison into the hallway, which had dozens of carefully framed photographs of family and friends. At least a dozen were of Sabrina. Not one was crooked or unevenly spaced. Stevie followed on, up the carpeted stairs, past more framed photos. The house was like a gallery. There were Allison and Sabrina sitting side by side on a step, a black-and-white dog between them. Sabrina and Allison, the latter with a gap-toothed smile, opening Christmas gifts by a tree. Sabrina and Allison squinting into the sun at the beach. Sabrina and Allison by the lake. A whole wall of Sabrina Abbott, with her raven hair and big brown eyes, her wide, open smile. Sabrina was beautiful, there was no question about it. There was a brightness to her, a determination that shone through the decades and the poor seventies photo quality that tinged the world in sepia.