“Anyone in this world could kill, in the right set of circumstances. The question is, what circumstances?” I didn’t answer, and Tariq went on. “For profit? For passion? For revenge? To protect those whom you love? Tell me, Lily, are all of those reasons equivalent to you?”

“You’ve left out the only reason to kill another person. Self-defense.”

“Yes, there is that.”

We drove along in a painfully heavy silence. Tariq didn’t seem to care that I suspected him of killing several people. At least, not enough to defend himself.

“The police are treating this as a story that unfolded on New Year’s Eve,” Tariq’s voice was quiet, but it jolted me. “The truth is, it started months before. Alec Gorevale wormed his way into Claudia’s life in the spring. They were together for months, and then…”

Tariq paused. In the silence, I heard my sister’s voice. I’ve been abandoned and I’ve lost every fucking thing I care about. Had Gorevale left her when he’d found out she was pregnant? Then why had he gone to her apartment in September to plead with her? I remembered suddenly what Rachel Heidegger had told me. Claudia had called Rachel in August with big news—her pregnancy, I guessed. But when Rachel had seen my sister, she’d been despondent. She said her boyfriend, the genius, had pretty much thrown her over for his old girlfriend. Apparently Claudia had been staying at his place a lot of the time, but he forced her to go back to her own apartment because his girlfriend was coming back for a visit. When Rachel had said the words to me, I’d been preoccupied with fears about my sister’s relationship with my former fiancé. Now, knowing that she had been living with Dr. Gorevale in Nyack, the facts took on new importance. Who else had Gorevale been sleeping with? In September, had he finally decided he wanted to be with Claudia, and tried to woo her back? Evil old Mrs. Decarno had seen an English man old enough to be Claudia’s father at the apartment. Could that have been Dr. Gorevale?

Tariq’s voice broke into my thoughts. “Whatever happened between them, my Claudia suffered a miscarriage and afterwards attempted to drug herself into insensibility. In the middle of September, she returned to that rehabilitation center in Massachusetts. Then that charlatan Dr. Gorevale died on September twenty-eighth and Claudia checked herself out of the facility and vanished. Another woman surfaced in her place, and then that woman died. Do you not see it?”

“No, I don’t.”

“There are two twisted threads. The police do not understand that they must pull them apart.”

“You haven’t had any more luck finding Claudia than they have,” I pointed out.