It took three hours to make it to Lenox, Massachusetts, thanks to Jesse’s pedal-to-the-metal school of driving. On the way, he explained how he had roped Renfrew—or Norah, as he was calling her now—into getting me out of the city. “She tried callin’ your cell to tell you the case was bein’ shut down,” Jesse said. “It was off, so she called me to get Tariq’s home number. We got to talkin’ about Idylhaven, and how that’s the next place she and Bruxton woulda gone to investigate your sis’s disappearance, ’cept now they can’t ’cause they’re off the case. I told her we were plannin’ to go there, and she thought that was smart. Then I told her all about that no-count guy who followed you, what’s-his-name Robinson, and she got all worried.” And so a plan was hatched. I was grateful for what they had done for me, even if I felt bad about making Jesse as paranoid as I was. Since I’d told Martin about the man who’d followed me, I hadn’t seen anyone tailing me, but I couldn’t be certain of anything anymore.

We were halfway there when Jesse said, “You know, it just hit me that with all the places we’ve been together, we never got to the Berkshires before.”

“That’s not so strange. Plenty of New Yorkers never go to the Berkshires.” I’d been there only once, researching a spa story for a magazine. That seemed like another lifetime now. I was sifting through the stack of pages in the folder. I’d already gone through the entire folder and hadn’t seen anyone who could pass for Claudia. One photo had make my heart skip a beat, until I realized I was looking at my own sister’s face; she had had to sign the same privacy-enforcing document as everyone else. Now I was holding the pages up at odd angles to see if they reminded me of the woman in the morgue. So far, no one had.

Jesse gave me a smile, but the wattage was dim. “I used to spend a lot of time up in this neck of the woods.” It hit me, as he said the words, that western Massachusetts was where Jesse’s ex was from, and where his family still lived. “Lil, you look like you just swallowed a catfish.” Jesse grinned for real.

I closed the folder. “I’m sorry. I’m a totally insensitive jerk. I feel awful.”

“Honey, he’s the insensitive jerk,” said Jesse. “You’re the girl who gets away with bein’ preoccupied, given that her sister’s on the lam.”

“I should remember something like that.”