Willow comes up holding her own candy bar, and I think I see a trace of a smile on her face. She’s trying hard not to admit having fun, but there’s still a child inside her.

“Aren’t you cold, Willow?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Not really.”

“She refused to wear a coat, and I got sick of arguing,” Cora says.

Max races away while we follow on the sidewalk. Willow stays with us on the sidewalk for a couple of houses before finally joining him.

As soon as Cora and I are alone, she starts in on me.

“So people are talking about you,” she says.

“What?”

“You know what,” she says. “Apparently some cop from Milwaukee came here to talk to you?”

Tasha. I was wondering when this moment was going to come.

“He’s just closing out the case on Riley,” I say. “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing?” Cora’s voice is sharp. Piercing. “A cop comes all the way out from Milwaukee, and you don’t even think to tell me?”

“It has nothing to do with you.”

Max comes suddenly bounding back like a golden retriever puppy, updates me on his loot, then slips back into the night. I don’t know where Willow is.

Once he’s out of earshot, Cora says, “Anything that involves this family and the police affects me. Affects Dad.”

“Cora, I—”

She whips her face toward me. “First, you lose your mind at the book club. And now some cop is here asking questions? People are saying all sorts of things.”

“Things like what?”

She leans in and lowers her voice. “What do you think, Rose? That you did it. That you killed Riley.”

“I didn’t—”

She cuts me off. “I don’t want to know. Don’t even tell me, because I don’t want to have to lie for you. But that’s what people are saying. I know personally of three people who went out and bought your book after all this talk started. They wanted to read the scene where the husband is killed by the wife. So good for you. More sales.”

My head is swimming. How did this all spiral out of control so quickly?

“Tasha,” I say.

“What?”

“Tasha Collins.”

“That horrible girl from high school?”

“Yeah, she’s still horrible,” I say. “And I think she lives near Dad, because she walked her dog in front of the house.”

The impatience is obvious on Cora’s face.

“So?”

“So this was right after the cop left the house, after he interviewed me. He was sitting in his cruiser with local PD when she walked by.”

“Great,” Cora says. “She’s probably fueling all this. Between that and the book club freak-out, everyone thinks you’re a killer.”

“I can’t control what people think.”

“Don’t act so helpless,” she snaps. “The Riley situation is not my problem. Your last book doesn’t concern me. What does concern me is your new one. Did you change it?”

I clench my gloved fists into balls, then release, over and over. It doesn’t relieve any tension.