“It was Suze who found her,” my dad said under his breath. “They’ve been here for hours.”

Poor Suze. She had mentioned she’d be visiting Crissy today, must have walked into the house and found her unresponsive. My friend looked pale and shaken, and she placed a hand on her baby bump as she and her husband walked toward us.

“It was good of you to come,” I said, hugging each of them in turn. It wasn’t really my place to say it, given my superficial relationship with Crissy, but I didn’t want Felicia to have to concern herself with doling out niceties.

“Any news?” Robbie asked as he distributed the coffees and urged everyone to sit down. When he got to Felicia, he gave her bony shoulder a quick squeeze.

“Not yet,” said Dad.

“What happened?” I asked.

Doug said, “Nobody knows.” But they did know. I could see it in the crinkle of their mouths and the creases under their eyes.

Based on my last two discussions with her, I’d already concluded that Crissy’s blasé attitude about Brett’s murder had been an act. Disaffected as she was, she’d been quick to dismiss her father’s death, quicker still to deny any knowledge of the events leading up to it, when in fact she possessed more information about his last night than anyone save perhaps his killer. That secret had bubbled up in recent days, until she found herself drowning in guilt. I should have spotted it. I was intimately familiar with guilt myself.

“Felicia,” I said, rousing my aunt from her torpor. “I know you don’t see Crissy much these days, but was there any indication she was using again?”

“No.” She said it with a note of surprise. “Crissy was clean, had been for years.”

“It’s true,” said Suze, sweeping a strand of gleaming dark hair from her cheek. “She goes to an addiction support group every week—oh no, oh here, it’s okay.” Suze slid out of her chair and dropped to her knees before Felicia, whose shoulders had started to heave. In the seat next to her, Mom rubbed her palm in slow circles over Felicia’s arched back.

“She doesn’t even drink wine, right, Suze?” said Robbie. “But isn’t this how it is with addiction? Even with a whole recovery plan, outpatient treatment, and behavioral counseling, stress can trigger the cravings. What is it they say? You’re never an ex-addict, just an addict who hasn’t used in a while.”

A relapse, then. It happened, even to those with the best of intentions. “Has she slipped up before?” I asked.

“Never,” Felicia said. “Once she made the decision to stop using, she swore she was done. How could she do this to herself? To the boys?”

A doctor in his sixties who walked with long, determined strides approached our group. As one, we got to our feet.

“I wish I had more news.” His ID badge read Dr. Richard Klingemann, and in the photo under his name, he was grinning. “We’ve flushed the toxins from her system, but we won’t know the extent of the damage until she regains consciousness. Brain injury is a very real concern. The blood work came back, and I can tell you the overdose was caused by opioids. A prescription drug is the most likely culprit.”