I’d been wearing the locket ever since, feeling a closeness to my mother who wore it before me. I dropped the locket and knocked on the door. The Uber that brought me from the train station backed out of their driveway and disappeared down the road. I didn’t tell Andie I was coming up for a visit. Ever since I found out about the photo Andie had kept from me, I felt like I needed to take this journey alone. I also feared she would try to stop me from coming, afraid for my safety now that we knew a killer lurked somewhere in my family tree. But Andie would never really understand how I felt, no matter how hard she tried. How could she when I didn’t even understand my feelings? I tried to push down the festering thoughts planted by the FBI agents. Even if Cris was a bit awkward, he and Rosie were perfectly lovely people and had given me no reason to think otherwise. I had a hard time believing I could be related to a serial killer but if I was, I felt deep in my heart it couldn’t be him. I had already lost trust in my adopted family and discovered most of my biological family were dead; I couldn’t lose Cris and Rosie as well.

I had called Rosie to set up another visit after I’d gotten back from The Beast and arranged to meet three days later when we were all free. I’d had several meetings at work that ran over that afternoon, so I’d called Rosie on the way to the station to let her know that I had missed the train I’d intended to take and would be later for dinner than anticipated. She was gracious and accommodating, promising to keep the food warm until I arrived. When we’d made these dinner plans, Rosie had also offered up their guest bedroom so I wouldn’t have to go back to the city late at night or worry about the train schedule. I had politely declined. Partially because I didn’t want to impose and partially because the FBI’s belief that I was related to a killer hovered along the edges of my subconscious. However much I didn’t want to believe it, I couldn’t help feeling the need to proceed with some caution.