Kate kicked the blanket off, pushing it down around her legs. She knew what Blaire was thinking––that Lily was too old, too much of a mother—for some young guy to be fawning over. He should have been flirting with them, not Lily. But it happened all the time. Men and women alike were drawn to Lily. Kate wasn’t even sure her mother realized the effect she had. It was just part of who she was. Kate couldn’t count the number of times her father had said how lucky he was to have married her. That couldn’t have been an act. So they had an argument. But kill her? Never.

Wanting a distraction, she opened her work email and scrolled through to see if there was anything from the foundation requiring her immediate attention. Though her board had been giving her space to mourn, there were always requests coming in through the foundation’s website that she needed to review. She sighed wearily when she saw there were over forty new emails. She methodically clicked each one, saving some to an action folder, forwarding others. Her hand froze when she heard the ping of a new email arriving. It was from Private Caller; the subject line was “Especially for You.” Before she could think about it, she clicked on it.

There was no text, just an audio file. Her heart beat faster as the sound of an out-of-tune piano came from the speakers and a discordant version of “Pop Goes the Weasel” began to play. At first it was just the music, but soon a guttural voice, sounding distorted, like it had been through a mechanical voice changer, began to chant:

All around the mulberry bush

The killer chased the doctor

The doctor thought ’twas all in fun

Dead is the doctor

Kate grabbed her cell phone and fumbled as she tried to swipe it open; she had to put the passcode in three times before getting it right. She dialed Detective Anderson, gasping for air as the phone rang and rang. His voice mail eventually clicked on, and she choked out, “It’s Kate English. I’ve received a threatening email. But I guess you know that. Please call me back.”

She hoped the police would be able to trace the email to a physical address this time. She dialed Simon, but it went straight to voice mail. She pressed the end button in frustration. Why was no one answering? She called Blaire next.

“I was just going to call you,” Blaire said.

“Can you come over?” Kate asked, the words gasping out of her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Another message.”

“I’m on my way. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”