Clare’s smile was only half-hearted this time as she moved to the door. “Seriously, I’ll be fine. We’ll talk about this next week. Nothing to be done about it now.”

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

“Thanks.” Clare sniffed, raised her chin. “Okay. See you soon.”

Clare had been in such a state, she’d forgotten her coat. Though I’d been tempted to take it to her, I decided she could get it when she came back. If she wasn’t going to really open up to me, then she could wait for her coat.

Shaking off the memory, I rose and moved into Jack’s and my bedroom and then the walk-in closet. Rising on tiptoes, I grabbed an old shoebox and sat on the closet floor. Carefully I removed the top and dug through the random keepsakes until I found the small point-and-shoot camera.

The battery had gone dead a long time ago, but when I’d discovered Clare had left it tucked in her coat pocket, I’d opened the viewfinder and looked at the pictures. I’d scrolled back to the November dates and looked at the images. Marisa sitting on her unmade bed. Jack with Brit. The morning sky. An art show in the city. And the partly turned face of a guy I didn’t remember. Was he the guy?

The camera had also proved that Jack had been around Clare about the time she got pregnant. I had always thought Clare told me everything, including anything to do with Jack. But maybe Clare and Marisa were more alike. Marisa sure had kept her night with Jack a secret for thirteen years.

I’d never told anyone about Clare’s baby or the camera, not even the police detective who stared at me with the wary eyes of a predator. I’d never told Brit or Marisa. The baby was a secret that I alone had shared with Clare and the camera my only tangible souvenir of her. Besides, telling would’ve broken the bond between us, and I couldn’t let that last tentative connection break.

The cops must have figured out about the baby. There’d been an autopsy that had delayed the funeral by a week. And Kurt had told me the cops had taken cheek swabs from all the boys who’d been at the party. There’d been no public announcement about the pregnancy, and Marisa never mentioned it. I figured the baby was one of those details they were keeping secret. Their ace in the hole to catch the killer.

Once I’d seen an autopsy on YouTube. It was gross, and I’d been thinking about Clare as the doctor’s knife sliced around the breasts and down the belly, creating a Y shape. Imagining Clare getting cut up made me cry.