Jack had found me. He’d been out dumping the trash, and I must have moaned or done something to catch his attention. He’d cupped my face in his hands and pried open my eyelids with his thumbs.

“What the fuck have you done?” he whispered. “I’m not doing this again.”

“I miss Clare,” I muttered.

“You and I are too much alike. Loyal to a fault.”

He’d called the rescue squad, Narcan was jabbed into my system, and I was dragged back from the brink.

For a couple of months after the overdose, I’d been more measured, but not sober by any stretch. I didn’t inflict the self-made errors that had derailed me too many times. Still got buzzed from time to time, but nothing outrageous. And then I’d cleaned up for good last year.

I fumbled for my bedroom light switch, flipped it on, and sent more light spilling over the nightstand and the untouched prescription bottles from the doctor, my reading glasses, a battery-powered alarm clock, and a small pair of Clare’s gold hoop earrings I’d jerked from my ears the night of our birthday.

I moved toward the closet, gripped the doorknob, drew in a breath, and yanked it open. Inside were the few clothes I’d bothered to put on hangers, a collection of ankle boots in varying shades of black, and a suitcase I’d not used in years. Next I moved to my darkroom, opened the door, and found only the print I’d developed the day before swaying from the clothesline.

“No one’s here,” I whispered. “You’re alone.” Just as it should be.

Back in the living room, I slowly closed my apartment’s front door and slid the dead bolt into place. The unsettled feeling chased me to the kitchen, where I slowly lowered my purse onto the counter. I slid my phone into my back pocket and collected Richards’s notes from the floor around my desk. I’d already read them twice but was certain I’d missed something. Was this what Richards did with his cases? Did he stare at the files, endlessly revisiting them, even praying over them for the small detail that danced out of reach, like a 1990s sitcom name?

A can of seltzer in hand, I sat on my couch, staring out at the river and the Richmond skyline. I took one sip, found the taste too plain, and set it down. My head dropped back against the couch as I stared at the ceiling. Adrenaline finally crashing, I slowly closed my eyes, surprised my mind was so easily slipping to that euphoric place between awake and asleep. Thinking I should reread Richards’s notes, I fought to stay alert, but the soft lure of sleep, now stronger than the notes, guided me toward an edge. One more step, and I fell face forward into sleep.