From where I sit, the whiteboard’s writing is messy. It was written hurriedly, slanting up the side of the board as though Angela ran out of room. A word I hadn’t noticed before remains beneath the partially erased numbers: Code. Nausea serrates my stomach. Did Angela simply use our language as an example of a code, or a demonstration to someone? The edge of another word is smeared—ée. Was her cry for help nothing more than a practice session to keep up her skills?

Shit shit shit. I keep my head down and focus on slowing my breathing. My cheeks flush in the cool interior of the apartment. Yellow sunbeams heat my bare calves through the open window; the sun is finally setting at nine o’clock. The longest day of my life.

“Shayna?” Seb speaks loudly, like he’s repeating himself. “The boxes?”

I slide underneath the bed, feeling queasy. Why am I consenting to this exercise in prolonging the pain, the debilitating squeak of hope that’s pierced the emotional armor I donned when I stepped off the plane? Out of courtesy? Politeness? That doesn’t sound like me. Grabbing the closest storage box, I inch it backward, corner by corner. It clears a path through discarded socks.

Sebastien wipes the top as I sit back on my heels. “I wonder how I missed this last week.” He smooths back his hair, dislodging a few dust bunnies. With careful movements, he untucks each flap until the box’s contents are revealed.

This man was so intimate with my sister he had a key or knew where she hid her spare.

“Did you really look through all of Angela’s personal stuff?” My tone lands flat, accusatory, maybe more in line with how I should be interacting in the shadow of the whiteboard message. Although I was aiming for conversational, I also don’t care. I don’t know this guy, regardless of how well Angela did. In some twisted, petty part of my brain, I am mad he was here by himself, in this sacred space.

In the filing box beside me, a layer of tampons covers a photo of Angela’s smiling face, pressed to the cheek of a model, from the looks of her companion. He’s tan, with the right amount of stubble and deep, indented dimples. A Taser peeks out from beneath the picture, surprising me. Had she felt threatened even before the shooting at the Sorbonne?

Seb looks at me, an innocent pinch in his forehead. “Angela passed away. I am trying to follow her last steps and find out why she died, who took her. If I must dig in old crates to determine who, I will.”