“I wanted to talk to you about something. I think—well, I think there’s a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

She leaned back in the chair and put her palms flat on the table. Her fingers were slim and long. Even when she was wet and upset, she had a precision about every motion she made.

“Do you remember what Darren Newman was wearing tonight?” she asked.

“Orange shirt, black pants, some kind of psychedelic tie.”

“That’s right.”

Frankie didn’t say anything more. Her lips were pressed together.

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” Frost asked her.

“I’m not sure.”

Frost smiled. “Look, it’s been a long night for you. Maybe you should get some sleep. We can talk things over tomorrow.”

“No. I don’t think this can wait. Tell me something, do you have any police officers searching Darren’s house?”

“Near the Panhandle? Yes, there’s a team there now.”

“Are you able to reach them?” Frankie asked.

“Sure. What is it you’re concerned about?”

“I was hoping they could text you a picture of Darren’s living room and bedroom.”

Frost cocked his head. “Why?”

“I’ll explain when I see it. I could be completely wrong about all of this, but I want to be sure.”

She was upset enough that he was willing to indulge her. He called the head of the forensics team and put in a request for photos from inside Newman’s house. Less than ninety seconds later, his phone began to chime, and he downloaded a series of pictures of the house from multiple rooms and multiple angles. He handed his phone to Frankie, who scrolled through the photos. The more she did, the more her face darkened.

Finally, she handed him his phone again.

“Well?” Frost asked. “Do we have a problem?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. What is it?”

She breathed in and out, and then she said, “When Darren first came to me, he told me a story from his childhood. He grew up in a rural area not far from Green Bay. He was an only child. When he was seven years old, he built a snow fort for himself during a Thanksgiving Day blizzard. The fort collapsed on him. He nearly suffocated and died before anyone realized what had happened. A lot of the stories he told me in therapy were lies, but that one was true. His mother showed me a newspaper article about it.”

Frost shrugged. “Must have been scary for a kid, but I hope you’re not saying it excuses the monster he became.”

“No. No, that’s not it at all. Do you know what leukophobia is?”

“I don’t.”

“It’s a pathological aversion to the color white,” Frankie said.

“That’s a real thing?”