“I don’t know,” I said. “It runs counter to who I believe I am.”

“You can think about it,” she said. “You were young and immature. Young men do stupid things all the time. I believe Amanda would understand. It happened in college. Before you even met her. Before you knew about her sister.”

Sam could say all she wanted about how knowing wouldn’t affect Amanda’s view of me, and I worked to get my mind to believe and accept that. Amanda and I loved each other. We knew each other’s strengths and flaws. Very well. We were committed. Wouldn’t she understand anything I could tell her about myself? Especially something that happened when I was twenty-two?

Wouldn’t I understand if I learned she’d done something horrible? Wouldn’t I try?

Then my mind bounced back to something else. Something Rountree had told me back at Blake and Samantha’s house.

“What prompted him to tell you all of this about college?” I asked. “When did he do that?”

“It was just a few weeks ago. Why?”

“He just unburdened himself of this out of the blue? You said you share everything, but you’ve known each other for a while. Why did this just come up recently? That seems random.”

“Well, that article ran in the paper. The Good Samaritan one.” Sam rubbed the back of her hand against her cheek while she thought. Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, I think I know. I think he ran into someone from college. Someone you guys were friends with back then.”

“Who?”

“He didn’t tell me the guy’s name. I think it was a guy.” She lowered her hand and tapped her fingers against her thigh. “Yeah . . . no . . . a guy? Anyway, it was someone he knew. ‘A blast from the past,’ he called it. Someone you were in that club with. The shield thing.”

“Sigil and Shield.”

“Right. Why didn’t they just call them fraternities? That’s what they called them at UK. Anyway, whoever it was triggered something in Blake, some kind of weird distraction. Since I didn’t go to Ferncroft with you guys, it didn’t matter what his name was.”

“Why did he have his yearbooks out?”

“What yearbooks?”

“At your house today, just now, the detective went in and looked around. She said Blake had his college yearbooks out on his desk. All four of them out, and one open to a page about Sigil and Shield. Why was he doing that?”

Sam shook her head. “I have no idea. I don’t go in his office usually. I knew he had those yearbooks from college, but I didn’t know he ever looked at them. I’ve never seen him doing it.”

“Maybe he was just feeling nostalgic.”

“Could be— Wait. Why was a detective inside our house?” Sam asked. “What was going on?”

“Oh . . .”