“I’ve lied. We’ve made mistakes. If you went over there and something went wrong . . . Look, I’m the one who drove you to do it. I wasn’t attentive, or whatever I needed to be. I wasn’t aware of what you were going through.” My thoughts ran together, like cars colliding on a freeway. I tried to make it as simple as possible. As simple and as frightening. “Just tell me everything. I know you didn’t go to the store. And the cops know that too.”

She remained in place with her hands on her hips. But she nodded her head, ready to share it all. “I did go over there to have it out with Jennifer that day. That’s why I called Mom. That’s why I needed a babysitter. I’d seen that she’d reached out to you again just a couple days before, and at that time, I guess the two of you were still Facebook friends.”

“I told you I unfriended her after that last message. That’s why you were able to send those creepy requests.”

“Yes, and I felt like I was being attacked. Like my family was being attacked by her. Not just me. But you. And Henry. All of us. And I felt vulnerable. And I wanted it to end. I just wanted it to end.”

I swallowed hard. “What happened?”

“I found her address. I drove to her house. I looked at it, wondering what was going on inside. Who the woman was who lived there. What had she been through? What did she think about? Were we that different when you got right down to it? I saw on Facebook she worked at a nonprofit, that she was doing important work. I guess it would have been easier to hate her if she was some vapid bimbo.” She shook her head. “How was I to know what her life was like? Or what motivated the things she did?”

“So . . . ?”

“I stared at her house for almost thirty minutes. Frozen. And then I left. I went and got a giant coffee at Starbucks, sat in the park, indulging myself for a while, and then I went home and back to my normal life. Except you lied to me that night and went out . . . and I sent that first friend request. And when Jennifer ended up dead . . . I didn’t know what to think. She might have been dead while I was sitting outside her house. But I didn’t see or hear anything.”