“He dumped this in a trash can on the skyway,” Voss said.

Lila didn’t get to watch them fish Gavin’s body from the river. Instead, they took her to the Homicide office in City Hall, where she listened to the recording of her confrontation, filling in those words that had been lost behind the rustle of her clothing. As she worked with Niki on the transcript, Matty dug through the green folder, inspecting the pages one at a time. As Lila was finishing her account, Matty lifted the hidden SIM card into the air.

In the moment of silence that followed, Matty and Niki must have formed the same thought, because they both reached for their phones and opened their SIM card trays to try and slide it in. It didn’t fit. Lila laid her phone on the table and Niki popped it open, fitting the card into place. A few taps on the screen and she said, “Two text messages sent to a single number. Nothing else.”

Lila leaned in for a peek and saw the phone number—and recognized it.

* * *

At six o’clock on a dreary Thursday evening, Lila Nash knocked on Sylvie Dubois’s door, a microphone once again tucked beneath her clothing. In those few seconds as she waited for Sylvie to answer, Lila contemplated the truth she now knew, the one that broke her heart. Lila watched through a small window in the door as Sylvie approached, padding her way as if this were just another day and the knock at the door just another visitor.

When Sylvie saw Lila, she paused, one hand on the knob, but then opened the door and said, “What are you doing here?”

Lila looked into Sylvie’s angry eyes and struggled to find words, as though the axe she brought to destroy her friend’s world had suddenly become too heavy to swing. Finally, she managed to say, “Is John here?”

“No, and you need to go.”

Sylvie started to close the door, so Lila blurted out the one thing that she knew would stop her. “Gavin Spencer’s dead.”

Sylvie tried to hide her shock, but failed. “Who’s Gavin—?”

“Your cousin.” Lila watched the color drain from Sylvie’s face. Matty had been the one to find the connection. Sylvie’s mother and Gavin’s birth father were stepsiblings, a tie that Matty found only because he now had an idea of what to look for. It had been the last piece Niki needed before sending Lila in.

“I don’t know what…you’re talking about.” The shake in her voice said more than words ever could.

“I was with him when he died, Sylvie.”

Sylvie looked behind her, to where her son Dylan stood in the hallway, a stuffed dachshund under his arm.

“We need to talk.”

Sylvie turned to her son, her voice so weak that Lila could barely hear it. “Mommy’s gonna talk to her friend. Go watch TV till I get back.”

Dylan hesitated, but then headed into the living room. Sylvie walked onto the porch, and she and Lila sat in the same chairs they’d sat in the last time. When they got settled, Lila said, “I know it was you, Sylvie, in my car…that night in the bean field.”