Ellis and I must be getting close, I realize, if whoever it is has now gone to the trouble of threatening me directly.

I curse Peyton, willing her to pick up her phone. I need to know if she saw anything, or ran into anyone on the way – but a wave of clarity crashes over me. I can’t tell Peyton. Peyton, who’s already worried about Ellis’s well-being, who will certifiably rage if she thinks our endeavour, previously only maybe emotionally manipulative, has somehow actually turned dangerous. And neither can I tell Ellis, who, too, would be dissuaded by the threat of reprisals, who at this point could possibly be scared enough to confide in Sylvia.

No forced entry, no breaking and entering. So who has keys? Sylvia, I realize.

This is getting complicated quickly. Maybe I have to tell Ellis. And I realize we haven’t yet spoken about Ellis’s great-grandma, even after Frank’s intimation that she’d abused Roxy.

I try to picture the scene: Sylvia comes into the dorm, smashes everything, because – because of some terrible family secret. Because what if Constance had killed Roxy that night? I suddenly realize I know hardly anything about her. This is an enormous oversight, even after everything Lenore had said. Maybe an argument got too heated one night; I picture the B and B, a body slumped over a couch, in a bed, a thrown glass striking a temple.

Maybe Ellis’s mom knows more than she is letting on.

But Ellis has just given a speech about family. About family being the only thing you really have, about family being irreplaceable, and – oh God, I can already see the glossy film of his eyes if I even so much as hint that maybe instead of all-loving his was self-destructing.

I can’t ask about this yet.

The same person who sent them that letter put the note in Roxy’s car all those years ago. Or, at the very least, would have written both of them.

And based on the absolute state of my dorm room – they’re getting closer. They’re already closer.

Could it have been Ellis’s great-grandmother? Is that the theory I was banking on? For the note, maybe, but the letter – obviously the letter came after she died. She couldn’t have sent both. Even if she arranged it in a retrospective ‘put this in my mailbox after I die’ way, why would she have done that? And about herself?

Nothing makes sense. A headache coils around my forehead. This is all wrong.

What do I tell Ellis? He can’t know about the podcast and he can’t think I suspect his mom had anything to do with anything.

Peyton gets back around nine at night. She’s unusually cheery – not that it’s unusual generally, but it certainly is lately, given the new sombre tone of our relationship and our string of disagreements.