‘Why’d she do that?’

‘Nana always said she was so much her own person that no one could name her anyways. I don’t think she meant it as a compliment. I think Roxy started going by Roxy when she was, like, eight.’

‘Where she’d get it from?’

‘I dunno. Nana thought she took it from the word moxie.’

‘And Raines?’

He shrugs. ‘She wrote a lot about nature and stuff. I think she probably just liked how it sounded.’

There’s also a box for a Suspect, where someone’s name should have gone; this, naturally, is blank. Not whited-out – I make sure.

‘Isn’t Mary Anne the one with the diner?’ I ask. ‘The woman I’m working for?’

‘Yeah, that’s her.’

‘Well,’ I say. ‘That’s lucky.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Sometimes people insert themselves into an investigation when they’re guilty. We’ll need to talk to her.’

‘You sound like you know what you’re talking about.’

I turn poised to fight when my brain interprets it as an accusation, but it’s not. It’s a compliment.

‘I – I don’t know about Mary Anne, though,’ Ellis says.

‘Why not?’

‘I mean, her and my mom have been close forever. And helped us out with stuff. Money when we needed it.’

All the more reason for her to be a suspect, really, but I do my best to assuage him. ‘Well, sure. Not a suspect necessarily. But she might know something more than what’s written here. Is this the only page in the report?’

‘Yeah.’

Unless, of course, the rest of it was moved. Or hidden. And there was still the question of why none of this was even in the folder to begin with. ‘We might also want to have a chat with our friend Booker and find out why the folder was empty. I don’t know how we’d bring it up without it being obvious we’d snooped, but –’

‘Wait, there’s more,’ Ellis says; ‘the note that it talks about. In the car.’

I swipe over to the next image.

i am so sorry to all my Friends but I must Go suddenly. please do Not come looking for me. by the time you read this i am Long Gone. God bless

‘Ellis,’ I say. ‘This is ridiculous.’

‘Yeah, I thought so too.’

I read it again, again, and I love that it’s the original – I can see all the minutiae of the pen marks, the swirls of letters where whoever wrote this had pressed too hard, where the pen ran out and they had to scribble again. I only wish I could have held it myself. The thought that this might have been Roxy thrills me – and the thought that it might not have been her thrills me equally.

But I, like the others, do not think Roxy wrote this.