Sundays had been her favorite day of the week because of her family, until Beth was murdered and Catherine couldn’t pretend anymore. Pretend that her job didn’t affect her. Pretend that she was normal.

Still, even though they were separated, Chris brought Lizzy into the city after church and they would go out for brunch. Not the same as before, certainly, and she was never as comfortable as she had been when they were still together, but she loved them. She loved them so much that it hurt, and if she lost them like she’d lost Beth she didn’t know how she could survive it.

Which was why she had to step away. No one seemed to understand that. Chris tried—and she loved him for it—but he didn’t realize that if she lost him, she would be dead inside.

But she couldn’t live like his, in a half-packed condo. Late last night she’d unpacked most of her boxes. She realized she wasn’t going to sell. Maybe Matt was right. Maybe working again would give her other crimes to focus on instead of Beth’s murder. And she couldn’t very well live with her mother, who had made it perfectly clear that she blamed Catherine for Beth’s death.

Catherine had enough blame and guilt of her own.

After unpacking, a couple hours’ sleep, and a half pot of coffee—Catherine sat at the computer, her alarm set to remind her when Chris would arrive. She pulled up her emails, thrilled that Matt and his team had uncovered so much information about the potential killer. Catherine spent the morning reading the two lawsuits that had been brought after the pileup on Interstate 90 in Liberty Lake. She didn’t have a sense of who the killer was from those two men—an older man, perhaps, still grieving for his wife, angry that the hospital—that the nurse, Anne Banks—had chosen to save someone else over his beloved. Catherine could picture the grieving husband going after her—but so many years later? And why the other victims?

She still felt the murders were committed by a younger man, based on several factors, not the least of which was his chosen murder weapon and the time before the first kill. She wouldn’t rule out Hamilton, but McCafferty fit better. The lone survivor in his family. The lawsuit itself was tragic. He’d been trapped in the car with his dead family for an hour. What could that have done to a teenager? The lawsuit was clearly filed by an ambulance chaser. They had sued everyone, and no case had merit. But the young man could have believed that the hospital, the police department, the fire department, that everyone was to blame. He’d been impressionable and facing a horrific loss. If he didn’t have the support of extended family, he could have internalized his pain and yes, years later, taken it out on those who he twistedly decided to blame. And he was younger than Zachary Hamilton. Catherine’s entire profile had been built on skewing to a younger killer. McCafferty would be thirty-four now, right in the middle of her profiling sweet spot.