“The police and investigators never give you all the information they have. They’ve always got cards they’re hiding underneath the table,” he said as we drove, slowing at a stoplight. “But yet they want you to share everything with them. You’re expected to be an open book.”

“At least we have nothing to hide,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter. They still treat you like you do.” His voice burned with anger, no doubt remembering the wringer they’d put him through.

Abbi murmured and stirred in the back seat. We hushed until she fell back to sleep.

“She was unrecognizable,” I said. I’d been through all their photo albums and had watched the home videos with them numerous times.

He gazed solemnly out the window. “I don’t know. I see her in there.”

I’d looked in her eyes, too, but that was not what I’d seen. They had looked dead to me.

“What did she say when you were holding her?” I asked.

He blushed, mumbling something underneath his breath that I couldn’t hear.

“What’d you say?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.

“Yes, it does. It could be important. Remember Marcos said to remember everything she said, even if it seemed insignificant?”

“She said . . . she kept saying, ‘I’m so sorry, Scottie.’”

“Scottie?”

He nodded, looking away.

“You told me you hated being called Scottie.”

Red crept up his neck. “I mean, it’s just . . . you know . . . it’s something stupid she used to call me when we were like ten.”

That was the thing with the two of them. They had been best friends before they got together, so they had known everything about each other, because that’s how it is with a best friend. Scott used to say they had known each other so well she was practically in his DNA.

“That’s cute,” I said, forcing a smile. I didn’t doubt he loved me, but I’d never forgotten those years I’d spent listening to him describe how losing Kate had been like losing part of his body and that he was only half a person without her.

KATE

THEN

I fumbled in the bottom of my purse, digging for my grocery list. Instead, all I found was a Ziploc bag full of crushed Goldfish and the red lollipop Abbi had gotten from the birthday party she’d gone to last Saturday. I let out a frustrated sigh. I probably left it at home again. God, I hated grocery shopping on Sunday afternoons. The store was always packed with people, and the shelves were half-empty, but our week had been too hectic to go earlier, and now I had no choice, since we were out of milk.

I jumped out of the car and slammed the door shut before hurrying inside. I only had an hour before I needed to pick up Abbi from preschool. I always told myself I was going to get so much done while she was at school, but the four hours flew by so fast, and now that I was getting more writing assignments from my editor, Leo, my time was even more crunched.