Our neighbors’ garage had been spotless and well lighted, just like the inside of the trucks Brady’s contractors used. Each truck had a laminated inventory of its contents to be checked before every call. That was Lena’s doing. She was the reason Brady kept expanding his business. She was the reason Michael and I didn’t own a power drill. I knew exactly where she kept hers in its designated slot in her highly organized garage.

Some of the questions the police asked had been about their relationship. Had she seemed afraid of Brady? Did it seem like she was excessively willing to please him?

But that was nonsense. Lena hadn’t been afraid of anyone, and she sure as hell hadn’t seemed in thrall to Brady. If anything, she had been the one driving their business and arranging their home. Maybe he’d resented that and one night he’d just lost his temper. Maybe she’d learned what he was doing and he’d killed her to keep her quiet. Maybe.

I thought uncomfortably about my older sister, Charlotte, how surprised I’d been to hear her marriage was over. Maybe I didn’t know anything about relationships. Maybe the friendship I’d thought I had with Lena had been a lie like my friendship with Aimee. Maybe she hadn’t chosen me because she liked me. Maybe she’d been stalking me.

I was standing where two paths diverged, but this wood wasn’t yellow, it was pitch-black. One path would plunge me off a cliff; the other would dump me into a swollen river, and there was no way back out again. And there might be a killer out there, wearing the face of my friend.

Snatching the handle of the can marked INT and a screwdriver from the toolbox, I hurried inside, locking the door behind me like I’d never done before.

The press was there on the front lawn of Lena’s house and ours. I couldn’t flee the noise of the destruction next door by walking Grace around the neighborhood in her stroller or even checking the mail. And all those people out there—the crime show commentators, stringers from the national news, and maybe just some true-crime junkies—they didn’t have any answers for me, only more speculation.

Just like I probably was the subject of speculation for my neighbors.

I set the paint and screwdriver in the nursery next to the spackling gear. One hole down, at least half a dozen left. I might be able to fill them all before Michael came home.