I could feel a flush rising. Would she think I was a freak, a voyeur getting off on the grisly details of other crimes, no better than the women who whispered about me in the supermarket or texted each other any new tidbit they’d heard? There wasn’t any excuse I could think of, nothing I could say except the truth.

“I have to know, have to understand more about what happened. But if I do this at home, I’m worried it will upset Michael.”

She tapped her own cheekbone. “Your eye, what happened?”

“I fell out of bed. Last night.” After Michael hit me. But in his sleep. There was no way I could explain that wouldn’t sound like a lie. Even what I’d just said sounded so fake. “It looks worse than it is.”

One corner of her mouth tightened. She didn’t believe me.

“Really,” I added. “I was having a bad dream, and I started flailing. I must have caught the edge of the nightstand.”

“Okay,” she said. Had she bought my sort-of-true story, or was she just reluctant to push the issue? Either way, she added, “Tell me what’s going on with these books. You want to understand what Brady did? Like the details, or”—her gaze fell on the top book—“what?”

“Why he did it. And about Lena.” And Michael, I thought but didn’t say. If I didn’t know anything about people, if I made friends with liars and thieves and murderers, how could I trust my judgment about my husband? Despite my doubts, my heart yearned for Michael, the way he’d rubbed my back when I wouldn’t get out of bed in the depths of my depression, the careful, surprised way he’d held Grace that first time, and the way he’d clutched me close when we’d gotten home from the police station. I believed him. I trusted him. But I’d been wrong before. “I want to know what might have happened with Lena,” I added hastily.

I couldn’t tell from Elizabeth’s expression what she thought about Lena. Dead, complicit, got-what-was-coming-to-her, or some combination of the three. Then she gave a little nod, and I knew that whatever Elizabeth’s opinion of Lena, she was on my side. “I can help, if you want. I mean, I’m still not completely sure what you’re looking for, but I’ll try to help.”

By midafternoon, Elizabeth and I hadn’t found anything that gave me answers. I could imagine Dr. Lindsey asking, “Now what answer could there be that would satisfy you? Do you think there is an acceptable answer?”

But there had to be. There had to be a reason some people were bad, a way to identify them and explain their crimes. Otherwise … on the other side of otherwise loomed a chasm, a deep pit into which I couldn’t afford to fall.