“They’re Lena’s. Her wallet and phone.” And I remembered that the cops had found her car abandoned by the river. It must have been staged. Lena was alive, I knew she was. “Can I see that paper?”

Detective Clark slipped on a thin latex glove and moved the piece of paper closer to me. “Don’t touch,” she warned me.

I didn’t bother to answer, bending closer. Half of a torn postcard, its glossy picture one I knew all too well. Winged Victory, the statue from my old museum. The only postcard from Aimee I hadn’t found in my collection. “Can you turn it over?” I whispered, and Detective Clark complied.

On the ragged portion that remained, I read my own name and address in Aimee’s spiky handwriting. Lena had taken the part with the nasty message. If I could only ask her, What the hell is going on?

“I don’t understand.” I stepped away from the table. “That’s a postcard that was sent to me by someone I used to work with. The picture is from the museum where we worked. But I don’t know why Lena had it.” Unless …

Detective Clark started slipping the items back into plastic evidence bags, but something in the angle of her body let me know her attention was still on me. She was waiting for me to give her something more.

Feeling my way tentatively through my thoughts, I said, “The half that’s missing has the message.”

“Any reason she would have wanted it?” Detective Clark’s tone was studiously casual.

Heat rose in my face. How many times had Lena taken my side? How often had she said Aimee should pay? But that was stupid. I’d just gotten a postcard from Lena from right here in Texas. “I don’t know. The part that’s missing has the address for the museum on it.”

Detective Clark gave me a blank look, and I felt like a complete idiot. Nobody needed a postcard to find an address. That’s what the internet was for. “If you think of anything else,” she said, and I could almost hear the subtext: I’ll be shocked. What a complete waste of time.

We’d been arguing with the detective and someone new, an FBI agent, for a while. Michael was their primary witness, an important part of their case. When they thought Lena might be dead, apparently they’d been willing to harass him, imply they thought he might be involved, tighten the proverbial screws. But now that Lena was out there, really and truly, suddenly they wanted to protect us. Even though this might be the last straw that cost Michael his job. Even though being shut up together in a tiny hotel room might kill what was left of our marriage. They needed Michael’s testimony. And Alondra seemed to agree with them. “You’ll be safer,” she told me.