“Just thinking.” I opened the top drawer and pulled out a change of clothes. I’d hidden the laptop and the sketches in my dad’s closet, along with that damn key, before sneaking back into bed. But his eyes had opened as I slid under the sheets, and I’d felt him staring at the side of my face as I rolled over.

“Did you sleep at all? I woke up, and you weren’t here.”

“A little. I couldn’t get to sleep for a while, so I did some more packing.” I walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower, hoping Everett would drop it.

“I heard you,” he said. He was standing in the doorway, watching me squeeze toothpaste on my toothbrush.

I started brushing my teeth and raised my eyebrows at him, buying myself some time.

“I heard you come in. What were you doing out there?” He gestured through the walls to the woods. Everett grew up in a city where a girl wandering the streets at night wasn’t safe. Where woods were unfamiliar or dangerous or an adventure to be shared with friends and a tent and a six-pack of lukewarm beer.

I spat into the sink and said, “Just taking a walk. Clearing my mind.”

I felt him in the room, taking up space, and I held my breath. He knew how to get to the truth. It was his goddamn job. If he wanted, he could push from every different angle until I cracked in half. He was very good at what he did.

But he let it drop. “I need to spend the morning at the library,” he said. “Can I take the car?” Any time he needed the Internet, he had to go there. This house didn’t even have a phone line.

“No problem. I’ll drop you off.” I watched the water circling the sink drain, my mind on the other side of the trees, searching through Annaleise’s drawings.

Everett was beside me then, and he pulled my chin so I was facing him, the toothbrush sticking out of my mouth. I jerked back. “What?” I said.

His hand dropped, but his gaze held, the corners of his mouth tipping down. “You look exhausted,” he said. “Your eyes are all bloodshot.”

I looked away, put the toothbrush down, and started stripping for the shower, hoping he’d focus on something else.

“You know, you can take something to help. To sleep. We’ll go to the doctor tomorrow.”

In charge. Taking over. Making the plan. Averting the crisis.

The steam slowly began to fill the room. Even as he backed away, he was looking into my eyes.

* * *

I PULLED THE CAR up to the library entrance, which looked like a library only if you knew what you were looking for. It was once a Victorian home, two stories with bay windows and a wraparound porch. It had been partially renovated—walls knocked down to open up the spaces—but the creaky stairs and heavy banister and single bathrooms remained.

“How long do you need?” I asked.

“Sorry, I’ll probably be most of the day. We go to trial next week.”

“Didn’t take the plea?”

He cut his eyes to me. “You’re not supposed to know about that.”

I’m never supposed to know. Didn’t stop me from asking, though. A few nights before I left for here, I was trying to finish all the school counselor documentation for the end of the year. I’d sat across from Everett at the table while he worked, the contents of his briefcase strewn across the entire tabletop. I’d run my fingers across his papers, the highlighted lines, the notes in the margins. “Parlito case?” I’d asked. There was a phone trace he was trying to get thrown out. And if I was reading it right, there was a proposed plea bargain.

He had grinned and stacked the papers back up. Reached under the table, at my legs resting on the chair beside him, and squeezed my calf. I ask every time. It’s a game at this point. He never tells. Truth is, I love that he doesn’t. That he is both good at what he does and good down to the core.

“Call me when you’re ready,” I said, squinting from the glare through the windshield.

He grabbed my elbow before opening his car door. “Make an appointment to see a doctor, Nicolette.”

* * *

SOMETIMES, WHEN I’M NOT focused, I’ll end up someplace I had no intention of going. Like muscle memory. Head to the store but end up at school. Walk to the bank, end up at the subway. Drive to Daniel’s but find myself in front of Corinne’s old place. Which must’ve been what just happened, and how I ended up parked on the corner by Kelly’s Pub even though I had every intention of heading home.

My eyes drifted over the storefront, over the awning, to the window a floor up with the air-conditioning unit hanging over the edge. The blinds were open.

I needed to talk to him about that key, anyway. And he wasn’t answering my calls—not that I really blamed him.

I pushed through the entrance into the vestibule area of Kelly’s Pub and cringed as the bell chimed overhead. At least at night, there was too much noise to notice. I could smell smoke and grease and something stale underneath as I passed the open doorway inside on the way to the narrow stairwell. “He’s not here!” someone called, and the sound of laughter drifted out from the darkened room.

I took the steps two at a time to the alcove with a door on either side, facing the one on the right. I knocked rapidly three times, waited, and tried again, pressing my ear to the door. Then I called from my cell, my ear still pressed to the door, and heard the periodic vibration of his phone from somewhere inside, until the voicemail picked up: Hey, this is Tyler. Leave a message. Maybe he was in the shower. I tried to listen for the sound of water in pipes or any movement inside. I called again—the vibration, the voicemail, and nothing else.

Another round of laughter from downstairs. I checked the time on my phone: one P.M. on a Sunday. The new five P.M. I used to find my dad here during summer break. But not this early. Never this early.

I turned to go, but the creeping feeling that I was being watched started at the back of my neck, worked its way down my spine. The stairwell was empty. The door at the bottom was closed. I listened for movement somewhere nearby. A shuffling in the walls. A breath in the vents. There was a shadow in the tiny strip of light escaping from the apartment door across the hall, but it hadn’t moved. I stepped closer, keeping my movement as quiet as possible.

Could be the angle—sunlight and furniture—but . . . I stared at the peephole, leaning closer, my own face distorting in the reflection. Like a fun-house mirror, too-big eyes and too-small mouth and everything elongated and sickly.

I knocked once, softly, but the shadow didn’t move. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I closed my eyes, counted to ten. This was what happened during an investigation. You felt eyes everywhere. You became suspicious of everyone. Everything fell apart if you didn’t hold yourself together. Hold it together.