Something inside me became frighteningly still.
“I’m going.”
Daniel shook his head.
“No.”
“That isn’t your decision.”
“If whoever sent this has Emily—”
“Then I’m going.”
Rebecca stepped closer.
“Margaret, Michael spent decades hiding because people were hurt when they got too close.”
“Michael also spent thirty-four years lying to his wife.”
Her face folded.
Good.
I wanted someone besides me to feel pain.
The police tried to stop me.
I listened to none of them.
At 3:15, I left the hotel wearing the green dress from the night before beneath a dark coat.
Daniel followed me into the lobby.
“If you truly care about Emily,” I told him, “don’t follow me.”
He stopped.
For one second, I saw the man from the bar again.
The man who had made me laugh.
The man who had listened.
The man I had allowed into a part of myself I thought had disappeared with Michael.
