Katie drove slowly home. The streets were deserted, and only the occasional barking dog broke the silence. Her brain felt overwhelmed by all the information she had gathered in the last week. She didn’t know how it all fit together or even if it all fit.

Ellen had been researching something and arguing with Christopher. Katie had convinced herself that Christopher had killed his wife to cover up his relationship to Marilyn. According to Beth, there was a lot of money at stake if Jack Riley had more heirs.

But Christopher’s attack had her rethinking all her assumptions. Could it have been Dan, Christopher’s son? Had he found out what Ellen was up to and tried to silence her? Maybe Christopher had decided to come clean about his sister and nephews. If Ellen’s death and Christopher’s injuries were connected, it seemed even less likely that Nick or his wife had anything to do with it. They had no reason to attack Christopher.

She climbed under the covers even though she knew she wouldn’t sleep for a long time. Just as she felt herself relaxing, she heard the train in the distance. According to Matt, that meant nothing bad would happen tonight. Maybe it only worked for Matt.

An hour later, Katie got out of bed. Her brain was running in circles, and she needed to do something else to distract it from the perpetual loop it was on.

She padded into the dining room and flipped open her laptop. Even though she’d looked at everything that Caleb had found on Ellen’s laptop, she felt she needed to go through it all again. If only to assure herself that she had considered everything. Why didn’t Ellen have a file of notes where she spelled everything out? Or a list? If anyone looked at Katie’s laptop, they would know exactly what she was working on.

She had to look at everything again from the point of view of someone who might want to get rid of both Ellen and Christopher. Katie had to admit that the first time through, she had been seeing these files from Ellen’s point of view and considering why the contents had sparked a fight with Christopher. Since discovering his sister, she’d decided Christopher was guilty, so all the notes were filtered through that lens. It was an intern’s mistake to make a snap diagnosis and force the symptoms to fit the illness. It was the way things got missed.

So this time, she would read through everything with an objective view. Rather than thinking “Christopher would have thought this” or “He would have wanted that kept a secret,” she had to determine how the pieces might all fit together.

She clicked on the first file.

* * *

Two hours and three cups of coffee later, Katie was no closer to solving her mystery. She was jittery from the caffeine but also exhausted. She snapped the computer shut and rested her head on top.

She may have fallen asleep because the next thing she knew, she was sitting up straight in her chair. She’d heard something outside. Footsteps on the porch? She glanced at her watch: three thirty. She got up, went to the front window, and peeked outside. The streetlight had burned out. Her house and her neighbors on both sides and across the street all sat in darkness. Down the road, lights glowed dimly through the mist.

She was about to put the shade back when a shadow pulled away from the side of her house and melted into the neighbor’s shrubbery.

Without thinking, Katie ran to the front door and pulled it open. She was almost off the porch before she realized how stupid this was. She had no idea who was out there, no way to protect herself, and no one knew where she was.

She backed slowly toward the door, scanning the yard and the street for any sign of movement. She stepped onto the welcome mat and felt a crumpled piece of paper under her foot. She picked it up by the corner and let it fall open.

A shiver of cold went up her spine. She stepped inside, closed the door, and bolted it.

“What’s going on?”

Katie screamed and spun around. Caleb.

She held out the paper with a shaky hand.

He took it, and she saw his jaw clench as he read.

“We’d better call Carlson,” he said.

“No, he has enough to deal with tonight,” Katie said. “I’ll call him in the morning.”

“What were you doing outside?”

Katie explained that she couldn’t sleep after returning from the ER, her work on the computer, and then hearing the noise outside.

“Will Christopher be okay?”

“I think so,” she said. “He’s lucky, really.”

“Hard to consider him lucky when he’s been run over by a maniac.”

“I just meant, it could have been worse.” Katie walked into the living room and sat on the couch. “Whoever did this is getting desperate. To try to run him down in the middle of town doesn’t seem like the action of a stone-cold killer. Ellen’s death was so planned out, so careful. This was . . . I don’t know . . . reactive?”

“Did you figure anything out by looking over the notes again?”

“Not really. I just wanted to look at them all without thinking that Christopher was guilty. I figure he didn’t run himself down, so maybe he also didn’t kill his wife.”