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Blake told me into my standard interview form. “The following investigation was conducted by Elizabeth S. Talbot, of Talbot & Andrews Investigations, on Monday, April 4, 2011, at Stella Maris, South Carolina. On this date…” The format Nate and I use is a clone of the FBI’s FD 302. Judges and attorneys like this. They become familiar with FD 302s in law school, and find the unambiguous bureaucratese soothing. I printed out the interview notes, dated and signed the page, and placed it in the file along with the legal pad I’d found in the sunroom.
    I set my laptop aside, padded over to the Chippendale secretary that housed Gram’s tower computer. I powered up the Dell and performed the equivalent of an autopsy on it. As expected, there was nothing there but recipes, emails of the forwarded-inspirational variety, and Internet bookmarks related to gardening and travel.
    We’d left Greenville that morning before sunup, so by nine-thirty Rhett and I were yawning. We made our way up to the room that had been mine my entire life. Moving into Gram’s room was something I couldn’t bring myself to do.

SIX

    I slept fitfully that night, and had one weird dream after the other. In the most vivid, I sat on the toilet in Merry’s bathroom while Colleen lounged in the garden tub. The dream felt different from any I’d ever had before. It felt real.
    Colleen snapped her fingers, spraying sparks from the tips. “Pay attention.” She pointed at Merry.
    Merry fluffed her hair in front of the bathroom mirror. She leaned in for a closer look and applied a coat of lip gloss. A smile crept up her face.
    A dark-haired man came into the room. He stepped up behind Merry, buried his head in her neck, and wrapped his arms around her. She closed her eyes and sank into his embrace. He raised his head and stared at me in the mirror as he caressed my sister’s breasts. His face came into focus and he grinned malevolently.
    An electric current seared me and I jumped up from the toilet.
    It was Michael.
    “Seriously,” Colleen said. “What do you think you’re doing?”
    I spun on her, primed to pounce.
    “Sit. Watch.” She gestured to the toilet.
    Outraged, I sat back down on the toilet and propped my elbows on my knees and my chin in my hand.
    Merry’s eyelids parted with a soft moan. Then, her eyes shot wide open and she began to struggle.
    Michael laughed and held tight. “You knew exactly what you were getting into.”
    Suddenly, I was flying backward through space. Merry and the bathroom got smaller and smaller, inside a circle that was rapidly shrinking. Then, POP! Merry, the bathroom, and the circle were gone.
    I sat straight up in bed, disoriented.
    It was morning and my phone was ringing. Sister-instinct told me it was Merry before I saw her picture on the screen.
    “Guess what?” she said.
    “What?” I might have been the teensiest bit cranky.
    “I’m leaving Teen Council in Charleston.”
    Merry was the executive director of Teen Council, a Charleston nonprofit that sponsored programs for at-risk teenagers. She was devoted to “her kids,” often spending her days off with them.
    “What?” I asked through a yawn. “Why? You love your job.”
    “I’m going to work for a foundation with this awesome new concept. They help inner-city gang members who’ve been convicted of violent crimes—murder, rape, assault—reenter society after they’ve been paroled. Its focus is building bridges between rival gangs.”
    “Sounds like a suicide mission.” I was alarmed, but knew from long experience the way to talk Merry out of something was not via direct approach. Merry was often a mulish crusader. “Besides, you won’t like living in a big city.”
    “That’s the best part.” She squealed. “I get to work right here on Stella Maris.”
    “I don’t understand.” My deductive reasoning skills are sharper later in the day, after I’ve had coffee.
    “We’re building a high-rise, state-of-the-art facility