Violet felt her palms start to sweat.

She’d looked at the files, yes, but that was all she could do. She nodded.

Sara waited for something more and then filled in the blanks herself. “But nothing?”

Violet half-shrugged, half-nodded, not sure of the right way to respond. She realized that she was dangerously close to crossing that line, to admitting more than she wanted to, but she also needed help. And Sara was her best bet right now.

“That’s okay. I want you to know you can trust me, Violet. Whatever you came to discuss stays right here between the two of us.”

This was it, Violet decided. “I need your help,” she blurted out. “Or at least I was hoping I could ask for it.”

Violet watched Sara, wondering at her lack of reaction. Either she really wasn’t surprised that Violet had come to ask for a favor or she had a great poker face. Violet was putting her money on the poker face.

“What is it you think I can help you with?”

Violet shifted closer to the edge of the couch. “I have a problem. At home. Well, not really at home. But with someone who doesn’t seem to like me, I guess you could say.” Words suddenly seemed inadequate. “Someone has been leaving me messages. And hang-up calls.” She paused briefly before confessing the last part. “And a dead cat.”

The poker face cracked, just slightly.

“Are you sure it was left for you? How do you know that you didn’t just happen across it?”

“It was left in a box, next to my car. Whoever put it there did it in the middle of the night so I would find it in the morning.” Violet reached into her purse and pulled out the folded pink paper. “And later, there was a note left for me at school.”

“May I?” Sara asked, stretching out her hand.

Violet was already handing it to her, and she waited while Sara read it. Violet chewed nervously on her lip.

“What do you think?” Violet finally asked.

Sara refolded the paper but didn’t hand it back to Violet. “It’s definitely a warning. And you think Rosie was supposed to be the cat, right?”

Violet nodded.

“Right,” Sara agreed. “What about the calls?”

“Hang-ups mostly, usually right when I answer them. But sometimes whoever it is stays on the line a little longer. I’ve talked to them, but they never answer me. I thought I knew who it was,” Violet admitted. “But it turns out I was wrong.”

Sara eyed Violet carefully as she asked her next question. “How can you be so sure you were wrong?”

Violet decided to be vague; the last thing she wanted to do was to drag Megan’s name into this. She’d been through enough already. “I just know. It wasn’t her.”

Sara weighed Violet’s words as she scrutinized her, not suspiciously but inquisitively. Violet felt as though she were being interrogated without a single word being uttered.

“So you think it was a girl then?” Sara finally asked. “Or, rather, you thought it was a girl?”

Violet shrugged. “Well, yeah. The note. And the handwriting . . .” It didn’t seem like a whole lot of evidence. But then the other part of her suspicion—the imprint she thought she’d seen—had proven to be mistaken. It hadn’t actually been Megan. She supposed that a boy could have forged the note.

“It is decidedly feminine in nature,” Sara agreed. “Even the tone of it. However, killing an animal is generally not female behavior. Not to say that it’s impossible, mind you. Anything’s possible, and I’ve seen some terrible, and extremely contradictory, things in my job. May I keep the note?”

Violet nodded eagerly. Hopefully. “So you’ll help me?”

Sara leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “Of course I will, Violet. I’ll do everything I can to figure out who would do this. Do you have any other leads or suspicions about who it might be? Have you made any enemies recently?”

Violet had gone over this again and again. She couldn’t think of anyone obvious.

She shook her head but then paused. There was someone who hated her, someone who had been hell-bent on making sure Violet knew how much she resented her.

“Lissie Adams. Elisabeth Adams,” Violet answered. “She goes to my school.”

Violet tried to recall the last time she’d seen Lissie at school. She couldn’t remember exactly, but it could have been before the cat had been left at her house.

Sara scribbled Lissie’s name on a notepad she’d pulled from her pocket. “Can I ask you one more question, before you go?”

Violet nodded again, this time a little more hesitantly.

“I understand that you’re not comfortable talking about this, and I respect that. I hope that in time you’ll feel you can confide in me.” Sara placed a hand on Violet’s knee. It was meant as an encouraging gesture, but to Violet it was terrifying. It meant that Sara was asking Violet to share her secrets. “I know you won’t tell me what it is that you can do, but can you answer me this?” She didn’t wait to see if Violet was willing or not; she just asked her question. “You can do something, can’t you?”

Chapter 24

Violet had driven home in complete silence, without even the radio to replace the buzzing that filled her head. She preferred the stillness; it gave her the opportunity to sort out what had just happened.

How had Sara gotten her to admit that she had a secret?