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“She gave Noah the cold shoulder when he got home,” Trinity said softly. “She wasn’t rude or anything but she wouldn’t engage with him and he tried. The corny jokes were flowing but they just didn’t land this time.”

Josie sank into the couch, wanting to fight the heavy feeling of utter defeat that felt like it was infecting every cell in her body, but she didn’t have the energy for it. She let it come. Sat with it, as her therapist would say. Let herself feel hopeless and inadequate and frustrated and sad. Just for a few minutes. Tomorrow she’d get right back to doing her best to master the whole guardianship thing because Dex had given her a gift and a weighty responsibility by entrusting his daughter to her, and Wren was worth every moment of strife and uncertainty.

“Hey.” Trinity laid a hand on her leg. “You’re doing fine. Both of you. We knew this was going to be hard, especially this first year. The three of you will figure things out. It will be okay, Josie.”

She gave her sister a wan smile. “Thanks.”

“Want to talk about something else? Or we could watch a really bad movie and make fun of it.”

In fact, Josie did want to ask her some questions. She gestured toward the laptop. “Why haven’t you been up my ass about getting an exclusive on this story?”

Trinity picked up the remote and started scrolling through action movies. “Kyle already promised me one.”

Of course he had.

“Trin, did you ever consider airing the Last Kiss Killer episode without Sylvia West’s interview?”

“Of course I did. Ultimately, I decided not to but I definitely thought about it.”

Josie knew how her sister operated. If she hadn’t been able to get Sylvia, she still would have put together a piece about the attack without Sylvia’s direct input, which meant she’d have done a very thorough, Trinity-Payne-takes-no-prisoners-style investigation.

“Who did you talk to? Her neighbors? Friends? People she went to church with?”

Trinity shrugged, switching her search parameters to comedy films. “Literally anyone who would talk to me who knew her or knew anything about what happened. Do you want names?”

Trout hopped up onto the couch and nestled in between them. “Yes. Names.”

“You have the police file from the Tredyffrin Police Department,” said Trinity. “Why do you need me? If anything, I should be begging you for information.”

“You talked to people years after the attack.” Josie ran a hand along Trout’s back. “Recollections change. You might have spoken with someone the police didn’t know about at the time or didn’t think was relevant. Or someone might have told you something they failed to tell the police when they were initially interviewed. People always tell you more than they tell us.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t carry a gun,” Trinity laughed. “And I’ll never ask them to testify in court, but okay, if you want names, let’s see.”

She leaned forward and searched her laptop until she found the document she was looking for. Clicking it open, she angled the screen toward Josie. Sure enough, there was a list of names as well as the dates Trinity had interviewed each one. Every name was familiar to Josie. She’d spent the last couple of hours reading their statements. There wasn’t anyone who fit the description of Sylvia’s old friend, even accounting for the fact that he would have visibly aged.

“I can send you the interviews and my notes, but it might be faster if you tell me what you’re looking for,” Trinity said. “I promise everything we talk about is off the record and I won’t pry.”

She didn’t need to pry since Turner was giving her an exclusive once the case was wrapped up.

“Did any of them say anything about Sylvia having a close male friend or dating someone?”

“No close male friends. No close friends at all that I could find. This woman,” Trinity tapped a name on the screen, “Arlene Jones, was a neighbor. She was retired and lived directly across the street from Sylvia. She said the only people she ever saw coming and going from the house were Carter and Dean. Never any family or friends. Except for the gentleman caller about a week before Sylvia’s attack.”

Josie chuckled. “Yeah, that’s in the police reports. The gentleman caller. Sylvia said she was mistaken. Told the detectives that Arlene was getting senile.”

Trinity’s hand joined Josie’s, stroking up and down Trout’s back. He sighed contentedly and rolled to his side so they could access his belly, pressing his paws into Josie’s bare thigh. “I spoke with Arlene eight years after Sylvia was attacked and she was sharper than most people our age.”

“Did you ask Sylvia about it in your interview?”

Trinity rolled her eyes. “What do you think?”

She picked up the laptop and balanced it on her leg, clicking away until a video filled the screen. It was from a single camera, capturing Sylvia straight on, unlike the first clip Josie had seen on Frozen Appetizer Sampler Night which had showed Sylvia at an angle on her left side. Trinity hit play and then took a minute to find the part of the interview she was searching for. “Here we go.”

From off-screen came Trinity’s soothing reporter voice. “Do you think that the Last Kiss Killer was someone you knew?”

The skin at the corners of Sylvia’s eyes tightened. Her hand clasped the gold cross at her throat. “God, I hope not. What a thought. That’s terrifying, isn’t it? What kind of person would do that to someone they knew?”

“A friend?” Trinity suggested. “A neighbor? Someone you dated?”