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That morning at the Chronicle , Lynn Grant was on her phone in her office with the door open.

“Yes, Sue, you’ve got the east… Carol Trent’s got north… Right, keep us updated.” Seeing Denise arrive, Lynn ended the call. “I gotta go.”

Lynn hung up, then greeted Denise in the newsroom.

“Hey, kiddo,” Lynn said.

Denise set her take-out coffee down on her cluttered desk. “Heard you on the phone—what’s up?”

“Lining up our stringers for this storm, could be a doozy. And, on another matter, congratulations.”

Light applause emerged from other newsroom staff, eliciting a small smile from Denise. She pulled off her jacket, picked up her coffee and raised it in a toast, bowing her head slightly in salute to her colleagues.

“We’re a team.”

Lynn said: “That was another great story. The Chronicle can run with the best of them. In fact, the networks are calling again.”

“And look at the reader response since it went live at midnight.” Kelcey was scrolling on her computer. “Listen to these posts, Denise: ‘Stunning story.’ And this one just popped up. ‘What’s going to happen to Carrie when the DA reopens the case?’”

“That’ll be for us to find out and report.” Lynn clapped her hands together. “Right now, we’ve got a storm coming and work to do. Marco, come see me for a sec.”

Lynn returned to her office with the young reporter close behind. Denise stepped to the coatrack, hanging up her damp jacket, and Kelcey followed her.

“Denise, not all the comments are good. Some of these trolls and haters are relentless. Listen to this one: ‘Will the Chronically Terrible ever get it right? Next week it’ll be the governor who did it.’”

Denise shrugged. “Comes with the territory, Kelcey.”

“Well, I think you deserve a Pulitzer.”

Denise smiled, touched Kelcey’s shoulder, then went back to her desk, stopping in midreach for her coffee as she noticed the brown envelope sitting on her keyboard. It was addressed simply with block letters printed on computer paper, cut to a credit card–sized slip and taped to the front.

DENISE DIAZ

REPORTER

THE CLEAR RIVER CHRONICLE

No postage. No return address. Odd that it hadn’t come through the mail. She picked it up and pivoted to her colleagues.

“Who put this here?”

“I did.” Marco, notebook in hand, had just come out of Lynn’s office. “I get in early, come through the back door. It was wedged in there. Figured it was fan mail, or crackpot conspiracy stuff.” He chuckled.

Looking at it, Denise reached for her scissors, sliced it open and shook out a folded sheet of paper. The letter, in bold uppercase, printed in single space from a computer, took up the top half of the page.

FOR YEARS MY WORK STOOD AS LEGEND. FOR YEARS I BAFFLED AND PERPLEXED POLICE. FOR YEARS, I MYSTIFIED THE WORLD, HOLDING PEOPLE IN FEAR, DRINKING IN THEIR REVERENCE WHILE REMAINING SILENT.

YOU TRIED TO TAKE IT AWAY.

FIRST YOU GAVE DRH CREDIT. NOW, YOU’RE GIVING CC CREDIT. YOU INSULT ME. YOU WILL SEE BY THE TRINKET I SHARE, THAT I AM THAT I AM AND MY WORK CONTINUES.

Denise felt something else in the envelope. Sliding it out, her scalp tingled as the face of Abigail Elissa Hall stared at her from a Texas driver’s license.