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“Where are we going?” asked Kate.

“Fairfax Police Department. I’m delivering the note to them.”

“Shouldn’t they pick it up from where Mom left it?”

“Maybe. But I’m making sure this goes straight to the investigative file, not to some news outlet.”

He opened the file beside him and removed a clear plastic bag. The note was inside. On the outside, sealing the bag, was a tag bearing someone’s initials, which confused Kate.

“How did the note get in an evidence bag if you haven’t given it to the police yet?” she asked.

“Half my security detail is former FBI. They know how to handle evidence. I trust my security detail more than I trust that jackass who interrogated us.”

Kate wasn’t interested in arguing over the finer points of evidence collection. “Can I see the note?”

“You can’t open the bag. You’ll have to read it through the plastic.”

“That’s fine,” she said, reaching for it.

He pulled it away. “First, I want to say something.”

Kate suddenly realized why her father was sharing the note this way. She could have hung up on him over the phone. She could haverun into the next room if he had come to her apartment. There was no escaping her father’s explanation while in the backseat of a moving car. She had to hear him out.

“Contrary to what a lot of people think, alcohol is not a truth serum. Just because you say—or write—something when you’re drunk, doesn’t mean it’s your true feelings.”

“I know.”

“Alcoholics can say horrible things. It’s because they’re sick.”

“Dad, please stop. I don’t need a public service announcement. I need to see her note.”

He gave it to her. Kate stared through the plastic. It was written on watermark stationery, the kind her mother might have used to thank a friend for hosting a dinner party. Her mother had beautiful cursive, and her final note was no exception.

Dear Christian, it began, and the fact was not lost on Kate that her mother had left no note to her, just to her father. Kate read in silence. The body was just two lines, the first of which was two words:

I’m sorry.

Her gaze locked onto the second line, which was made all the more mind-boggling by the fact that the note was signed,Love, Elizabeth. Kate’s hand trembled as she read:

I did it for Kate.

She read it a second time, and a third. The grayish-white blur of limestone government buildings in the car window reminded her that she was in a moving vehicle, but she felt more like she was underwater, her lungs filling with the cold dark ocean as she struggled to breathe, to comprehend.

“Forme?” she asked aloud, her voice quaking.

“Honey, it’s like I said—”

“What is that supposed to mean, she did itfor me?”

“Your mother was not well.”

“Well enough to leave a note. What is she saying here?”

“I have some thoughts on that.”

“So do I. She’s sayingIwanted this. That I wanted her out of my life. So she did it. For me.”

“It doesn’t mean that at all.”