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“I don’t know. I don’t know why she called me.”

“If she thought she was in grave danger, she would have just called 911,” Josie continued. There hadn’t been any 911 calls from Kirstie. “If there was some issue with the house or if she didn’t feel safe, she would have called Dean.”

For all they knew, she had tried to call Dean. They wouldn’t have Kirstie’s phone records for hours, possibly days.

“You think she called you because she felt threatened by Dean?” asked Gretchen.

“I don’t know.”

“There’s no other reason you can think of for your sister-in-law to call you?”

“If it’s something to do with Mom or the girls, or if there are plans for something, she usually just calls Erin.”

Josie said, “Your mother just died. You, Dean, and your wives are planning her funeral. When you saw the missed call from Kirstie, your mind went right to the possibility that Dean might have harmed her.”

“No! No! That’s not it.”

“That’s what it sounds like,” said Gretchen.

“Carter,” Josie narrowed her eyes, “has Dean ever been violent toward Kirstie?”

“No! Not really, no.”

Gretchen raised a brow. “Is that no or not really?”

He let his head hang back, his face angled toward the ceiling. Squeezing his eyes closed, he sighed. “Sometimes she would just push him too hard. He gets agitated. When we were kids, he played football and he had a few concussions. There were a couple of bad ones. Ever since, he just gets anxious.”

Josie had read some studies linking multiple head injuries to a potential propensity for violent behavior. “Did he ever hit her?”

Carter shook his head hard. “No, he never hit her. Never. But he scared her once or twice. He got worked up and trashed the house. The second time, he pushed her out of his way to get past her and she fell. Broke her wrist.”

“When was this?” Gretchen said.

“A little over a year ago.”

“She didn’t report him? Call the police?” Josie could check for herself but she wanted to hear it from Carter.

“It wasn’t like that. He didn’t mean to break her wrist.”

Josie glanced at Gretchen and could practically hear the unspoken words from across the room. He didn’t mean to hurt her, said every domestic abuser ever.

“She called you, though,” said Josie.

“Yeah. Both times. I got him calmed down. Everything was fine. He made it up to her. They worked it out, but I told her if he ever got like that again, she should call me.”

“When you saw the missed call from Kirstie from this morning,” Josie said, “you thought it had happened again.”

“I didn’t know what to think. I don’t know what the hell is happening. Everything is just falling apart. Nothing makes sense. Our mom was just killed by a serial killer. A serial killer. Then we find out she lied to us about dating that weirdo, Fisher. Now Kirstie. I don’t— What’s happening to us? To my family? A week ago, everything was normal. Things were good. I’ve got two little girls at home who deserve to have good childhoods. I don’t even know how to help them deal with all this because I don’t understand it myself.”

The confession poured out of him, raw and vulnerable.

“You wanted to ask your brother if he had killed his wife?” Gretchen said. “Is that why you wanted to speak with him?”

“No, no. It wasn’t like that.”

Josie suspected that Carter found his intentions difficult to articulate. He and Dean were extremely close. They had grown up filling in for their parents when needed. Carter likely wouldn’t have needed to ask Dean any direct questions about Kirstie’s death. It was possible that he’d know just by laying eyes on his brother whether Dean was to blame or not.

“Dean didn’t hurt her,” Carter said. “I shouldn’t have even brought it up. I don’t know what I was thinking, just that he’s my brother. I don’t want to lose him, too. Besides, my mom and Kirstie in the same week—don’t you think that’s weird? What if that Last Kiss bastard has it out for my family? Shit. I should send Erin and the girls away. She’s got family in Massachusetts. They could go there.”