Page 63 of By the Time You Read This

Interview Request, the subject line read.

The message was simple and professional, just laying out that Emily was looking to talk to people on the other side of the argument for a paper she was writing. She also acknowledged that she didn’t expect to hear back from Essi but was trying to be thorough.

“Honestly, if I’d seen that one, I probably would have replied,” Essi said with a shrug. “But my assistant manages my inbox for me. I wentthrough a deluge in the beginning from those people. They all thought I could be convinced to their side. Some of them included death threats, so my assistant just filters them all into a folder we keep in case we have to show the police.”

“Smart,” Raisa murmured.

Essi shrugged and took a sip out of her giant mug, once again looking like a marketer’s dream. It prompted Raisa to ask about something she’d been thinking about. “Hey, you have a book coming out soon?”

Essi grinned, proud. “I do.”

“You don’t have an early copy, do you?”

“No, I’m sorry, all out,” Essi said, with a disappointed pout.

Raisa shook her head. “I’ll just have to buy it like the rest of the commoners, I suppose.”

Essi laughed again and Raisa studied her.

“Forgive me for saying it, but you don’t seem the type to be bothered by harsh emails.”

“Death by a thousand cuts,” Essi said. “I have tough enough skin that it would take a while, but why put myself through that? As long as they’re emailing me—which means I’m relevant to them—that’s all that matters.”

There were flashes of the mercenary side of Essi that Raisa had noticed last time, too, but that was more blatant than she’d been expecting. Raisa decided to nudge the impulse, just a little.

“What’s easier, then? Getting the attention of the people who adore you or hate you?”

Essi’s eyes narrowed, revealing a little glimpse beyond her bubbly facade. That warmth distracted from the fact that, beneath it, there was a thick slab of ice.

“You want honesty? I don’t care. I want them looking at me,” Essi said, holding her hands out to indicate herself. “I’ve never pretended to be a saint.”

“You have, though,” Raisa said, not sure where the brutal honesty was coming from. Still, she thought of Mildred in the parking lot, crying over her dog and the fact that Essi Halla had helped her move on from despair.

“To you,” Essi corrected. “I’ve never pretended to be a saint to you.”

For some reason, it seemed like, to Essi, that mattered.

Gabriela Cruz opened the door just as quickly as she had the last time Raisa had been on her stoop.

“I heard about Agent Kilkenny,” Gabriela said, her eyes wide and curious. Without waiting to be asked, she stepped back, letting Raisa in. Gabriela curled up in her chair next to a whiteboard, which now had Kilkenny’s name added to it. There was something so vulnerable about seeingCallumbeside the rest of the victims that Raisa had to look away.

“I don’t want to talk about him,” Raisa said, firmly. Gabriela would try to get details out of Raisa—that was her personality. She needed to keep the girl focused. “Did you know Emily Logan?”

Gabriela licked her lips. Nervous, maybe.

“I mean, I knew her in passing. She waitressed at the Kraken’s Favorite Fisherman.” Gabriela looked up. “It’s a popular tourist restaurant here.”

“You ate at a tourist restaurant enough times to know one of their waitresses in passing?” Raisa asked. She began to wander the space, stopping by the bookshelf.

As Raisa would have guessed, it was stocked with psychological thrillers and cozy mysteries side by side with all the big nonfiction serial killer books of the last twenty years.

“My friend likes their fried calamari, and they have dollar-drink Wednesdays,” Gabriela said. “Are you going to arrest me for taking advantage of a good deal?”

It was interesting that Gabriela had arrived atarrest meso quickly. “Did you know Emily through school, at all?”

“I saw her around,” Gabriela said. “She wasn’t super friendly when she wasn’t waitressing. She mostly just kept to herself.”

That was what the professor had said as well.

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