“Just leave it for me, Mrs. Althorp,” she knew Brenda would protest in the morning. And I’ll say it only takes a minute to tidy up, Gladys thought. Tidy. That was the way to describe what I’m doing now. Trying to tidy up the most important piece of business in my life before I leave it.

“Maybe six months,” the doctors had agreed when they delivered the verdict that she hadn’t yet shared with anyone.

She went back into the study, her favorite of the seventeen rooms in the house. I’ve been wanting to downsize for years, and I know Charles will once I’m gone. She knew the reason she hadn’t. Susan’s room was here, everything still exactly as it had been when she left that night after knocking on the bedroom door to let Charles know she was home.

I let her sleep late the next morning, Gladys thought, once again replaying that day in her mind. Then, finally, at noon I looked in on her. The bed was still made. The towels in her bathroom hadn’t been touched. She must have gone right back out after announcing she was home.

Before I die, I have to try to learn what happened to her, she vowed. Maybe this investigator can find some answers. Nicholas Greco was his name. She had seen him on television talking about the crimes he had solved. After retiring as a detective from the New York City Police Department, he’d opened his own agency and become well known for solving crimes that initially had seemed unsolvable.

“The families of victims need closure,” he had said in an interview. “There’s no peace for them until they have it. Fortunately, there are new tools and new methods being developed every day that make it possible to take a fresh look at cases that are still open.”