The Never List

that haven’t been unearthed. I’d help you with that research in a second, if I could. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
    He was barely trying to hide his jealousy of, and—it seemed to me—contempt for, Adele.
    After a few more fruitless tries to get him back to Jack Derber, I stood up to leave, nearly falling over the chair as I backed out. Exiting as gracefully as I entered, I thought.

CHAPTER 20
    I called Tracy several times that day but got no answer. Clearly, she was avoiding me. There was no way I could piece together what I had without her, so I decided to pay her a surprise visit, just as she had done to me.
    I changed my flight that afternoon and flew into Boston rather than New York. It was good to be back on the East Coast, even if only for a few days. My real plans would take me even farther afield.
    From Boston, I rented another car and took the scenic route to Northampton. I was impressed with myself for so much driving. I was no longer overtaken by debilitating panic when behind the wheel, only mildly discomfited.
    I drove straight to Tracy’s apartment, whose address I had Googled earlier that day. If she could show up on my doorstep, I could show up on hers.
    She lived in an old white clapboard house on a quiet, well-tended block that looked incredibly bourgeois for someone of her ilk. There were two doorbells, each with the names carefully typed out. Hers was on top. I noticed there were bars on the window of the door. Maybe Tracy didn’t feel as secure as she pretended to be.
    I wondered if I would have to wait on her narrow front porch as she had waited for me, but after a minute I heard footsteps on the stairs inside. Tracy peered out at me through the window, and then the curtain flopped back into place. She hadn’t exactly looked pleased to see me, but after a brief pause I heard the lock click. An excellent lock. She opened the door quickly but not all the way.
    “Now what?” she said, hand on her hip. She didn’t have makeup on and looked tired. If I hadn’t known better, I might have thought she’d been crying.
    “I have to talk to you. I’ve been back out to Oregon, and I have more information.”
    “Well, if it isn’t the girl detective.” She shrugged her shoulders and invited me in, sounding resigned. I followed her up the stairs.
    The first floor of the house was cheery, with the palest yellow on the walls and an old dark wood-framed mirror in the entryway. But as we ascended to Tracy’s apartment, the wall color shifted to a dull, muted gray. At the top of the landing I came face-to-face with a framed photograph of a man in chains. That prepared me a little for what waited on the other side of the door.
    Tracy’s apartment was the antithesis of my own. The walls, which were high because the attic floor had been removed to create a huge cathedral ceiling, were painted the same gray as the stairs. They were covered in black-and-white photography and etchings. All the images were ones that would have given me nightmares if I looked at them too long. The overwhelming drabness made it seem as if Tracy had tried to make her apartment into a prison cell. And it worked. I felt trapped.
    If it hadn’t been for the signs of homey disorder and the smell of brewing coffee, I might have turned to leave. One entire wall was covered with built-in bookshelves, crammed full all the way to the top, the larger hardcovers shoved in horizontally, the smaller paperbacks double-shelved. The volumes were so numerous, they spilled out onto the floor, on tabletops, in chairs, some of them open and turned upside down. Some had their places held with gnawed pencils, broken points jutting out of them.
    The apartment was a single large open room, with a loft at one end for her bedroom. I could see the tip of her unmade bed from where I was, the black comforter spilling out a bit over the ledge. She had clearly been working, because in the front corner, her laptop was buzzing on the desk, and what looked like draft manuscript pages were scattered all around.
    “Now you see why I was so stunned by your apartment. Have a seat,” she said.
    She pointed to a chair next to her desk, which held a stack of books precariously leaning against the back of it. She walked over, lifted the pile all in one armload, and tossed it onto the plush couch. They slid across the velvet cushion, half of them landing on the floor. Tracy gestured again to the chair.
    I sat down and launched into an