Nessie steps a little further into the room. She skims a finger along the spine of a magazine on the dresser, looks at another of the framed pictures. She stays quiet for a long moment, both formulating her answer and cataloging the items in the room.

"I'd say she betrayed him a long time ago." Nessie turns away from Alfred, and toward the bookshelf. For some reason, it's hard to get the words out, and that tightness of her throat might come through in her voice. "When she walked out of his life the first time and didn't reach out afterward."

Among the battered paperbacks, resting against a hardcover copy of Great Expectations on its back, is a little black book, with a worn leatherette cover. Her fingers fair itch to grab it for a closer look, but she restrains the impulse for now.