She knew her sister was struggling, but to miss their father's funeral, this is something beyond what Nadia could ever have imagined.

I knew leading up to it that she'd had some big whammies in her life.

She had a, an engagement breakup.

She had my father's diagnosis of cancer and then his death.

She met someone who introduced her to OxyContin, and I think that started...

You know, she was in a lot of pain, not physical, but psychic.

And so that's what really had her slipping at work.

And that is the engine, I believe, that really pushed you to need to discover this story and to understand who she was and who you are and how you can raise your son knowing her even though he'll never know his aunt.

It was, whoa, it was really,

and also, this is also in the book, but when my dad was dying, I was single at the time and I was just kind of, kind of happily single in a way.

I mean, a lot was going on in my family, but like for the first, I'd gotten out of a relationship and I wasn't sure how I felt about marriage, but then One of the last days he was dying, I said to him, I was like, I promise I won't marry a loser.

And I said that to him and he was actively dying.

And like, he looked up at me and I was like, oh shit, he heard me.

Oh God, why did I say that? Why did that come out of my mouth? You know, because obviously I knew on some level that that was like a concern of his.

And that was for me, I'm like, that's not the fulfillment of maybe that will happen, but that's not what I'm going for.

Did it shape the way that you view kind of how your parents responded to your sister's addiction?

Yeah.

Maybe.

But if there was something for me to learn...

And I did learn things.

I did, and I think there are things maybe that I could have done differently.

But would it have changed things? I don't know.

But the why was also just that it felt like, here's this brilliant, beautiful woman, uh, who was in the world, and her, her purpose that she felt was to help other people and to celebrate and give dignity to lives that are different.

Yeah

It starts the book.

Yeah, not at all.

Here I go.

"August 2nd, 2015.

Dear dealer, you may know who I am, but I don't know who you are.

This is a problem.

You knew my sister, my sister Sasha.

I'd like to get your response, Nadia.

Here's Nadia.

"Dear Dealer, Hey, man.

What's up? I'm saying man because that's my guess as to what you are.

All the people blowing up my sister's phone offering and seeking drugs were men: Brian, Jerry, Eric, and my personal favorite, Baby Jesus.

I can make a graph charting the meeting of particular men with misfortune for my sister.

It's a safe bet you're just another data point, one among many, part of a pattern, but distinguished because you're the last data point.

You're the one who killed her.

[laughs]

So Corey, how on earth? What does he say to you? What does he say, Nadia? So

he, you know, he sits down and he was like, I have to tell you something.

And he puts his hand to my shoulder and he's like, it's about Sasha and- And I was like, okay.

And I described this in the book.

I'm like, I'm used to things being about her, you know, like what she do, but this feels different.

And he said, she was found in her car.

She couldn't be resuscitated.

You know, what was it like to learn that? And why the detective?