THE HOSPITAL SAID MY NINE-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER WAS GONE — AND MY HUSBAND BE.GGED THEM NOT TO LET ME SEE HER. TWO WEEKS AFTER THE FU.NERAL, OUR LOYAL DOG DR.OPPED HER YELLOW CARDIGAN AT MY FEET. IT WASN’T TORN. IT SMELLED LIKE HER SHAMPOO. AND THE SLEEVES WERE STILL WET WITH PURPLE PAINT.

I followed his eyes.

At the end of the row, maybe three hundred yards out, a truck was parked.

Gray.

Old.

Front bumper crushed in.

The same truck from across the street at the fu.neral home.

The same headlights under the broken streetlight at three in the morning.

He hadn’t been watching the house because he suspected anything.

He’d been watching me.

Because I was the only one he could still reach.

And this morning, I’d run out of the house like it was on fire.

I’d led him right here.

“Oh no,” I said.

“Oh no, no, no.”

“He followed you,” Jason said.

“He followed the dog.”

Meredith already had her phone to her ear.

“County 911, what’s your emergency?”

She gave the address.

She said the name Dale Harlan.

She said there was a child.

She listened.

She lowered the phone.

“Eighteen minutes,” she said.

“The nearest deputy is eighteen minutes out.”