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.

Still growling.

They cuffed Dale face-down in the apples.

As they hauled him up, he twisted around.

He looked straight at me.

“Tell them, Hannah!” he shouted.

“Tell them how you invited me!”

“Tell them about the picture!”

“Tell them you wanted this!”

Every deputy turned to look at me.

Jason looked at me.

I didn’t look away.

“I sent him a picture,” I said.

“I told him where she’d be.”

“I didn’t know what he’d do.”

“But I should have.”

“It’s all on my phone.”

“Everything he just said is on my phone too.”

I pulled it out of my pocket.

The 911 call was still running.

Seven minutes, forty seconds.

I handed it to the nearest deputy.

“Take all of it,” I said.

“Including the part about me.”

The deputy’s name was Carla Nguyen.

She was younger than me.

She wrote everything down.

She listened to the recording twice.