Why aren’t you talking?” she asks the child strapped into the passenger seat of the Mercedes.

Yes, strapped in. She’s in a hurry to get back up to Boston, and the last thing she wants right now is to have an accident in a car that belongs to her, with a kid who doesn’t.

No answer.

Renata just sits staring straight ahead like a zombie. She’s been this way for miles now—for over an hour.

At first, she asked a few times where they were going.

“For a ride,” she was told. “To get…berries.”

“My mommy said berries never last long enough.”

Nothing does, kid.

“How about ice cream?”

“Pink ice cream?”

Oh, for God’s sake. “Sure, why not?”

The kid is breathing loudly, and every time she exhales, the breath trembles.

Yeah. Maybe she’s figured out by now that this is a hell of a long drive to get pink ice cream.

It’s okay. They’ve reached the Boston suburbs. It won’t be much longer.

It’s a relief to be back in the Mercedes after driving around in rentals all week—and Meg Warren’s piece of shit car.

Suddenly, the kid reaches for the door handle.

“Hey, what are you doing?” She hits the brakes. A car behind her honks loudly and swerves around her. Furious, she gives the driver the finger as he passes.

“I was just putting down my window,” the kid says in a small voice.

“It’s already down!” Yeah, she allowed that, trying to make her feel at ease from the moment they got into the car in her parents’ driveway.

“I need it more open!”

Right. Because she’s desperately claustrophobic. Her worst fear is being trapped in close quarters. That information came from the file folder Roxanne Shields so conveniently brought home the night she died—along with other interesting tidbits.

Like her photo ID.

It was so easy to create an identical one, complete with a recent photo and the perfect alias.

Melody.

Such a shame no one can really appreciate her cleverness.

And Johnson—the second most common surname, after Smith.

As in Jeremy Smith.

As in Jeremy Cavalon.

As in the child whose life was destroyed—

Before he went and destroyed mine.

And all because of Elsa Cavalon and Marin Quinn.

“I said cut that out!”

Dammit, the kid’s hand has strayed back to the controls on the door handle. The doors are locked, and flying up the interstate at sixty-five miles an hour, she’s probably not going to try to throw herself out of the car through the window, but you never know.

Up it goes, all the way, courtesy of the driver’s side control. Luckily, there’s also a lock button.

“No!” Renata Cavalon screams. “Put it down!”

“If I were you, little girl, I’d settle down and shut up right now.”

She calmly pulls the gun from her pocket.

Using it right here and now wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as what she has in store for Little Miss Claustrophobia…

But then, it’s been such a long, exhausting day already.

It might be a good idea to get it over with and go home.

Home to Jeremy.

 

“Mom! Mom!”

Marin opens her eyes to see someone standing there, shaking her awake.

Something’s wrong.

Annie…something about Annie…she’s supposed to be worrying about Annie.

But Annie is here…

Isn’t she?

That is Annie standing over her bed, isn’t it?

She tries to sit up. Her body is too heavy to move.

The person says something, but it’s as if Marin’s head is swathed in layers of gauze—she can barely see, can barely hear.

“…police!”

The word cuts through the fog, jolting Marin like a knife. “What?”

“The police are here.”

The police? The police…no. Please, no.

“Caroline…where’s Caroline?”

“I don’t know, in her room, I guess, but Mom…you have to get up. They want to talk to you, now!”

 

Elsa refuses to lose herself in the miasma of fear swirling around her. Not like last time, with Jeremy.

If she doesn’t stay strong, stay focused, Renny will be gone for good, just like Jeremy.

So she sits stoically with Brett on the couch as police officers move around them, radios squawking, taking photos, dusting the doorknob and the kitchen chair and table for Melody Johnson’s fingerprints.

Was it like this last time, when Jeremy went missing? She doesn’t even know. She was too far gone, by the time the police arrived, to notice their specific movements.

She does remember that Brett somehow managed to hold himself together back then. He was always the strong one, the one who kept his head amid chaos.

Not this time. He’s trembling, crying on and off, his head buried in his hands as Elsa sits here like the eye of a hurricane.

She can’t let it sweep her away.

She won’t.

I’m Renny’s only hope.

 

“Keep your head down, I said!”

Crouched on the floor of the Mercedes, the kid obeys with a whimper.

Turning on to Regis Terrace, she sees that the neighborhood has stirred to life since she drove away earlier. Kids on bikes and skateboards, pedigreed dogs on leashes, gardeners tending to lush landscapes…

Good Lord, the whole world is awake to see her come home. She carefully slips the gun back into her pocket and waves from the driver’s seat as she passes people she knows. People who saw the hearse come to remove the body after that deadly stairway accident last fall; people who later came to her door with casseroles and sympathetic hugs for the sole survivor of the Montgomery family.

“We’re so sorry,” they all said. “We’re here if you need us.”

But La La doesn’t need them.

She needs only one person—and he’s here right now, waiting for her.

 

Elsa watches Detective Gibbs, a no-nonsense African-American man with graying temples and kind brown eyes—the one who seems to be in charge here—hang up his phone.

“Mrs. Cavalon, I know I’ve asked you this already”—he crouches in front of her, resting his hand on the arm of the sofa—“but is there anyone…anyone at all…who might want to hurt your daughter?”

“Just Marin Quinn, but—” She shakes her head. “She’s the one, the one who called us.”

But Elsa has played her message over and over since they realized Renny had been abducted.

It was so easy, given their situation, to interpret Marin Quinn’s message as an admission of guilt.

Elsa is no longer convinced.

I need to talk to you…Over the phone or in person, whatever…I, um, understand if you’d rather not talk to me after…after all this. But I hope you will. I’m sorry.

After all this.

After her husband was arrested for his role in Jeremy’s kidnapping and murder?

Yes. It makes sense now.

But Elsa is even more frightened to think that she isn’t the one behind Renny’s disappearance.

Temporarily insane or not, Marin Quinn is still a mother. A grieving mother. She could still be harmless.

“We’ve got someone over at the Quinn place now,” Detective Gibbs is saying. “She’s there—at her apartment in Manhattan.”

Elsa nods, unsurprised “The only other person—people—I can think of are Renny’s birth parents.”

“They’ve also checked out. He’s in jail again on drug charges. She’s in a mental health facility.”

Elsa shakes her head, imagining what would have become of Renny had she been left in their custody.

Then it hits her—Renny wouldn’t be wherever she is now.

No.

No, I can’t blame myself. Not this time.

 

La La left home this morning not long after Jeremy arrived, having driven up from New York.

She’d wanted him to catch the shuttle with her, but he’s afraid to fly.

He’s afraid of a lot of things.

Poor Jeremy.

All these years, she’s hated him, and yet…

The day he showed up on her doorstep, it was love at first sight. She fell for him before she even realized his identity. He had such kind eyes, and a warm smile, and he looked at her as though he really cared…

“Don’t you know who he is?” her mother had screamed at her when she came home to find him there.

Of course La La knew who he was. He’d told her.

Told her everything. Begged her to forgive him for what he’d done to her.

How could she not forgive him? He was a victim, too.

He understood, unlike anyone else. He knew what it was like to feel like a lost soul, to have your life shattered.

“He’s the one who did this to you!”

Candace Montgomery was incredulous that she’d even let Jeremy past the door. She had no idea, of course, that he’d gotten much further than that. By the time she got home, they’d already fallen into La La’s bed.

“How can you even look at him? He ruined your life!”

“Well, now he’s here to save it, okay?” La La shot back. She knew she had to do something. Her mother was going to ruin things with Jeremy.

I tried to fight it. Really, I did.

But in the end, it was no use. It took precious little effort to shut her up. Just one swift and mighty shove, and over she went, tumbling down the steps…

That was it.

La La was left alone.

Alone with Jeremy. He was all she had, and she was all he had. That’s how she wants it to be. That’s how it is.

They take care of each other. Tell each other everything.

That’s how she found out about all the horrible things that had happened to him.

The more he poured out his anguished memories, the more furious La La became. Her heart broke for the frightened little boy who still lived inside this beautiful man, the lost child who had been replaced by Renata and Caroline and Annie…

Replaced, as if he’d never even mattered.

He confessed that he dreamed of meeting them—the family he’d lost.

“I’ll help you,” La La promised. She meant it.

Jeremy didn’t even realize that there should be retribution for what they’d done to him—and thus, to her.

But La La knew. And she’s going to make them all pay. For his sake, and for her own.

She presses the automatic opener, raising the middle door of the three-car attached garage. She pulls the Mercedes in, parks, and closes the door behind them.

“Home sweet home,” she informs the kid. “You can get up now.”

The little girl raises her head just in time to see the door close, sealing them in.

She screams.

“Oh, shut up. This is nothing compared to what I have waiting for you. Let’s go.”

 

“Mom, drink this.”

Someone presses a glass into her hand. Marin raises it to her lips, sips. Water. Cold. Wet. Good. So simple.

“Here, I’ll take it so you don’t spill it.”

“Caroline.” She smiles as her daughter takes the glass away, leaning back against the chair cushion and closing her eyes, exhausted. “Thank you.”

“No, Mom, it’s me, Annie. Caroline is gone, remember? We’re trying to figure out where she is.”

Marin’s eyes open again.

“Gone?” she echoes, confused.

There’s Annie.

There are several men she doesn’t recognize, men in uniform.

Police.

She grabs the arm of the nearest man. “Something happened to Caroline?”

“We don’t know where she is, Mrs. Quinn.”

“She takes off sometimes,” she hears Annie say. “Like, a lot.”

“Caroline! You’re here because Caroline—”

“No, Mrs. Quinn, we’re here because we’re looking for Brett and Elsa Cavalon’s daughter, remember?”

Daughter?

No.

Son. Her son is missing.

“Jeremy. You’re looking for Jeremy.”

“No. Not him.”

She remembers, and grief wells up inside her.

“Where is Renata Cavalon, Mrs. Quinn?”

“Who…?”

Why won’t they leave her alone? Why won’t they let her mourn her own child?

“Dead…oh God.”

“Did you say ‘dead’?

“Yes…dead…all my fault.”

“Are you saying you killed Renata Cavalon?”

“No! No! Jeremy. My son. Jeremy is dead.”

 

Caroline spots him right where he said he’d be, next to the Dunkin’ Donuts kiosk.

He doesn’t see her yet, though. He’s on his cell phone.

She walks over to him.

Still, he doesn’t notice her. Should she say his name, or touch his shoulder? Or should she just let him finish his conversation?

He looks upset, she realizes.

“I know you are,” he’s saying into the phone, “but I had no choice. No…no, I didn’t invite her, it was her idea…”

Clearly, he’s talking about Caroline.

Oh my God. Why am I here?

“Yes, because I thought I should tell her…No, I couldn’t do it that way…No, I need to tell her in person…”

Tell her what?

That he has a girlfriend? Is that who he’s talking to?

Don’t worry, you jerk. You don’t have to tell me anything, in person or otherwise. I’m out of here.

She turns to walk away.

“Caroline!”

Too late.

Jake is hurrying toward her, shoving his phone back into his pocket. “Hey, you made it.”

Tell him. Tell him right now that you know he doesn’t want you here. Tell him you’re going back home.

Caroline opens her mouth.

He smiles at her. That smile…

“Yeah,” she hears herself say. “I made it.”

“Great. Come on. I’m going to take you over to the place where I’m staying, down in Nottingshire.”

 

Unbelievable.

He’s with her.

It’s not as if La La thinks anything romantic is going to happen between the two of them. She’s his sister, for God’s sake.

She doesn’t know that yet, of course. But Jeremy’s going to tell her. He promised.

“Bring her back here and we’ll tell her together,” La La instructed him.

He didn’t think that was such a good idea.

“Who helped you find her in the first place?” she reminded him. “I’m the one who kept an eye out for her the other day, and followed her to Starbucks and told you where she was so you could meet her, remember?”

What Jeremy doesn’t know, of course, was that La La had also been the one who planted that rat in Caroline’s bag just before he arrived.

As she sat there, drinking coffee and watching the two of them getting to know each other, she found herself feeling more and more jealous.

Just like now.

But she’ll do something about it. They should be here soon.

Then Caroline can join Renny, already entombed in the soundproof basement studio Daddy built all those years ago, where no one will ever hear their screams.

So nice that it came in handy for something, La La thinks. She tries the studio door one more time to be sure it’s locked, then goes back up to the first floor to wait for Jeremy.

 

“You’re sure you don’t know where your sister might be?” one of the cops asks Annie, who’s sitting beside Marin, stroking her hand.

“No. Her bedroom door was closed when I got up. I thought she was in there.”

Marin raises the water glass to her lips, taking another sip. The medication is still in her system, but she’s coming out of it now. At least she can focus on what’s going on.

Caroline is out somewhere…

But that’s not why the police are here.

They’re here because Elsa Cavalon’s daughter is missing, and for some reason, they thought Marin might have had something to do with it.

They still might think that, judging by the way they’re watching her every move.

But they’re definitely concerned about Caroline’s absence. Maybe because they’re wondering if Marin has something to do with that, too.

She told them about the argument they had last night. “Just normal mother-daughter stuff,” she’d called it.

They didn’t seem convinced.

They’ve called Caroline’s friends. None of them are even in town, and none has heard from Caroline in the last twenty-four hours.

Marin sets down the half-empty water glass, shaking so badly that droplets slosh over the rim. Annie reaches for her hand and squeezes it.

“Annie…” Marin leans her head on her daughter’s surprisingly sturdy shoulder. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being here with me. For me. You…you’re the only one I can count on. Ever.”

Annie strokes her mother’s hair in silence.

It should be the other way around, Marin thinks. Mother comforting daughter. No matter what happens—no matter what—things are going to change around here.

She’s going to change.

I know what I have to do to make that happen.

Right now, before I lose my nerve.

She starts to rise, thinking only of the pill bottles in her bedside drawer.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Wait. There is one thing…”

Marin sits again. “What is it?”

“I don’t want to get into trouble.” She glances anxiously at the police officers who are watching and listening with interest. “You have to swear you won’t tell Caroline.”

“Tell her what?”

“I’ll be right back.” Annie gets up quickly and disappears down the hall.

Marin and the cops wait in strained silence, but not for long.

Annie returns clutching something in her hand. “I was kind of…looking through Caroline’s room…I do that sometimes…”

Marin closes her eyes. How many times has her older daughter accused her kid sister of snooping?

I always stuck up for Annie.

But Caroline was right.

“I found this in her drawer.”

“I’ll take it.” The cop closest to her stretches out his hand. She looks at Marin, who nods slightly.

Annie hands him what looks like a crumpled napkin.

He inspects it. “Whose phone number is this?”

“I don’t know. But maybe it has something to do with where she went.”

 

Caroline hasn’t said much since Jeremy met her at the train station, and he wonders what’s wrong with her.

Is she having second thoughts about being here?

He’s having second thoughts about it, that’s for sure. Maybe he isn’t ready to tell her the truth yet. Or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t want La La here when he tells her.

Maybe?

Hell, he doesn’t want La La around anywhere. She’s smothering him. He can’t take it anymore.

Guilt brought him here in the first place; guilt has kept him coming back.

But he’s had enough. He was going to tell La La that this morning—tell her it’s over.

She was gone, though, when he woke up, and then Caroline called, and now…

Now everything’s a mess.

He turns on to Regis Terrace, thinking again of the first time he came here, last fall.

La La had made the first move that night, but he hadn’t fought her off very hard.

Oh hell, he hadn’t fought her off at all. She was a beautiful woman, and despite all he’d been through with Papa, he was a red-blooded man. Women had been drawn to him ever since he ventured out the front door of Papa’s house and made his way to Texas.

He’d known it would be wrong to get too close to any of them, though. As much as he craved love and acceptance, he was nowhere near ready for a real relationship. Not after what he’d been through.

But it was different with La La Montgomery—or so he’d tried to convince himself just before he got carried away and fell into bed with her. Different because she wasn’t really a stranger, and because she wasn’t like the carefree young girls he’d met in bars. La La had been through her share of pain; she was, in many ways, older than her years, with a nurturing quality that enveloped him, made him feel momentarily safe and warm.

And yet, after he left her that first night, he’d promised himself it would never happen again, just as he had with the others who’d come before her.

La La might understand him better than anyone, but he still wasn’t capable of a relationship, and they both had too much baggage, and anyway, there was something about her—about the intensity of her gaze—that made him uneasy.

He would never have gone back if not for the hysterical phone call from La La the next morning, saying she’d just found her mother, tragically killed in a drunken fall down the stairs.

“Please, Jeremy—please come. I need you.”

She’s always telling him how much she needs him, how much she loves him, how he’s all she has…

That much is true. La La lives in complete isolation, alone now in the brick mansion she inherited along with her parents’ fortune.

He knows she graduated from college, that she had vague plans of moving away and finding a career of some kind.

“But then I found you instead,” she likes to tell him.

As he pulls into the driveway, Caroline speaks at last.

“Whose house is this?”

What do I even tell her? Do I explain here, in the car? Or wait until we get inside?

“Jake?”

Maybe La La won’t be here after all. Maybe she’s…out somewhere. Or sleeping—she couldn’t have gotten much sleep…

Thoughts racing, Jeremy reaches for the garage door opener.

“Jake!”

Oh. Right. He’s supposed to be Jake, and Caroline is waiting for him to answer her question.

“It’s a friend’s house.”

The door opens and he pulls into the garage.

No luck. La La’s Mercedes is parked there. He’d known it would be, and yet he feels sick at the sight of it.

He turns off the car, closes the garage door behind them, and gets out.

Caroline hasn’t moved.

“Coming?” he leans in to ask her, and she turns to him.

“Is this your girlfriend’s house, Jake?”

The question catches him off guard. Her dark eyes are narrowed—eyes that are so like his own that sometimes he feels as though he’s looking into a mirror.

How can she not know? Doesn’t she realize that we have some kind of connection? Doesn’t she sense that the same blood runs through our veins?

“Jake…I asked you a question.”

“Yeah. The thing is…she’s not going to be my girlfriend for much longer. It’s over.”

 

“Mrs. Quinn?”

Caught up in a wistful reverie, she’s startled by a male voice beside her. She looks up to see the cop who left the room a short time ago with the telephone number Annie had found in Caroline’s room.

“Two things. Your credit card was used this morning at an electronic kiosk in Penn Station to purchase a one-way ticket to Boston on the Acela.”

“What?”

“Also, we’ve checked your daughter’s phone records, and she called this number last night and again this morning.”

“Whose phone is it?”

“We traced it to a twenty-two-year-old named Jeremy Smith from California.”

Jeremy.

 

“La La?”

Standing with her back to the doorway, she hears her name spoken behind her, but it doesn’t register.

Nothing has registered, other than the words that floated to her ears from the garage, when she opened the door to greet Jeremy.

She’s not going to be my girlfriend for much longer. It’s over.

La La chews her lip, tasting blood.

Really?

Really, Jeremy?

You’re going to leave me, after what you did to me?

Arms folded, she stares at a photograph on the mantel. In it, she’s with her father, sitting on his lap. He’s grinning, and her mouth is wide open. She’s probably singing. She was always singing.

Then Jeremy came along.

“There you are.”

Slowly, she turns.

There he is.

Not Jeremy the way he used to be—a dark-haired imp with troubled eyes. Not the Jeremy who beat her beyond recognition. Not on the outside, anyway.

This Jeremy looks different.

His hair is blond now.

He had plastic surgery to repair the damage to his face, as did she. But his was more recent: surgery to repair the scars and bruises and broken bones inflicted by the man he called Papa.

Her own scars, bruises, broken bones—her broken voice, her broken heart—were inflicted by Jeremy.

This Jeremy. He’s still the same person, deep down inside. The person who destroyed her.

“La La! What are you doing?”

She blinks.

He isn’t alone.

She recognizes the girl.

“This is Caroline. Caroline, this is La La.”

Looking hesitant—so different from the cocky girl La La followed in New York the other day—Caroline cautiously takes a step toward her. “Hi, Lila.”

“It’s La La! Not Lila. You stupid bitch.”

“Hey!” Jeremy steps in front of Caroline, almost as if he’s protecting her. Her—not La La. That’s rich.

La La strides toward the two of them.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m just telling your little sister that she got my name wrong.”

“Jesus, La La, shut up!”

“Oh, and I think she has your name wrong, too. She thinks you’re Jake. Isn’t that funny, Jeremy?”

Beside him, Caroline Quinn has gone pale, her mouth gaping open as she absorbs La La’s words.

Jeremy turns toward her, touches her arm. “Caroline…”

“Sister?”

He shakes his head, and La La grins.

Caroline touches the door frame, as if she’s going to faint. “You’re—”

“No, Caroline, I—”

“What is she talking about?”

“She’s crazy.” He glares at La La.

Rage flares inside her. “It’s the truth and you know it.”

“Who are you?” Caroline takes a step back from Jeremy, shaking her head in disbelief.

“I’m—your parents are—”

Obviously, he can’t even bring himself to say the words.

La La does it for him. “Your parents are his parents, get it? He’s your brother. The one everyone thinks is dead. Surprise!”

Caroline looks from Jeremy to La La and back again. “How—how can…You’re alive?”

“Don’t worry,” La La can’t resist saying as she reaches into her pocket for the gun. “He won’t be, for long. And neither will you.”

 

“Mr. and Mrs. Cavalon…”

Elsa looks up to see Detective Gibbs in the doorway of the kitchen, where she and Brett are seated at the table with Lisa, the police sketch artist working on a composite drawing of Melody Johnson. Brett keeps saying he’s seen the woman somewhere before, but he can’t remember where, and it’s driving him crazy.

“We’ve had a development.”

Elsa’s heart stops.

No. Please, no.

She braces herself for the worst news.

Brett grabs her hand and squeezes it, asking Detective Gibbs, “Is Renny…?”

“No,” he says hastily, “it’s not about her. No. We’re still working on a couple of leads, but…Lisa, would you mind giving us a few moments’ privacy?”

“No problem.” The sketch artist pushes back her chair, flashes them a concerned smile, and slips out of the room.

Detective Gibbs crosses toward them, carrying an open laptop. “I’ve been on the phone with New York.”

New York…

Marin Quinn is in New York. So is Garvey Quinn.

“I need you to take a look at something I just received,” Detective Gibbs says, almost gently, as he sits across from them, the laptop facing in his direction. “You might want to prepare yourselves. It’s going to be a shock.”

Prepare ourselves? Elsa thinks incredulously. How are we supposed to prepare ourselves? For what?

He turns the laptop so that they’re looking at the screen.

There’s a picture on the screen. A photograph of a young man.

Peering closer at it, Elsa is struck by an impossible thought.

No. It can’t be.

And yet, Brett gasps. “Is that…?”

“No,” Elsa says sharply. “It isn’t.”

Of course not. Brett just wants so badly for it to be him that he’s seeing him, just as Elsa did, for all these years.

Always looking at little boys, at teenagers, at young men who were the same age her son would have been. Always searching for that familiar gleam in a pair of big dark eyes, for the quick smile that could light up a room; always searching for Jeremy.

Even after she knew in her heart that he was never coming home again—she never stopped looking for him.

Never.

Not until they told her, last fall, that he was dead.

Detective Gibbs clears his throat and asks, very softly, “Do you recognize him?”

“Yes,” Brett whispers.

“No!” Elsa turns to him. “No, Brett, don’t. That isn’t him.”

The features are different.

“Elsa—”

“Don’t let yourself get caught up in…in hoping, and wishing. It’ll only hurt more.”

“But—”

“It’s not him. It can’t be. They told us—”

“Elsa, please, just look at him again. Look at his face.”

“Why? He’s dead, Brett. We both know it. He’s dead.”

“Mrs. Cavalon,” Detective Gibbs cuts in gently, “we have reason to believe that this is your son. He’s twenty-two years old, and his name is Jeremy.”

“He’s…twenty-two?” Brett’s voice is ragged. “He’s alive?”

“He’s alive. Mrs. Cavalon…?”

Elsa forces herself to look again, to really look this time.

Look at his face.

Look at his eyes.

She does.

And then she knows. She knows.

She presses her fists against her mouth, tears streaming down her face.

“That’s him. It’s Jeremy.”

 

“Look at you…you’re scared to death, aren’t you?”

Yes, Caroline’s scared. She’s terrified. Terrified of this…this person, this La La, who’s clearly insane…

And terrified of Jake, who brought her here.

No, not Jake.

Jeremy.

Her brother.

“You know, everyone’s afraid of something—like being closed into small spaces…that’s called claustrophobia, did you know that?” La La doesn’t wait for an answer, rambling on, “Then there’s Jeremy—he’s afraid of everything. Including me. Aren’t you?”

She abruptly whirls to face Jeremy, standing beside Caroline. She sneaks a glance at him and sees that he’s fixated on the gun.

He’s going to try to grab it, she realizes.

“He’s not a man. He’s like a little boy. No—like a little girl. How about if I lock you away, too?” She pokes the gun at him and he flinches.

She laughs, a sound that sends chills down Caroline’s spine.

She’s going to kill us.

Oh God. I’m going to die.

She wants her mother so badly that the pain takes her breath away.

Mom.

Not Daddy.

Mom is the one who’s there for her, she realizes. The only one.

There was a time when Caroline was convinced she’d be better off without her mother—and vice versa.

It’s not true. I need her. And I’m never going to get the chance to tell her.

 

Staring at the gun, Jeremy knows he’s running out of time. He has to do something.

Any second now, La La is going to kill him, and Caroline, too.

“After all I’ve done for you…you were going to leave me?”

“What have you done for me?” He looks past her, scanning the living room for some way out, or for a weapon…

“I’ve done everything you’re too weak to do. I’ve punished them all for what they did to you, and this is the thanks I get?”

“Who?” he asks, his gaze falling on a pair of and-irons beside the hearth, just a few feet away. “Who did you punish?”

“Who do you think?” She laughs again. “Look at you—you’re pathetic. You’re nothing.”

In her eyes, he sees the same streak of mocking cruelty that made him lash out at her all those years ago.

Back then, she was just a mean little girl, and he was a confused, angry, abused little boy.

Now she’s a cold-blooded killer…

And I’m…

I’m not pathetic.

I’m not nothing.

I’m a man.

Looking at her, he sees Papa’s face, and he sees the faces of all the others, too, the ones who tortured him before he came to Elsa.

He closes his eyes so he won’t have to see, and he claps his hands over his ears, trying to drown out the scornful laughter filling his head.

“What’s the matter, Jeremy? Are you scared?”

Scared?

No.

He’s not scared. He’s been to hell and back, and nothing will ever scare him again.

 

Jeremy’s eyes snap open.

He lunges for the gun.

La La presses the trigger.

Jeremy is alive.

Alive.

And Renny is gone.

Cradling his wife in his arms, Brett tries to grasp the situation—tries to figure out what one unbelievable fact might have to do with the other.

Detective Gibbs seems to be waiting for him and Elsa to absorb the miracle.

“Are you saying…” Brett shakes his head rapidly, starts again. “Is Jeremy connected to the woman who took our daughter?”

“He may be.”

“No,” Elsa says sharply, lifting her head at last. “He wouldn’t hurt her.”

“You don’t even know him, Elsa,” Brett can’t help snapping. Even now, even after all these years, the old pattern has resumed. Elsa’s defense of Jeremy, and Brett’s wariness.

“He wouldn’t hurt her,” she repeats stubbornly, wrenching herself from his arms and standing to face him.

“How can you even say that? Look what he did to—”

All at once, it hits him.

Melody Johnson…

He knows where he’s seen her before. Years ago, and her face is different, but her eyes…those blue eyes…

Even the name…

Melody.

“La La.” Brett turns abruptly to Detective Gibbs. “Her name was—is—La La Montgomery.”

 

Numb with horror, Caroline watches Jeremy fall to the floor.

Standing over him with the gun in her hand, La La shakes her head. “I told you you’re pathetic.”

It’s as if she’s forgotten Caroline is there.

I have to get out of here.

She turns her head slightly, checking the pathway behind her. The house, when Jeremy led her through, was a maze. Can she even find her way back to the door?

“Don’t try it.”

Startled, she sees that La La is looking at her. Aiming at her.

“Come on.” La La calmly sidesteps Jeremy’s crumpled, bloody form. “Let’s go.”

“Go…” Caroline whispers, paralyzed with fear.

La La jabs the gun into her ribs. “I said, let’s go! Walk!”

Caroline walks.

 

In the master bedroom, Marin once again stands holding a plastic pill bottle in her hand, poised over the toilet.

This time, though, there’s no hesitation. This time, her hand is sure and steady as she dumps the contents into the bowl.

Then she empties another bottle, and another, and when they’re all gone, every last pill, she flushes them down the toilet.

Turning away, she sees Annie standing in the doorway.

“Mom,” she says, “the detectives want to talk to you. They said they think they know why Caroline went to Boston.”

 

Moving through the big house, prodded along by La La’s gun in her back, Caroline struggles to keep her wits about her.

Where is she taking me?

What is she going to do?

No, she knows what La La is going to do.

This is, unmistakably, a death march.

They’ve reached the kitchen now, and the back door is just a few yards away. Beyond it, through the glass window, Caroline can see leafy trees, and sunshine, and a wide blue sky.

Freedom.

But she doesn’t dare run for it, knowing she’ll be shot in the back.

La La yanks open a door—a different door, and Caroline sees a steep flight of stairs before her.

“Go!”

Caroline hesitates, knowing beyond a doubt that if she descends into the shadows, she’ll never again see the light of day.

This is her only chance.

“Move!”

She moves.

But not forward.

No, she flings herself backward, full force, into La La Montgomery.

 

Sitting beside Brett in the back of Detective Gibbs’s car, hurtling north up Interstate 95 toward Boston, Elsa closes her eyes, seeing her lost little boy—the boy she’d always known, deep down inside, would never come home again.

And Renny…

“She’s going to be okay,” she tells Brett, opening her eyes to see him staring grimly out the window.

He turns to look at her. “How do you know?”

“I just know.”

All those years, her heart had told her that her little boy was lost to her forever. She was right about that.

Jeremy the child is gone forever.

But Jeremy the man is alive.

And he’s still her son, no matter what.

 

The wind knocked out of her, La La falls to the kitchen floor with Caroline on top of her.

“Get off me!” she snarls, her arms pinned beneath their combined weight, her right hand still clenching the gun.

She can feel Caroline clawing for it.

Keeping her finger tight on the trigger, she summons every bit of strength to heave her upper body from the floor. The other girl goes flying and La La scrambles to her feet.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” She stands over Caroline with the gun in both hands now, straight out in front of her as she takes aim for the girl’s chest.

Then she thinks better of it and changes her vantage, aiming instead for Caroline’s head. Yes, that’s better. This way, her pretty face will be destroyed, just like—

Sensing a whoosh of movement behind her, La La whirls around…

Just in time to see Jeremy, enraged, swinging a golf club toward her head.

No, she realizes in the split second before it hits.

It’s not a golf club at all.

It’s an andiron.

 

“Oh my God. Jeremy!”

Standing over La La, seeing the blood pooling beneath her head, Jeremy is vaguely aware of Caroline’s shocked horror—but well aware of his own, and of the agonizing pain in his arm.

“You…you’re bleeding.” Caroline has turned to him.

He looks down, sees the blood running down his hand, covering the andiron.

“No, that’s hers.” All at once, his fingers release the weight of it and it thuds to the floor beside her body.

“Yours, too. Let me see.” Caroline touches his arm gently, and her hand comes away red. “She shot you, Jeremy.”

“She…shot me?” He closes his eyes, feeling faint, then forces them open and looks down at his arm.

Caroline is right. He was shot. He was on the floor, in the living room…

“Here, sit down.”

He lets Caroline guide him into a chair.

“I’ll call for help,” she’s saying.

All he knew, when he was lying on the floor, was that he had to stop La La before she hurt his sister.

And now…

“Don’t worry,” Caroline tells him, already dialing 911. “It’s going to be all right. Just hang in there, okay?”

Hang in there.

Jeremy leans his head back and smiles faintly.

Hang in there. That, he can do.

He’s done it all his life.

 

When her cell phone rings in her hand, Marin literally jumps out of her chair.

“Mom?” Annie is up, too, right beside her. “Is it…?”

Yes. Caroline’s number is in the caller ID window.

In the moment before she answers the call, blurting her daughter’s name, Marin has a flash of doubt.

The police are certain Caroline is in Boston…with Jeremy.

What if I’ve lost her—lost them both—for good?

“Mom?”

“Caroline,” she says again, and then her voice breaks.

“Mom…I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”

Caroline—her stoic, unemotional daughter, so like Garvey—or so Marin has always believed—is crying. Apologizing.

Tears streaming down her face, Marin asks, “Are you all right?”

“I am. We both are.”

“Both?”

“Jeremy—he’s been shot, but the paramedics are here, and he’s going to be okay.”

“Jeremy…”

“He saved my life.”

“Jeremy…”

“My brother. Your son.”

Yes. Her son.

“Mom,” Caroline sobs, “I want to come home. I just want to come home.”

Through her own tears, Marin smiles.

 

Riding through the streets of Nottingshire, Elsa is lost in memories of Jeremy. Not, this time, of losing him—but of Jeremy alive, clinging to her hand as they walked down Main Street, and teeter-tottering in the park, and running up the hill toward the red brick school.

But the familiar spots fall away as Detective Gibbs takes them into a part of town they rarely visited. Here, the homes are massive, set wide apart and back from the wide, leafy streets.

As they turn on to Regis Terrace, Elsa spots police cars and ambulances. An icy tide of dread sweeps through her.

Detective Gibbs parks quickly at the curb across from the hub of the action: a stately home Elsa knows belongs to the Montgomerys.

“You folks sit tight for a minute.” The detective is out of the car in a hurry, striding toward a cluster of uniformed cops out front.

Elsa’s pulse races as she and Brett wait in silence, watching the house.

Renny…

Jeremy…

Her children…

Detective Gibbs strides back to the car. Elsa grips her husband’s hand.

“Amelia Montgomery is in custody—and injured, in critical condition,” he announces without ado. “Jeremy has been shot, but he’s safe. So is Caroline Quinn.”

“Caroline Quinn?” Looking bewildered, Brett voices the question Elsa can’t bring herself to ask. “What about Renny?”

Detective Gibbs clears his throat. “We don’t know where she is. I’m sorry, Mr. Cavalon. But we’re doing everything we can to find her.”

 

Propped on the couch where they moved him, away from the bloody kitchen, Jeremy winces.

“Sorry…does that hurt?” asks the motherly paramedic who’s wrapping a bandage around his wounded arm. A uniformed police officer hovers nearby, keeping a wary eye on things.

On Jeremy.

“It’s okay,” he tells the paramedic. “I’m good with pain.”

She raises a dubious gray eyebrow. “This is more than just pain, honey. You’ve been shot.”

Yeah, well, he’s been through worse.

Much worse.

“All right,” the woman says as she finishes up. “They want to talk to you now.”

“Who does?”

“The detectives.” She gives him a sympathetic pat on the arm and disappears.

The police officer looks at Jeremy as if to say, Don’t try anything.

It was self-defense! he wants to shout. I had to do it. She was going to kill—

Several men stride into the room, the one in the lead saying briskly, “I’m Detective Gibbs. Are you Jeremy Cavalon?”

Jeremy Cavalon…

It’s been years since he heard the name. Tears spring to his eyes.

They know.

They know it’s me.

“Yes,” he says simply. “I’m Jeremy Cavalon.”

 

Isolated in the den of the Montgomery mansion with a pair of female police officers, Caroline tries hard to focus on their questions.

But they have so many, and some don’t even make sense.

They just showed her a photo of a little girl she’s never even seen before, and asked what she knew about her.

“Absolutely nothing.”

“So you have no idea where she is?” one of the officers—the one who looks like her face would crack if she tried to smile—asks Caroline.

“I don’t even know who she is.”

“She’s missing. Amelia Montgomery abducted her from her home in Groton.”

“Amel—”

“La La,” the other officer says. “That’s what she was called.”

Caroline nods. “But I don’t know anything about this.”

“She didn’t say anything about a little girl?”

“No. Nothing at—” Caroline stops, remembering. “She did say something.”

The officers wait, pens poised over their notes.

“She said…” Caroline closes her eyes, trying to remember. “She told Jeremy he was like a little girl, afraid of everything…she kept talking about stuff like that.”

“Like what?”

“You know…fear. Like, she said something about how some people are afraid of being trapped in small spaces…”

The two women look at each other, then again at Caroline.

“The child we’re trying to find has a severe case of claustrophobia,” the humorless officer tells her. “She might have hidden her somewhere to scare her. Do you have any idea where she might have—”

Caroline gasps. “Yes! The basement!”

 

“Excuse me…I’m sorry to interrupt, but this is urgent.”

Looking up to see a female police officer poking her head into the living room, Jeremy welcomes the interruption. Sitting here, telling the detectives about Papa—about what he went through, in Mumbai, and here—it’s harder than he ever imagined it would be.

The only other person he’s ever told was La La—but that was almost as if he were talking to himself, purging his soul of the horror.

Little did he realize she was registering every last detail, planning to use the information to launch her vengeful crusade.

“We think she might have hidden the little girl somewhere in the basement,” the female officer announces from the doorway. “There must be a closet down there, or something.”

“There are a few,” Jeremy speaks up. “And there’s a wine cellar too, and a voice studio.”

“Voice studio?”

“It’s not like…I mean, it’s really small. Her father built it for her, because she—”

“Small?” The female officer echoes. “Where is it, exactly?”

“I can show you.”

The authorities all look at one another.

“Go ahead, let him take you down,” Detective Gibbs instructs. “I’ll be waiting outside with the Cavalons.”

Jeremy’s heart stops. “They’re here?”

“Yeah, they’re here.” The detective’s tone is all business, but his eyes aren’t unkind. “And they want their daughter back alive.”

 

Elsa can’t take it.

Something is going on inside that house.

The way Detective Gibbs comes striding out here so purposefully…

“Did you find her?” She rushes toward him.

“Not yet.” He rests a firm hand on her arm, guiding her back over to the car.

But he expects to find her, or he expects…something. The air is unmistakably charged.

Brett’s arm is tight around Elsa’s shoulders; she can feel the expectant tension in his body as well. He’s waiting; they’re all just sitting here waiting…waiting…

The door of the house is thrown open; they all look up.

Nothing could have prepared Elsa for the sight that greets her.

A male figure stands in the doorway, holding something in his arms.

Jeremy…with Renny.

With a scream, Elsa races toward them, toward her children, Brett right alongside her.

“Mommy!” Renny calls out. “Daddy!”

Jeremy bends over to gently set her on her feet.

Brett gets to her first, scooping her into his arms and holding her close.

Reaching them, Elsa gives her daughter a fierce hug.

“I was so scared, Mommy.”

“I know you were, sweetheart, but you’re going to be okay.”

“That boy found me.” She points at Jeremy. “He let me out.”

Boy…he’s not a boy.

He’s a man.

Elsa swallows hard and turns toward him. He’s just standing there, waiting…waiting…

He looks nothing like the little boy she lost, and yet…

Their eyes connect, and she knows.

My son.

Glancing quickly over at Brett, she sees that his eyes, above Renny’s dark head, are shiny. “Thank you,” he says raggedly. Balancing Renny on his hip, he holds out a hand.

Jeremy looks down at his feet, then shyly up at Brett. “You’re welcome.” He stretches out a hand to shake Brett’s, but is swept into a bear hug instead.

“You’re crushing me!” Renny squeals, and they all laugh through their tears.

At last, Brett releases him and he looks at Elsa.

“Jeremy,” she whispers, and opens her arms. “Welcome home.”