When I start talking, she doesn’t write in English. She makes squiggles that look like a foreign language, covering the page in nonsense only she can understand.

“He used to be a monster,” I say, “but now he’s hiding behind a phone. He’s pathetic.”

The police profilers say he’s proud of his crimes. They say he sees himself as superior, because he has reached double digits, signaling his intent from his very first kill.

If I mock him, if I call him out, maybe he’ll respond.

I finish with another plea for information, and when I’m done, Sara nods and clicks her tongue, smiling like she got exactly what she wanted.

“This is perfect,” she says.

Hopefully, after it’s published, others will follow: better papers, bigger platforms.

Maybe this time next week, the world will be back outside our door.

Chapter 41

After our day shopping at the Waves, Hanna and Emily come back to my place.

“Hi, Mr. Simmons,” Hanna says from the hall.

She always stands in the entranceway, as if our living room is off-limits, but Emily has other ideas.

She walks right in, sits next to Dad, and says, “How’s it going?”

This is Emily’s way of dealing with the grief that rests on my father like a layer of dust. She ignores it.

“Wanna see what I bought?” Emily asks.

“Why not?”

She smiles, pulling top after top from bag after bag and critiquing each one. But Dad lets her, and the grin that briefly flickers across his face tells me he enjoys these silly moments as much as Emily.

In my room, we order pizza, then argue for an hour about what movie to watch.

“So,” Emily says with a sly smile on her face, “Danny.”

“What about him?”

She raises an eyebrow and says, “Anything happen after all that filming?”

“No!” I say, and they both laugh.

“I think you would,” Hanna says.

Emily adds, “I think we all would.”

I make a face, and Emily goes, “What? He’s cute.”

“I prefer Michael,” Hanna says.

Emily stares at her. “Are you serious?”

“I like that he doesn’t try too hard.”

“He doesn’t try at all.”

“They’re in their twenties,” I say.

“Ryan Gosling is, like, forty,” Hanna says, and you can’t argue with that kind of logic, so we sit quietly for a while, probably thinking about the same thing.

They want me to have a love interest. Adrian probably does too.

Maybe Danny is my director on purpose, because he’s good-looking and because I’m a girl and, well, we all know what happens next.

But it won’t happen this time. I hate stories where a pretty boy turns up and the girl is, like, He literally defines my entire universe. My life is defined by something bigger than that.