“Like me?” Annie had asked the first time he’d said it. She’d been around seven or eight, and they’d been walking past the pine trees en route to the ice cream shop. “Is that why you adopted me?”

“You bet, kiddo,” he said, resting a hand on her shoulder. “You could have either lived in our house or up in the pine trees, and you know that your darn mother doesn’t like you outside after dark.”

His reasoning made little sense, but Annie had giggled and skipped alongside him because he’d always made her feel special. Protected. And, most of all, loved.

She didn’t think he’d ever owned a gun.

Hauling herself from under the covers now, Annie guessed it might be easier to get to sleep if she paced for a while first. She pulled on her quilted robe and stepped into her slippers. Inside the room the night air was cold.

She looked out the window, up at the sky. It was ink-black, as was typical on Chappy. Also as usual, stars were bright and abundant, as if silver confetti had been tossed into the air. “Millions of stars!” her dad had whispered every summer when they were on the Vineyard. “Maybe more! Who knows?” He once said he whispered so he wouldn’t wake up the stars because it was past dark, past Annie’s bedtime, and no doubt, past the bedtime of the stars as well.

These days, her dad was on her mind. A lot. Perhaps because she needed to begin accepting that he was the only dad that she would ever know.

Sighing, she knotted the tie of her robe and headed from her room. If she went outside, she’d have a better view of the sky. Maybe she’d see the Milky Way; she never grew tired of that breathtaking sight. The light from the heavens would be illuminating, so there was no need for her lantern. Still, she’d bring it. “Always be prepared, kiddo,” her dad had often said. He’d been talking about hurricanes and snowstorms and such, not predatory former jerk husbands. Not for the first time, Annie was glad that neither of her parents had lived long enough to have known Mark or to see the person she’d become when she’d been with him: shallow, materialistic, phony—all those things she’d been raised not to believe in.

Swinging the unlit lantern, she made her way down the tall, wide, winding staircase, counting each step—twenty-four—as she went. When she reached the bottom, she turned left and went through the great room, past the fireplace, where, suddenly, she heard a low, growling sound. She stopped. And froze.

A dog?

A raccoon?

A skunk? Did skunks even growl?

For the second time that night, Annie’s heart began thumping. She wasn’t sure which way to turn. But all she could see in the starlight shimmering through the windows was a pile of tarps that Kevin must have left by the doorway that led to the kitchen and the back door.