It might have been Earl. Or John. Kevin would have walked right in, though Annie wasn’t sure if he could have handled the emotion in the room.

Donna wiped her tears. “You’d better get that.”

“They’ll leave.”

“They’ll know we’re here. The light is on. Whoever it is will worry.”

Annie smoothed her hair. “Okay. I’ll tell them to come back tomorrow.” With an aching heart, she toddled across the hardwood in her old socks. She turned the lock and opened the door. And came face-to-face with her ex-husband, Mark.

* * *

Annie stared.

He stared back.

It was dark outside, but the light from the living room spilled across his face. And the glow from headlights up on the hill beamed down at them, framing the frame that she remembered well. She grasped the door to stop from falling over.

“Annie?” he asked.

Panic surged.

Panic.

Fear.

Rage.

She slammed the door and bolted it.

She stood in place a few more seconds, trying to get her bearings. Trying to breathe.

Adrenaline kicked in. She raced from window to window, checking the locks, pulling the curtains. She flicked off the lights, as if that would fool him into thinking no one was home.

“Annie?” Donna called, but Annie couldn’t answer.

She grabbed her phone. She hadn’t realized until then that her hands were shaking. No, they were more than shaking. They had spasmed into tremors. She gripped the phone. She scrolled to the Chappy emergency alert and fumbled to touch the link. For added measure, she punched in 911. She said some words, but did not remember them. She didn’t even care if the first responder turned out to be Taylor.

She groped in the darkness for the chair, then flopped into it. She thought: What if he has a gun? What if he’d come to shoot her? “I’ll make a couple of calls,” Larry Hendricks had said. “If only to prove I’m not really an insufferable jerk.”

She pressed a hand to her chest.

Then she remembered Donna.

“It’s okay,” Annie whimpered. “John will be here soon.”

Donna didn’t answer.

Perhaps she’d guessed that Annie didn’t know if John would show up because she couldn’t remember if he was on duty.

Had her panicked message to the emergency line made any sense? If not, would the dispatcher have recognized her number and accelerated the alert? Annie didn’t know if GPS was working or if, that night, the signal was too weak. Was it foggy out? Wasn’t the signal worse when it was foggy?

What if they thought Annie had said she’d found another body—or the remains of one—and that her imagination had spun out of control? What if they thought that nothing—once again—was urgent? Like the boy who’d cried wolf?