“No, I didn’t. We loved you from the start, and I knew your dad and I would raise you with a lot of love. If you had a mental health issue, which we knew you might, given your mother, we would help you as best as we could.”

“And when I had the premonitions when I was a little girl?”

“Initially we were devastated. You were like your mother. In fact at her second trial, after she’d been in jail for ten years, she made premonitions about the judge and the jurors that came true.”

“But by then you had to believe my mother’s testimony, that she had foreseen Johnny being shot by his father.”

Her face grew so sad, it looked like it was sagging in on itself. “Yes. We came to believe that Betsy was telling the truth at her trial. We came to believe that she stabbed Johnny’s father because she knew he was going to shoot Johnny. But what could we do? Come out and say that you, Betsy’s biological daughter, also had premonitions and they were correct every time? That would have catapulted you into disaster. It would not be admissible in any new trial, that was for sure. And if the press found out, they would hound us, hound you. Forever your name would be associated with hers and, equally as bad, you would be labeled as an oddity. The daughter of a murderer who has premonitions—like her mother.”

“I get it, Mom.”

“But there we were.” She started to cry again. “Betsy and Johnny were locked up, in cages, in jail, suffering, without their daughter while we happily, lovingly raised you.”

“What did you think when they both received new trials? After Tilly remembered what happened and the bodies were found?”

“Tilly was seventeen then and entirely credible, as you know from reading the article. When Johnny’s and Betsy’s sentences were overturned and they were released, we were relieved for them, but we were also so frightened. We knew they would probably come after you. Why wouldn’t they? They had been locked away and shouldn’t have been, and you were their daughter. They worked hard and saved their money, then they hired top-notch attorneys and the whole case exploded again. It was front page news. Your parents’ argument was that they had been found not guilty and they should now be able to raise you. Millions of people agreed with them, and if they didn’t agree that Betsy and Johnny should get full custody, they did agree that they should get visitation.

“That’s why we moved you up here to the island when you were eleven. The news was too much. It was all around us. We wanted peace for you, privacy. Your dad and I were scared to death. We wanted to shelter you. What if someone found out who you were? It would be a media circus.”