After that, I stopped answering my phone—although I didn’t dare mute it, in case Natalie called with news. I was also waiting to hear back from Paige, whom I’d called as soon as we got back from the jail. She hadn’t answered her phone, so I sent her a text asking her to call me as soon as possible. I finally heard back from her in the early afternoon.

“Sweetheart!” I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God. I’ve been worried.”

“I had class, and then I went to talk to my lacrosse coach to tell him I have to go home. I’m looking for flights now,” Paige said.

“No. Absolutely not.”

“You can’t expect me to stay in school while Dad’s being tried for murder!”

“He’s not being tried for murder,” I said automatically. And then, remembering Natalie’s caution that this might be only over for now, I added, “At least, not yet.”

“Oh, my God! What does that mean?”

I briefly ran through what had happened in court that morning—the invalid arrest warrant, the possibility that a valid one could still be issued. “But Dad’s lawyer thinks that this is all just a publicity stunt.”

“Mom, do you hear yourself right now? That’s ridiculous. Prosecutors don’t try people for murder just to get on the news,” Paige said.

“Well, maybe not to get on the news, exactly. But they could be doing it to put some pressure on your dad. They’re threatening him with prosecution in the hopes that he’ll panic and tell them something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Obviously there’s nothing more to tell.” I shrugged, even though Paige couldn’t see me. “But they need something. Some evidence about what really happened on that night.”

“The night when Hannah disappeared.”

I didn’t like hearing my daughter speak Hannah’s name. I also didn’t like that this was my first thought. How was it possible that after everything James and I had been through in the past few days, my first impulse was to be jealous of a dead woman? And not just any woman, but a woman who had died far too young, and most likely in a horrible and terrifying way.

“Does Dad know something he hasn’t told the police?”

“Of course not. You know your father better than that.”

“Is that Paige?”

I looked up sharply, startled to see James standing in the doorway to the kitchen. I nodded.

“She wants to come home from school,” I said. “I’m trying to talk her out of it.”

“Mom!” Paige said in my ear. “I’m coming home!”

“Give me the phone,” James said. I handed it to him.