“Daphne was a…kidnapper?”

“Who knows what else she was.”

Natasha doesn’t know what to say. Her mother doesn’t mince words. She doesn’t lie.

“Who told you the story you heard?” Quincy asks. There’s an edge to her voice. A dark spark in her eye.

“This guy Zach at Hi-Fi Grocery,” Natasha says. “Last I went.”

Quincy takes another gulp of vodka and it’s clear to Natasha she’s clearing her throat for the end of this story.

“Turns out Brea Delany was the little sister of one of Samhattan High School’s top athletes.”

“Wait. Mom…what are you saying?”

“Well, turns out Brea’s older sister played—”

“Don’t say it,” Natasha says. She puts her hands over her ears. “Don’t fucking say basketball, Mom.”

“Twenty-two points a game. One of the best seasons in Samhattan High history. On her way to that anyway. But when the police couldn’t find anything to pin on Daphne, Amira Delany and her friends took matters into their own hands.”

“Why did they think it was her?”

Something like tears well in Quincy’s eyes. She doesn’t cry; it’s the ice of her memories thawing.

Natasha stands up.

“Jesus, Mom. Are you telling me you’re responsible for what happened to Daphne? You told the police about her?”

Quincy squints up at her.

“When the fuck did I say that? There was a security camera in the back of Sandy’s. Clear as day the seven-foot rabbit took the little girl out that way, stuffed her into her muscle car. Drove off like a phantasm back to hell.”

“The basketball team,” Natasha says. “The fucking team killed Daphne.”

“They did.”

“And what happened to the team?”

“I don’t remember, Nat. I barely remembered everything I just told you until you brought it up.”

The police radio crackles again, this time with more urgency. More clarity too. Natasha looks to the house, through the house, it seems, to the police out front.

“Town Square,” the dispatcher says.

“Something happened at the cemetery,” Natasha says.

They get up and move to the fence for a closer listen. As they peer over, the officer speaking into the CB turns in her seat, blocking their view. But they still hear her when she says:

“This while the man’s in custody.”

Detective McGowan sits across a small metal table from the man pulled out from under Kit Lamb’s bed, Peter Lords. The man’s voice, twiggy, thin, is as out of place as his enthusiasm. Lords has a boyish quality McGowan wasn’t expecting and is a little bit disgusted by. The least he can do is act the part of the criminal he is.

The news of Kennedy Lichtenstein’s death, carried out in the same way as Melanie Jack’s and Tammy Jones’s, and ruled to have occurred while Peter Lords was in custody, means Peter Lords is not Kennedy’s killer. But Melanie’s? Tammy’s?

McGowan has found a fan of Daphne. That’s crystal clear. But is he the right one?