I knew the voice. Todd.

“She gets so angry,” he said.

“Do you blame her?” Pamela’s voice. I turned, but they weren’t there, only their voices.

“No.” His voice broke on the word. “I keep hoping the brace will help—”

“It’s not helping.”

“God, why doesn’t something work? All that medicine, and they can’t fix her?”

“What if we could fix her?”

“Don’t,” he said, his voice low. “We’ve been to more doctors than we can afford, and I’d work three jobs if it would help, but they all say the same thing.”

“I mean us, Todd. What would you do to fix her?”

“Anything.” Anger in his voice. “You know that.”

“Anything?”

“Of course.”

“Would you kill for it?”

“What?” Voice sharp, as if he’d misheard.

“Would you kill someone to fix her?”

“God, Pam, don’t even talk like that.”

“So the answer’s no? Not even if it was someone who deserved it?”

He didn’t answer, only scooped the baby up, and my infant self disappeared from sight, my howls turning to soft sobs as he cooed and whispered to me.

“You said you’d do—” Pamela began.

“You’ve been working too hard. Go take a nap, and I’m going to pretend we never had this conversation. If you want me, I’ll be at the park with Eden. That’s what she needs from her parents.”

The baby stopped whimpering, and the voices disappeared. I looked down at the cradle.

Not Todd. It was never Todd.

Of course it wasn’t. No matter how much he loved me, he wasn’t that kind of person. He just wasn’t.

And Pamela . . . ?

“Olivia? Are you up here?” Ricky sounded closer now.

I dashed out of the room. “Here!”

“Where are you?”

I raced toward the sound of his voice, cutting through one room after another until . . .

I swung through the door of the crib room again.

I’m going in circles.

No, I wasn’t.

I must be.

A figure stepped from behind the door.

Fingers closed around my arm. I twisted to see a woman holding me.

“You aren’t real,” I said.

“I wish I wasn’t,” she said. “So many times I’ve wished it. Please let me be a figment of my imagination. But I’m not.”

She clutched my arm in a cold iron grip. I looked at her. She was a little older than me, with snarled dark hair and dark eyes. I knew the face, but the eyes threw me, because every time I’d seen her, there’d been deep pits there, bloody holes.

“Isolde?” I whispered.

“You know me?” A faint, sad smile. “I wish you didn’t. I wish you’d never seen me, not like that. Not you and not her, poor little duckie.”

“Pamela.”