How long has he known me? How long has he been planning this? That stop was last spring.

Mick is a cop. Everything I have come to think about him now unravels. I try to put the pieces back in a way that fits with this new one.

Mick is a cop—a real cop. He has access to records. He can get people to pull over, the way I did. To give him their information.

What else? The cameras—at the Gas n’ Go. Mick watches people coming and going. He can see their license plates and credit cards. I think about how these pieces fit together—how perfect it is. How he can gather information, and then use it however he wants.

He knew I came every other Thursday in the afternoons from the cameras at the gas station. He got my driver’s license and car registration from the traffic stop. And how easy it was from there—one Google search and my whole life unfolded for him, like a nicely wrapped present.

I want to fight against it. I want to pound my fists into him and tear out his eyes with my fingernails. I think that maybe my rage is finally big enough to overtake him, but that delusion is dispelled the moment his hands take hold of my wrists. His physical strength is undeniable.

He pulls me back to the window. Presses my face to the wood until it scrapes my skin. I can feel the small splinters as they enter and dig their way through the flesh.

“Look,” he says calmly, though his strength feels like an explosion against me.

I do as I’m told. I look at my precious daughter through the hole.

“I have her now. Nod if you understand.”

I nod. I do exactly as I’m told.

“I think she would make a good mother, don’t you? And a good wife.”

A cry leaves my mouth. I can’t hold it in.

“She is so lovely. Every inch of her, so, so lovely. And she is in love with me.”

He lets go of me and I fall to the floor.

“Nod if you understand,” he says again.

Again, I do as I am told.

Of course I understand.

If I am not the best mommy to Alice, he will take my daughter.

But then I also know the truth.

He is delusional, thinking she loves him. Thinking whatever it is they’ve shared will last beyond this morning. She will grow tired of him before the sun goes down.

And yet, it doesn’t matter.

He will take her anyway. But first, he will kill me.

Unless I can stop him.

Chapter Thirty-six

Day seventeen

It was only a few minutes before the door opened again and Reyes appeared. He shrugged once more, then walked back to the car.