You killed your own child!

I know my daughter. She has carried her own guilt from that fateful day. Not answering her phone. Not driving Annie to her friend’s house. Not being there in time as her sister ran down the driveway.

And now this—the belief that she caused me to walk away from them. Not just her, but Evan and John. This thought nearly breaks my steeled expression. This thought causes the blood to surge into my face, pulsing around the scrapes.

Evan. John. Nicole. My life.

In these long hours I have thought about the possibilities. I know how Mick learned about me. The cameras at the Gas n’ Go. The traffic stop. There is a lot of information online because of Annie’s death.

But then my family came to look for me, and everything changed. Now he wants Nicole.

Why did he bring her here? Why did he drill that hole so I could see her?

I know about human nature, about need that overcomes reason. Teaching children who were on the cusp of maturity has given me this tool, which I now use. Mick needed me to know what he’s done. What power he yields.

He wanted this more than he feared what I might do.

Or maybe he doesn’t know how fiercely a mother will fight to protect her child. Maybe he never learned that.

Either way, he has misjudged me like an adolescent child. I will not yield to his power. I will not behave when he has set his hands upon my daughter.

Alice looks up.

“I can’t get this one!” she says. Angry Face is here.

She shoves the paper through the bars and I see what she’s done wrong.

“Two negatives make a positive,” I remind her.

I hand the paper back. She takes it and resumes the problem.

“I have an idea when we finish your homework,” I say.

“Shhh!” she commands.

Fine, Alice. But we will talk about my idea. About the apples in the yard. The ones that have fallen and begun to rot. We will talk about how you and I are going to make a special treat for Mick and how you are going to sneak around Dolly’s eyes to get outside, and put on your mask, and collect as many apples as you can find.

Maybe I was selfish to have children, knowing they would have to die one day. Maybe I deserve to suffer for it. More than I already have.

But further punishment will have to wait. Because today, we are going to talk about those things.

We are going to do those things.

And we are going to save my daughter.

Chapter Forty

Day seventeen

It took sheer will to walk back outside, away from the bar. She needed the fresh air. She needed to drive, and to push aside the thoughts that were twisted up in her mind.