And then, Daisy Hollander—the woman Chief Watkins helped get a scholarship to a fancy summer camp in Woodstock, whom he’d supposedly driven out of town when she’d needed to escape the fate of becoming Mrs. Roger Booth. Watkins and his truck. Watkins and Daisy Hollander.

Daisy Hollander. She remembered the way. The names of the roads, and even the road with no name.

Down Laguna Drive to the end. Then right on Route 7. She was a mile from the Gas n’ Go when she saw the dark gray truck—the Silverado—with Chief Watkins in the driver’s seat. She turned her head and sat low as he drove by. Then she picked up speed, turning onto Hastings Pass. She drove through town, past the police station, until she got to the end—to River Road. Then right onto Pond, left onto Jeliff. Then the road with no name. She remembered the way.

As she made the final turn into the dense woods, those words were still ringing in her head. Making her stomach turn now.

We are the same.

Chapter Forty-one

Day seventeen

Alice has been such a good girl.

“Can we play Hannah and Suzannah?” she asks me.

Of course we can, you good, good girl.

“Of course we can,” I say, hiding my excitement.

She runs off to get the dolls and I return to the bathtub to check on the rotting apples Alice has collected from the yard.

There are forty-five of them. And they all have seeds.

Alice went to the kitchen like I told her. She went to make us lunch. Peanut butter sandwiches and milk. Yes, milk today, because she wants to make me suffer a little. She wants me to suffer because somewhere inside her little brain is the knowledge that I am lying to her about the surprise for Mick.

Still, she climbed out the back window of the kitchen. The back window near the sink, where Dolly’s eyes can’t see.

She wore her mask and carried two brown grocery bags. She scurried like a little bunny rabbit, picking up the apples and filling the bags. She had to make two trips to bring them back to the window. They were heavy.

She did all of these things. And she did them fast. She brought the apples to me in the bags, along with some groceries she placed on top. I emptied the groceries, bread and milk and peanut butter, then pulled the bags with the apples through the bars and brought them to the bathroom. I put the apples in the bathtub, then threw the bags in the garbage.

I try not to think about where he is. And when I do, like I am now, I look at the apples and think about his cells suffocating. I think about his lungs closing. I think about his heart stopping.

“Hey!” Alice calls out now. “Come out and play!”