But then more footsteps. And a new voice still.

The voice of a woman.

“You’re both pathetic,” the woman said.

Nic froze, her eyes now glued to the image that was so like her own.

Only now that image was flesh and bone. And she was wearing the same leather jacket Nic had seen at Veronica’s house.

Daisy Hollander walked toward them through the woods.

Holding the hand of a little girl.

Chapter Fifty-three

Day eighteen

I run like I’m on fire.

I run through the woods to find my daughter.

Now I hide behind a cluster of small trees. I do not know what I am seeing, but it has led me into a deep pool of confusion.

A well-groomed man, neatly dressed, holding a shotgun on Mick.

Mick, staggering from the poison, trying to steady a gun on the man.

And Nicole! How the sight of her makes me want to cry, makes me want to run to her and throw my body between hers and those men.

I force myself to stop. To think. I can’t afford another mistake.

I watch her move until she is almost safe, just beside a tree.

Go! I want to scream. Why doesn’t she take that last step?

And now I hear the voice I have come to know so well. To hate at times. To love at times. To fear at times.

“Mommy!” she says. Alice tries to pull her hand away from the woman who holds her. The woman who was her first mommy until she left last spring. Whose clothes I wear even now.

Daisy Alice Hollander.

“What?” she scolds Alice. “They are pathetic. Both of them.”

“Daisy? Is that you?” The man with the shotgun looks as though he’s seen a ghost.

But Daisy doesn’t answer him. She walks to Mick, dragging Alice with her. He, too, is mesmerized by the sight of her, and suddenly another piece falls into place.

“What the hell have you done?” Daisy asks. “We need to clean this up. I never should have left. I can see that now. I’ve been watching for two weeks, hoping you’d stop this nonsense. Seriously—how did you think this was going to end?”

She was never a captive in this house. And she’s been watching us. All of us, through those cameras. Through Dolly’s eyes.

Daisy strokes his face, runs her hand down his arm to his fingers which release the gun without the slightest resistance. He is in a trance. And he is weak and sick from the poison.

She steps away, five or six yards. Alice is dragged along with her like a pet on a leash.

She points the gun at the man with the shotgun, who trembles. Her face is stone cold. It shocks me more than anything else in these woods.