Clarke’s daughter, Nicole, and husband, John, participated in the search that was called off yesterday afternoon after four days. Investigators would not give specifics, but a source close to the family said that a credit card charge has been made at a nearby hotel, and some clothing and a note have been found inside the room Clarke rented. Investigators did confirm that it is now believed the subject left of her own accord.

What has he done?

He has my purse. He’s found my credit card. He’s forged a note—maybe using the names and numbers I wrote down for him so he could call my family.

Rage returns, bringing back the heat. It does not stop the tears.

Those thoughts I has as I walked down that road, the road with the lies and the false promises, that had seeped into my head and my heart. Thoughts about leaving my family. It’s as though he read them all and then made them come true. He’s done this to me, but I can’t stop the rage from turning right back around. Did I do this to myself?

At the very bottom of the page, I see a picture of John and Nicole. They are walking from a car to a police station. I don’t recognize the building or the street or any of the people around them. I think it must be Hastings.

I run my finger lightly over the page, touching the image of them. I want them both, here, in my arms, more than I ever have.

I hear a creek of the floorboards from down the hall and I shine the light under the door. I get up and walk closer, until I can see through the crack beneath it. The light shifts with the creeks and I know he stands there. Waiting. Listening, perhaps.

The cold, musty air heaves in and out of my chest until it explodes in words.

“You’re a monster!” I scream in futility, in anguish, because I know that nothing I can say to him will touch his soul.

But now a voice—

“Shhhh,” it’s the voice of an angel. My sweet Alice. This is how I think of her right now, in this moment, when I realize it is her little feet making the light change beneath the crack in the door.

I press my hand against the wood.

“Alice?’ I say.

She whispers. “Don’t worry,” she says. “Don’t cry.”

“I know.” I sob. “I just want to go home. I want to see my family.”

Alice sighs loud enough for me to hear.

“We all want things,” she says. “But we get what we get and we don’t get upset.”

She giggles and it makes me cry harder. How can I reach her? How can I make her little fingers move to the dead bolt and turn, turn, turn . . .

“She’s pretty,” Alice says.

And now comes alarm.