“I don’t know what to do about it, Leah,” she confessed. “The scary thing is I’m doing the best I can, which is truly pathetic. You should be able to go to someone and complain at the very least.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Leah argued. “I just want it to stop. I just want you to make it stop!”

“How?” Lauren asked, frustrated. “How am I supposed to make it stop when it’s never over? Are we just supposed to pretend none of it ever happened? Am I supposed to forget you had a sister, a father? Are we supposed to pretend it’s okay that Roland Ballencoa is walking around a free man, free to stalk us? That’s not okay, Leah. Am I supposed to pretend he couldn’t take you away from me if he had the chance? What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know!” Leah cried, pounding her fists on the roof of the BMW. “I hate it! I hate that we have to live this way! It’s all Leslie’s fault! None of this would have happened if she wasn’t such a brat! I wish she was dead! I wish we knew she was dead so we could just get on with our lives!”

Lauren gasped as if her daughter had slapped her. If not for the car between them, she probably would have slapped her back.

“It’s not fair!” Leah went on. “She’s gone and we have to suffer and suffer and suffer!”

“It’s not Leslie’s fault she was taken!” Lauren countered.

“Yes, it is!” Leah shouted. “She wasn’t supposed to leave the house and she did it anyway. And she wasn’t supposed to talk to strange men, and she did that too. And she probably just got in his car because she wanted a ride. And it’s all her own stupid fault because she thought she was smarter than everybody!”

“Leah!”

“It’s true! And I hate her!” she cried, tears streaming down her face. “She ruined all our lives, but we’re supposed to go around saying ‘poor Leslie, poor Leslie.’ I’m sick of it!”

Lauren staggered back as if from a blow. She turned her back on her daughter because she didn’t know what else to do. Leah was her sweet one. Leslie had been headstrong. Leslie had been vocal. Leslie would have fought with her, not Leah.

Yet she could hear her youngest’s cries from just a day ago—What about me?

What about Leah? The daughter she had brought with her on this mad quest, putting her in harm’s way, depriving her of what childhood she should have had left. What about Leah . . .

A car door slammed behind her and Lauren jumped as if a gun had gone off. Leah was sitting in the BMW, angrily swiping the tears from her cheeks.