She grimaced. “Tastes like cat pee. And impossible to order. Some kid in line yelled at me.”

“Starbucks is a cultural thing. You’ll get used to it.”

She grimaced again, set down the cup. Picked up the hat, twisted it in her hands.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Is there anything special you want to do? Something you’ve dreamed about all these years?”

She regarded me funny. “Adeline, I was a lifer. Lifers don’t dream. We don’t have someday.”

“But is it as you remembered, the outside world?”

“Kinda.” She shrugged. “Louder. Crazier. Like the memories were faded, now here’s the real deal.”

“It’s overwhelming.”

She shrugged again, striving for nonchalance, while continuing to twist the hat. From thirty years in solitary to midday in downtown Boston. It would be too much for most people.

“You could go,” I said evenly. “Leave me. Just walk away.”

My sister didn’t take the bait. Instead, it was her turn to regard me steadily. “Go where? With who? To do what? I don’t know how to drive. I’ve never held a job. I don’t know how you find an apartment or house, let alone how to cook a meal. For most of my life, the state has taken care of me. I think I’m a little old to change that now.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. My theme for the day.

“Why? None of it had anything to do with you. What happened, happened. Aren’t you the professional shrink? Because sometimes, you seem a little dense to me.”

“You’ll help me?” I asked. Because now that she was on the outside, I wasn’t so sure.

“I checked out my pressing social calendar. Looks like I can squeeze in one confrontation with a serial killer today. But that’s it. Any more killers, and we’re gonna have to negotiate payment terms. Hell, maybe I’m employable after all.”

“You seriously don’t know who the Rose Killer is?”

“No.”

“You haven’t been talking to anyone?”

She gave me a look.

“The killer came to my condo last night,” I whispered. “Brought me a present. Three mason jars filled with human skin.”

My sister didn’t even blink. “Why would the killer think you’d like something like that?”

I didn’t say anything. I could’ve, but I didn’t.

“Scared, Adeline?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Never. Don’t even understand the emotion. You can’t feel pain. Seems you should be fearless, too.”

“I have nightmares sometimes. I’m in a very dark place. All I can see is a strip of yellow light. And I’m terrified. I wake up screaming every time. It puzzled my adoptive father for years. That a girl who couldn’t feel pain could still experience fear.”

“You dream of the closet,” my sister said.

“I think so.”