“Anyway, I finished up the job. When I opened the front door to leave, he was standing there. It took me a second to realize it was the guy I’d seen with the white pickup truck. I tried to run back into the house, but he pushed his way inside and grabbed me. And then he said something like I was playing some kind of game.” Hope was gazing at a spot on the wall, as if she was in a trance. “I just kept trying to fight him off, and he was saying crazy things like he wasn’t going to let me ruin his life with my games. I tried explaining that I didn’t even know who he was. I said he could look it up—that I’ve had amnesia for fifteen years—but he was looking at me like I was insane. And I’m saying this while I’m trying to get distance from him, and he’s following me all over the room. I finally got hold of my keys in my purse.” She returned her gaze to Lindsay. “I swear, I thought he was going to kill me.”

Lindsay arched a brow and glanced toward the end table next to the sofa, where her own keys rested, complete with a purple, cat-head-shaped self-defense keychain that she knew matched Hope’s. AKA Stabby Kitty.

Hope looked more like herself as she flashed a brief smile. “I can’t believe I even thought to grab for it, but it actually worked. I managed to get two of my fingers into the holes and just began swinging. I aimed for his face. It drew blood. A lot. I don’t know if it was his head or his eye, or what, but there was all this blood.” She ran her fingertips against her own left temple. “He kind of stumbled backward and fell. All I could think about was getting out of there. I grabbed my purse and ran. I also took this.”

She reached inside her purse and retrieved an iPhone, which she placed on the sofa between them.

“Is that his?” Lindsay asked.

Hope nodded, wincing. “It dropped out of his shirt pocket when he fell.”

Lindsay knew her expression revealed her immediate analysis of the situation: Not good.

“I just wanted to know who he was,” Hope explained. “I drove until I was sure he wasn’t following me, and then pulled over to look through it real fast.”

“Wait, how did you even get into his phone?” Any evidence that Hope was able to get past a locked phone screen would undermine her claim not to have known Alex Lopez.

“When I finally felt safe enough to pull over, I realized that could be a problem, but I guess he didn’t have it protected. It was just on.”