Ellie would not learn the name Hope Miller for another nine days. She had no way of knowing that what had happened nearly seventeen hundred miles away on Long Island at the exact moment she had dreamed about her father would force the past to collide with the present once again.

4
Monday, June 14, 7:20 p.m.
Two Days Later

Robin Stansfield stood in the middle of the living room, her quilted Vera Bradley tote still in hand. It was a favorite among her collection—black with yellow-and-white sunflowers. Everything about it made her happy.

But she wasn’t thinking about her cheerful bag. Her focus was entirely on her surroundings as her eyes darted from one area of the room to another. Sofa. Media cabinet. Coffee table. Something wasn’t right. Something.

She didn’t even notice her husband, Stan—his parents had actually named him Stanley Stansfield—make his way into the room. His left hand pulled her giant Tumi roller case. His right managed to juggle both of their carry-ons.

“Thanks anyway, Robin.” His voice momentarily interrupted her meditation. “Really, I’ve got this all under control.”

She muttered an apology and made a kissing sound in his direction, which he returned. “I’ll leave a nice tip for you on checkout.”

She had known Stan since they were in the ninth grade. He was the sort-of-cute band geek who sat next to her, a junior varsity cheerleader, in algebra. He became her harmless, reliable friend when he got a provisional driver’s license and began offering her rides from school. She never thought of him as anything more until he and his friends formed a band the summer after sophomore year. The sight of him and his bass guitar playing “Hungry Like the Wolf” at yard parties had locked her down.

Now she was fifty-five years old, but they’d just celebrated their thirty-fifth anniversary with a week at the Four Seasons in Maui. Her gift to him was all the golf he’d played this week. Stan loved golf almost as much as he loved Robin.

Stan disappeared into the kitchen, then walked through the living room again, eating a piece of string cheese on his way to the garage to grab the next round of bags from the car.

By the time he returned, she was rotating slowly and methodically in a circle.

“You look like the top of a music box with a bum battery. Are you going to keep doing that?”

Yes, she was. At least until he returned a second time to the living room, plopped himself onto the sofa, and pointed the remote at the plasma screen TV on the wall. He had just landed on ESPN when she turned to face him.

“You know those days where you think you’re losing your mind?”

“A lesser man would say something slightly misogynist around now.”