She remembered so much about Alex. The way he smiled at her when he tore her ticket to see Pirates of the Caribbean at the Old Town movie theater and then found her during the previews to bring her a pack of Twizzlers because the red matched her lipstick. Lying next to him for hours on the merry-go-round at College Hill Park, dreaming of ways for two poor kids—one in a group home, one without papers—to get rich. And she remembered the look in his eyes as he begged her to leave Wichita with him. She was dead set against it until Alex told the lie that spiraled into all the lies that would follow—that she had shot that man at the house.

“Why?” she had asked. “Why would I do something like that?”

Much of what Alex told her back then lined up with what she now believed was the truth. He recognized Hitch in the family photographs as the man who had tried to rape Emilia when they were kids. When Hitch stepped out of the car with a gun, Alex charged at him, and the two struggled for control of the weapon. But in the version Alex spun to convince her to leave with him, she was the one who grabbed the gun after it slid across the driveway pavement. She killed Hitch with one shot.

And Hope believed every word of it. Of course she believed him. If you just found out that the man you thought you loved was a child molester, you might shoot him too.

Before she agreed to leave with Alex, she pressed him to explain exactly what Hitch had done to his sister. “He spent months telling her how special she was,” he said. “That she was too good for any boys her own age. He practiced his Spanish with her and gave her a copy of his favorite book. That’s what’s so sick about it. When he finally decided to rape her, he made her feel as if she’d agreed to it.”

His words forced her to replay the entire relationship with Hitch in her head. For Hope—for Tara—it was true, romantic love. Hitch told her she was special. That her “life adversity” had matured her. That she understood him better than his wife ever had, and that all Melanie cared about was her father’s company anyway. He always said she was too good for Alex, and that once his marriage was over, he’d give her the life she deserved. He even gave her a key to the house. And a copy of The Scarlet Letter, his favorite book.