Claudia’s eyes met her mother’s. She said quietly, “I’m guessing my sister-in-law, Eugena, contacted you?”

Phillips neither confirmed nor denied it, only regarded her in a way that caused color to rise in her cheeks. “Why did you leave your phones and laptops in the house?” he asked curiously. “Wouldn’t it have made more sense to dispose of them?”

Claudia accepted that it would have, but it was too late now. “I suppose it was my way of telling my husband, and his sister,” she said, “that we’d gone for good and there was no point looking for us because we’d left our old lives behind.” She didn’t mention anything about the Internet advice on disappearing; it was a site that might work well for some and so needed to remain in place.

Phillips arched a single eyebrow as he said, “Didn’t it occur to you that your disappearance could be interpreted another way?”

“Not until I saw it on the news,” she replied, managing to hold his gaze in spite of the intimidation she was starting to feel. He’s not Marcus, she reminded herself forcefully. He doesn’t mean you any harm, at least not in the same way.

“And you didn’t come forward then because?” he prompted.

Marcy said, “Because we didn’t want to be found. I think that’s already been established.”

Phillips inhaled and glanced at Leo Johnson as he leaned back in his chair. “What I think,” he said, addressing Claudia, “is that you assumed if your husband and sister-in-law came under investigation regarding your disappearance, which they did, it would delay them from trying to find you. In other words, you made your disappearance seem suspicious in order to buy yourselves some time.”

“That’s not true,” Claudia responded quickly, and heard the faint rasp in her voice that weakened her words. She never used to be so apprehensive or afraid to assert herself, but it would change, she determined, just not in time for this. “I had no idea Eugena would report us missing. If anything, I expected her to try and find us herself, or employ someone to do it for her.” Her eyes went briefly to her mother and she could see that their thoughts were the same—contacting the police to help find her brother’s missing wife had clearly backfired on Eugena in a way she should have foreseen, but apparently hadn’t. So perhaps she wasn’t quite so clever after all.

Marcy said, “My daughter has already apologized for the trouble we’ve caused, and I’d like to apologize, too. I should have contacted you sooner, I realize that, but the problem was—and remains—if the press finds out where we are, our attempts to start afresh will have been pointless.”