“But you’d been calling the house, trying to speak to Grace recently, hadn’t you?”

“Grace wanted me to call so I did. I kept trying, again and again.”

“How did you know Grace wanted you to call?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know.”

He cries out in a damp sob, it sounds like laughter has become tears. But his eyes are dry. Suddenly he stills, becomes calm again. It’s like talking to many different people at once. He clears his throat as though he’s been sitting here, perfectly composed, all along, but I see his eyes skip, his teeth chatter again around the words he can’t say but when he does talk it’s with almost alarming clarity.

“Look, I was a mess after Danny’s death. Meg kept saying it was my fault, and it was easy to believe her. I couldn’t live with the guilt. Then Grace was born too early. She said it was my fault again, the stress from Danny’s death. Grace’s illnesses were my fault. I believed her. I thought it was better for Grace if I stayed away.”

His eyes sweep the room. I worry I’m going to lose him again.

“Tell me what happened next, Simon.”

His eyes widen when they land on me.

“One night I got a phone call from the hospital. They couldn’t get hold of Meg, but my number was still linked to her record. They told me Grace was sick, meningitis they said. I drove straight to the hospital, but Meg had already taken Grace home. I still had a back-door key so I let myself in. I just wanted to see her, that was all.”

“But you took Grace away.”

“I just, I just wanted to talk to her, make sure she was OK . . .” Simon shakes his head emphatically.

“But you couldn’t leave them alone, could you? You kept calling them, over and over, but they ignored you until you took Grace away again, didn’t you, Simon, after you murdered Meg?”

He becomes very still, his pupils black and bottomless, and he stares over my shoulder and says as calmly as if this were just a chat about the weather, “I wouldn’t hurt Meg.”

“That’s not the same as saying you didn’t,” I say as Simon starts moving his head frantically, as though there’s something stinging him inside. I think about saying her real name again or telling him I know Grace’s real date of birth, but I don’t want to send him over the edge. Suddenly he stops, blinks, and relaxes again.

“You have to find her. You have to find Grace, Jon.”

“I need your help. I need you to tell me where she is.”

“Why would I ask you here if I knew where she was?”

I don’t have an answer, so instead I ask, “Why me?”

“Because you know what it’s like to have a sick kid; you know what it’s like when the whole world hates you. We share all that, you and I.”