Ever since last night when she went to the event, Rebecca has been turning over in her mind what she saw. The woman in the back of the room with the red hair and the glasses. At first, Rebecca assumed she was another student, someone she’d taken a class with but didn’t really remember. One of those faces she sees around campus or at parties that looks vaguely familiar but she can’t remember where she knows them from because maybe she was off in her own head in that class, or maybe the person never participated, or maybe Rebecca was a little drunk when they met at a party.

But then the woman did something familiar. She tugged at her eyebrow. It doesn’t seem like much, and for anybody else, it wouldn’t be. Except Madeline used to tug at her eyebrows when she grew nervous. Rebecca observed her doing it in class one day and locked eyes with Madeline, and then when they were walking out of the room, Madeline said, “I know that eyebrow thing makes me look like a freak. I only do it when I’m really nervous.”

And Rebecca told her it was no big deal, that everybody has their little quirks. And she asked Madeline if she had a test or a paper or something coming up, and Madeline said, “Oh, no, it’s something personal,” and walked away.

And that was about a month before she disappeared.

So when that woman at the reading started tugging on her eyebrows, Rebecca really believed it was Madeline. And Rebecca shuddered and everything turned cold like she’d seen a body rise from a grave.

But she calmed down—a little—and after the event tried to catch up to the woman, to talk to her and find out if it really was Madeline, but the eyebrow puller was long gone by the time Rebecca made it across the crowded room and started looking.

And didn’t that make her seem even more suspicious?

Nye continues to stare for an uncomfortably long period of time. Finally, he says, “Now, why would you say something like that?”

“Did you see the woman in the back of the room? With the really red hair? You must have seen her because she was right in the back. She would have been directly in your line of sight. Did you see her?”

“I might have,” Nye says, sounding irritated. “You think that was Madeline?”

Nye’s attitude knocks Rebecca off her stride. She could tell him about the eyebrow thing but wouldn’t that sound as ridiculous—or more so—than everything else she’s already said? Aren’t there a lot of anxious young people who stand around at the back of crowded rooms pulling on their eyebrows? And the woman looked so much thinner than Madeline. And Madeline is supposed to be . . .