She also does one of the things I remember most about her, a nervous tic she occasionally resorted to in class. She did it only on rare occasions, usually when one of her stories was being discussed. Madeline reaches up and rubs her index finger across her right eyebrow and then pinches her thumb and index finger together, plucking a single tiny hair out of her skin.

“I bought a copy of the book this morning,” she says, lowering her hand from her forehead as though she’s just done the most normal thing in the world. “At Target. That’s pretty sweet to get your book there. I started reading it in the parking lot, and I’ve been reading it all day. Except when I went to the library to hear you speak.”

I thought so. She was standing in the back of the room, obscured by the people I knew and many who I didn’t. I remember seeing the slim young woman with the bright red hair.

It turns out I did know the woman. She was Madeline.

“You left before the book signing,” I say.

“I don’t like crowds. And there were a lot of familiar faces there. I needed to be careful.”

“How did you get in here?”

“The basement. You should get a dead bolt down there.”

“It’s Gatewood. Most people don’t even lock their doors.”

“That’s a mistake,” she says. “You never know who will come in.”

It’s strange. When Madeline disappeared at the age of twenty-two, I was anguished. Scared. Confused. Devastated that someone so young could fall victim to a seemingly random and horrible crime. Her disappearance—and apparent death—during her senior year of college brought back a lot of feelings I’d been working to move past, feelings that lingered from the losses I’d unexpectedly suffered when my wife and son died. For weeks after Madeline disappeared, I wandered around in a haze. And so did my colleagues on campus and my students. We were all shocked.

But I don’t feel relief with Madeline sitting in my living room. Her reemergence is so abrupt, so disconcerting, that I scramble to think of ways to get her out of the house. If she doesn’t want my help, if she won’t let me call the police, then I’m not sure I want her here at all.

I don’t want her here because I know what she really wants.

“I told you I started reading this book earlier today,” she says. “And I haven’t stopped. I haven’t stopped even though I know every single thing that’s going to happen.”

CHAPTER THREE

MADELINE

SPRING, TWO YEARS EARLIER

Dubliners billed itself as an authentic Irish pub.