“I’m not sure this is a good environment for your little girl.”

“Thanks for your interest, Lee. My wife is gone, and I’m not leaving. Her parents are on their way. I expect that they’ll take Aubrey with them.”

I turn to my little girl. She looks scared, confused. And I don’t know how to make it better.

“You want to see Grandma Helen and Grandpa Frank?” I ask.

She gives me a little nod.

Lee speaks up. “That’s a good idea, Adam. But before that, we’ll need to interview Aubrey.”

“I don’t know about that. She doesn’t know anything. She’s just a little kid.”

“She’s also a witness,” Montrose says.

“It has to be done, Adam,” Lee says. “Procedure. You understand.”

Part of me does, of course. But even so, I think that pressing a three-year-old for details about the worst thing she’s ever seen can only make the ordeal worse in the long run. An interview would be traumatic.

“I don’t know,” I finally say.

“I’ve done this before,” Lee says. “You can be present, but you need to let me talk to her.” She looks over at Montrose.

That goes for him too.

CHAPTER SIX

LEE

While her father and my partner look on, Aubrey Warner and I sit on the concrete steps that lead to the beach. We face the water, and all the commotion behind us fades away. The strangers. The police vehicles that fill the parking area shared by the three cabins. Lights on one still flashing. Especially the worried look on her father’s face.

“Aubrey,” I tell her, “I know you are a big girl.”

She smiles a little. “I am big.”

“I know,” I say. “I need you to help me.”

She finds a mussel shell on the step and offers it to me. “Mommy likes shells too.”

It’s my easy opening.

“Tell me about your mommy,” I say, taking the blue shell. “Did you see your mommy on the beach before she went away?”

“A bad man took her.”

“What did he look like?”

She turns to Adam and Montrose and points.

“Like him.”

“Like your dad?”

“No. Like him.”

She means Montrose, who’s older than Adam.

I ask her if she can describe the man further, but she’s at a loss. He was a man.

“He took her. He took Mommy.”

“Yes,” I say. “I know.”

“Find Mommy.”

I want to hug that little girl. I want to promise that we will, but I know better. I know that promises like that can come back to haunt you.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ADAM

Watching your child being questioned is among the hardest things imaginable. Intellectually, you know that the investigator is doing his or her job, but you cannot fathom the point of it. A little kid can’t remember what they had for breakfast unless they refused to eat it. They can’t tell you if something occurred ten minutes or two hours ago. It takes everything I have to let Lee pry out nonexistent details from Aubrey.