My mother was still upstairs, asleep in a guest room. She’d been more upset than the girls. Too upset to go home. But also strangely vindicated. She didn’t say out loud that this proved the world was as blackhearted as she’d always said; she didn’t have to. I’d made her promise to go home this morning and make an appointment with her doctor, maybe go back on her antianxiety medication for a little. I thought I ought to find us all therapists. Ones who specialized in trauma. I wanted mine to have an M.D., so she could write prescriptions. Prescriptions sounded pretty good.

I made avocado toast for Anna-Claire, wondering how I could stand to let them go to school. I wanted to keep things normal for them, as much as I could. In the end I put Robert in his car seat and drove them myself.

An ex–Army Ranger named Mills went with us. His partner, Maxwell, discreetly followed in a dark sedan. It was a strange ride. Mills was young and beautiful, built like a movie star with a low fade haircut and a gun. Anna-Claire kept leaning up between the seats to ask him questions about his job and his military service and whether or not he was a dog person. She was both overconfidently flirty and thirteen years old, which made poor Mills wildly uncomfortable. He kept cutting his eyes at me, giving short, awkward answers while Peyton giggled.

I couldn’t help him. The closer we got to St. Alban’s, the tighter my chest screwed shut around my lungs. Robert had been stolen from this very campus. In the car-pool line, I gripped the wheel so tight that the blood drained from my hands. It was all I could do to let the girls get out and go inside. Then I sat frozen until the cars stuck behind me started tapping their horns in brief, polite peeps. I pulled forward, out of the way, but leaving wasn’t possible.

I parked on the road across from the main entrance and turned the car off, in spite of Mills’s puzzled glances. I told him we would go home soon. He texted his partner, and Maxwell parked behind me.

We waited. I don’t know what they were doing, but I was watching for Lexie Pine. After a while I turned the car on to crack my windows and let the pleasant air circulate. I wasn’t going anywhere.

Mills and I lived out of Robert’s diaper bag all day. I had protein bars and fresh diapers and formula and bottled water. I downloaded a light, sweet audiobook about misunderstandings at a wedding and played it to pass the time. Mills probably hated it. Around one, Maxwell had pizza and soft drinks delivered right to our cars. It was from some chain, thick with plastic-looking pepperoni and cheap, rubbery cheese. It tasted better than it looked.