I shook my head. I had this crazy feeling I’d seen this before on an old television show, and if I could just remember which show, I’d know exactly what to do next. The Rockford Files? Cagney & Lacey? Murder, She Wrote?

My second thought was to call Carol. Carol would know what to do. Carol knew everything. After decades of lapsed Catholicism, it was the one miracle I still believed in. But Carol would probably be so busy getting dinner ready for her four kids that she wouldn’t answer. Or she’d yell at me.

My final thought was my least preferred option: I was going to have to come up with a plan myself.

“Okay,” I said. “Go to the trailer, and stay in there with Johnny until I find out what’s going on. I’ll text you when it’s safe to come to the house.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” Polly said.

“That’s good,” I said. “Because this is really creepy, and I’m afraid enough for both of us. Now, go.”

When I pushed open the kitchen door, Galen was sitting at the scratched pine trestle table with my father. A bottle of John’s fancy pants wine was on the table between them, and both of their glasses were full. The two decoy bottles John and I had left on the counter were still sitting there.

My father held up his glass in my direction. “Well, now, look what the cat dragged in. Meet my lovely daughter Carol.”

“Sarah,” I said. I dropped my teacher bag to the floor, slid out of my suede jacket and threw it over the back of my chair.

“Just making sure you’re awake, Sarry girl,” my father said, “just making sure you’re awake. Say hello to Gaelic. With a nice Irish name like that, I knew we’d be fast friends the minute I bumped into him on Main Street.”

I glared at Polly’s wasband, just so he’d know I was on to him. He must have driven by the house last night or this morning, seen the cars in the driveway. Maybe he’d picked out my father as the weakest link, followed the pink ice cream truck to fake a coincidental meeting.

When Polly’s ex smiled at me, his teeth were even more blindingly white than Ethan’s. And those Caribbean eyes were mesmerizing. They couldn’t possibly be real. Maybe he’d had some kind of sparkly turquoise lens implant.

“It’s Galen,” I said. “You do know he’s Polly’s ex-husband, right, Dad?”