“Oh, well, then in that case,” Lena said. “I got stuff to tell you.”

SUMMER TOUCHED THE phone in her lap, turned on the voice recorder, and set it on the table.

For the next few minutes, she sat there, rapt, as Lena told her about fourteen-year-old Kate Sharkey hitchhiking to town and staying in her family home for two weeks before anyone realized she was there all by herself. “I worked behind the counter at Grumley’s, and she’d buy food there. Say it was for her family,” Lena said. “She was coming in almost every day, buying not just food but toys. Coloring books. Candy. Plastic pants. Said it was for her little sister, Kimmy.”

“I don’t remember that at all,” Freddy said.

Lena shot him a look. “You didn’t work behind the counter with me, did you?” She turned back to Summer. “Anyway, Kate comes in one day. She’s exhausted. In tears. She’s got a little girl with her who’s about Kimmy’s age, maybe a year younger, and she confesses to me that she’s been staying in the house alone. That she’s been ‘hiding from her cheating asshole dad’—that’s her words—and waiting for her brother, but she doesn’t think he’s ever going to come meet her.”

“Kate Sharkey didn’t have a brother,” said Freddy.

Summer’s eyes felt salty and dry. She realized it was because she hadn’t blinked in several seconds. Quentin. If you are out there, I hope you are listening to this. “Kate did have a brother,” she said, very quietly. “A half brother. She didn’t know about him, though. I mean. I didn’t think she did . . .”

“She said her brother asked her to take care of this little kid. I guess the two of them had gone to his girlfriend’s house. It was the girlfriend’s little sister, and he’d asked Kate to take her away and watch over her till he and the girlfriend could come and pick her up. Well, weeks went by and she couldn’t handle it anymore, so she gave the little girl to Bill and Mary and they took her in. No one could get a handle on who this kid’s sister was, because she wouldn’t talk. Wouldn’t answer questions. But then a day or two later, the big sister actually shows up. Kate brings her over to Bill and Mary’s. Hitchhikes back home. Fourteen freakin’ years old.” Lena looked at Freddy. “Say whatever you want about her, but Kate Sharkey was a true badass.”

Summer said, “Did you ever find out who the girls were?”

She nodded. “They were both from that crazy Gideon compound. The one that those two murderers burned down?”

Summer touched her phone, thinking, Oh my God. Oh my effin’ God. “The two girls,” she said softly, waiting. “Were their names Nicola and Renee?”