She pulled herself up to standing. And that’s when she caught sight of it between her feet. A trapdoor. She lifted the door open, and saw it, glaring at her from within. A small, industrial-looking safe. Robin hoisted the safe out. She placed it on the floor in front of her and crouched down. Looked it in the eye. “Nice to meet you after all these years,” she whispered.

The safe had a digital combination lock. She tried her mother’s birthday, then her father’s. Then their anniversary. Then her own birthday. None of them worked. She glanced at the costumes again and tried Halloween. 1031. The door drifted open.

Robin crouched down and looked inside, unsure of what she was expecting to find. The gun, after all, was in police custody . . .

The safe held a single, leather-bound notebook, identical to the many that lined Dad’s office bookshelves. She slipped it out. Looked at the cover. The taped label, just like the others, the patient’s name in mechanical print:

APRIL COOPER

The notebook fell from Robin’s hand, but she picked it up again. Opened it to the first page. She saw her father’s handwriting at the top in ballpoint pen, barely legible: “April Cooper, aka Renee White: Forensic Case Study #1 February 28, 1977, Borderline Personality Disorder. Patient exhibits . . .”

Robin slammed the book shut.

“Do you remember what I said, Robin, about how no one should be an open book to their children?”

Nicola stood behind her.

Robin turned to face her. Nicola Crane, who wasn’t April Cooper after all. Just an angry-looking woman with bright blue eyes, speaking with studied menace, holding a gun. “You want to know?” she said. “You really want to know that badly?”

Robin stared at her.

“Mitchell wanted to talk to Quentin Garrison. He wanted to come clean. You’re grown, he said. He’s semiretired. He said he believed he could help Quentin Garrison. As though some selfish little podcaster were more important than your mother.”

Tears seeped out of the corners of Robin’s eyes. “My mom was . . .”

“He didn’t think things through. Mitchell never really thought things through, not when they didn’t concern him. Your mother is a fugitive. There’s no statute of limitations on the shit she did when she was a teen.”

“I . . . I don’t want to hear any more.”

“Oh no, Robin. You wanted to know. You came all the way down here and nosed your way into that safe just like you got into your mother’s jewel box.”

“Jewel box?”

“Each item in that box is a reminder of someone from her youth that she loved and lost. Well, some of them she just lost. That little aqua heart necklace? That was a gift from Gabriel LeRoy. He said it matched her eyes.”

She swallowed. “The penny from the movie theater.”