Quentin had known all this, of course. It was information found in nearly everything that had been written about the Inland Empire murders, Wikipedia entry included. And it had made for some impressive pyrotechnics in the 1986 TV movie. But hearing it again, from people more genuinely obsessed with the case than even he was, force-bloomed the doubts that had seeded themselves in his mind the moment he dropped Summer off at her apartment. All they had to go on was one ticket stub and the off-the-record musings of a middle-aged man who’d been taken in for a few free meals by some vagrant girl forty-three years ago. That wasn’t a podcast. Hell, it wasn’t even a decent story to tell at a cocktail party.

“I don’t think she looks like anyone,” Quentin said, pointedly.

“Come on, honey,” Dean said. “Who knows what a fifteen-year-old would look like at fifty-eight?”

“You believe George Pollard. You think I should believe him too.”

“I believe,” Dean said, “that anything is possible.”

On-screen, Renee was waxing on, yet again, about Easter Parade. “I know it’s not a mother/daughter movie per se,” she was protesting over Robin’s gentle teasing. “But it’s a movie I love to watch with my daughter.”

“Love is an understatement, Mom. How many times have we watched it together? I know it’s in the double digits . . .”

“At least a dozen, maybe two,” Renee said, and as her daughter laughed, she gazed at the vase of spring flowers placed in front of them, probably to add extra color to the shot. Robin looked to be around forty, but Renee was clearly a young mother, and on top of that youthful for her age. For a moment, she looked like a blushing bride, lost in the emotion of her big day. “Some movies are keepsakes,” she said. Robin Diamond—a columnist, not an interviewer—didn’t ask her to explain.

“Keepsakes,” Dean said.

“Yeah, well, we’ll never know what that was supposed to mean.”

The clip ended. “What are you going to do?” Dean said.

“I’m going to get angry at myself for being so gullible.”

“You honestly think George Pollard is lying?”

“Not intentionally. But he said it himself. We go through our lives, telling ourselves stories.”

“Come on.”

“Sweetheart, let’s be real. Couldn’t that adorable, lost girl have lied to the hunky gas station attendant about who she really was? And couldn’t there be two sixtyish women out there with a special affection for Easter Parade?”

“So you need to investigate more. Get yourself another source.”

Quentin nodded. “Or, you know . . .”

“What?”

“Drop the whole thing.”

“Quentin.”

He turned. This close, Dean’s eyes affected him the same way the sun did. He couldn’t look into them without hurting.

“Why does this story scare you so much?”

“It’s not the story. It’s the lack of it.”