How can you tell someone not to worry? What kind of a bullshit directive is that? Robin gritted her teeth. Tried to catch her breath, though she had none to catch. Her arms and legs felt as though someone had pulled the bones out. She means well. Help her. Answer her questions and she’ll answer yours. “About eight P.M., I guess,” she told Officer Lebow. “I spoke to my father. He said my mom was at the grocery store. Did you talk to them? Are they conscious?”

“What was your conversation about?”

“The Yankees.”

“Did he talk about enemies? An unwanted visitor?”

“Enemies? No.”

“How about your mother? Has she mentioned enemies?”

A breeze pushed Robin’s hair from her face. Her gaze drifted up to the cloudless sky, the dirty sliver of moon. “No one that I know of.”

“How often do you talk to her?”

“Every day,” she said.

“So you’re close. She would confide in you.”

“Officer Lebow?”

“Yes.”

“Are you trying to say that this wasn’t a . . . a . . . simple robbery?”

“We’re still trying to figure that out.”

Mr. Dougherty said, “My family. We’ve lived here twenty years, we’ve never had anything like this.” Mr. Dougherty, still talking about his family when he lived alone in his big Tudor house. Still saying we, even though his daughter lived in DC now and his wife was gone forever.

“Did your father or mother know anyone who drives a silver compact car? Maybe a Chevrolet Cruze?” It was another cop asking now—a heavyset man, easily twenty years older than Officer Lebow.

“It was a Chevrolet Cruze,” Mr. Dougherty said, “not maybe.” But all Robin had heard was that one word. Did. The past tense.

“I need to go to the hospital.”

“Ma’am.”

“St. Catherine’s,” Mr. Dougherty said. “That’s where they are.”

“Thank you.”

She headed back to her car, jogging then running. No one tried to stop her. St. Catherine’s was one town over. But it was physically closer than Tarry Ridge Hospital. She knew where it was, more or less, but she punched it into her phone anyway. She couldn’t bear the thought of taking a wrong turn.

Mr. Dougherty was shouting after her. “Is Eric at home? Do you want me to call him?”

Robin pretended she didn’t hear. As she started up her car, her gaze fell on the front door: uniformed officers and a few men in suits moving through it, a tall man in khakis and a long-sleeved shirt wearing gloves . . .

A crime scene.

She backed out of the driveway, her mind filling with images she’d never forget: the flashing lights, strangers filing into her parents’ home. Those thin latex gloves that came with the man’s job. And blood, pooling under the white sheet, spreading across her father’s chest, the glimpse she’d gotten of his face, eyes wide as she’d never seen them before.