“He should’ve been straight with us from the beginning.” Emma softens. “But I can understand why he did what he did.”

Bell nods. “He wants to stop teenagers from dying.”

“His intentions are good. But my mom has a proverb about that.” Time to change the subject. “You been in touch with your family since you arrived in Virginia?” She realizes that could be misconstrued as scolding. “Sorry, that’s none of my business—”

“I called them yesterday.” Bell busies himself wadding up the paper from his burger. “They’re doing okay.”

“What are your sisters’ names?”

“Selena and Connie.” He smiles softly. Wipes his mouth and fingers with a napkin, and the smile becomes muted. “Lena’s still angry with me. I just gotta let it go. I keep reminding myself she can’t stay pissed forever.”

“She’ll come around.”

“I’m hoping.” He jumps down off the tray. “I’m just real glad my family’s in Texas right now and nowhere near I-81. Let’s move, I want to get this visit done.”

The urgency is part of her, too, Emma realizes. The goalposts have shifted. The trip to see Simon Gutmunsson and the photos in the Pennsylvania case file have tilted the world. Emma’s hoping they can both keep their balance.

She puts the trash in a dumpster at the edge of the parking lot. Bell’s revving the engine by the time she climbs back into the cab of the Dodge. Humidity makes Bell’s shirt look wilted; Emma hits the air-conditioning. The change in the weather sings June, June, June. Time is their enemy. Somewhere—somewhere close, Emma’s sure—the Pennsylvania killer is considering his next move.

“Rosanna” is playing softly on the car radio as Emma provides directions from a map they picked up at a Texaco. She’s glad they’re driving the old West Hundred Road and not the turnpike, because she’s tired of staring at traffic.

Bell clears his throat. “Listen, there’s something you need to know. I might have trouble with this. With Gutmunsson’s sister.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“She was there.” He stares forward, fingers gripping the steering wheel. “When my dad was killed. She was Gutmunsson’s hostage during the arrest.”

“She what?” Emma hasn’t yet had a chance to read through all the details of Simon Gutmunsson’s arrest. She knows nothing about this.

“My dad persuaded Gutmunsson to trade the sister as a hostage. He let my father take her place. But then Gutmunsson knifed him, so Kristin stabbed her brother in the neck. That’s how they caught him. My dad still died, though.”

All the things that can’t be helped, Emma thinks. All the things that circle back around and find us again. She wants to put a hand on Bell’s arm, stops herself. It won’t make him feel better.

“The police told you all this?”

“I read the arrest transcripts and the incident notes.”

For a moment, Emma marvels that while the reports and notes from her own case gave her such relief, the reports on Simon Gutmunsson have done the complete opposite for Bell. The Huxton reports were something she could read and absorb—a firm account, to fill in the gaps when the lived experience had been so jumbled and fast.