I wished I could talk to Clara. I had no idea how to broach what we had been doing, what she had seen. I decided, in the meantime, not to mention anything about the two of us looking for the missing women, the visions, or the signs. Even now that all of Clara’s hunches had proved to be true, the situation felt even more absurd. Intuition was delicate, intimate. It didn’t stand up to getting passed around, submitted to scrutiny. It just was what it was. Inexplicable, beautiful. Scary and strange.

“So, do you have any idea where he went? Or who he is? There must be DNA on some of the women.” I was afraid of being afraid. Of having to live the rest of my life thinking he might show up and find me. A nameless figure always lurking in the shadows.

“We’re treating each woman as her own separate case. What happened to you is its own case as well.”

“What does that mean?”

“Each one is being investigated independently of the others, with its own team of detectives. I’ll be working on your case.” The set of his mouth made me realize that he thought solving “my case” was a lost cause.

“Why? Even I know that doesn’t make sense. What about what he said to me? That I wasn’t like the others? Doesn’t that prove he knew about them … and that he did it?”

He cleared his throat. “I know. But we have orders from … well, from higher up. No one wants to start a panic. No one wants the words serial killer applied to this case before we have proof.”

“Proof? But they were all there, together. Isn’t that proof enough?” He only shook his head in a way that seemed to say You’re right, but it doesn’t matter. Maybe they would find something that would force them to change their tack. It was too illogical, too cruel. But that night I watched a video of a press conference with the prosecutors, who rebuffed a reporter’s suggestion that there was a single person behind it all. I ended the video before I could hear any more.

Later I would read articles about the women online, about the lives they came from, the places they called home, the people who mourned them. There were pictures of Emily’s family, making their way from their driveway to the front door. A tall, fair-haired woman who must have been her mother. Two broad, blond boys with ramrod-straight posture, just like Emily’s.