“I don’t remember much before or after. The clearest part is being there, watching them. The gun—I think it must have been Michael’s,” she said. “I don’t know what I did with it. I was walking around in a sort of haze. I still am. I haven’t slept.”

She fell into sobs for a while. Val and I watched her rocking gently in the chair, one knee jogging, ankle tendons straining under her loose cotton pants.

“I’m so tired,” she moaned.

“Okay, we’re done.” I shut off the phone recording. “I’m going to make some calls. We’ll go see Detective Inspector Sweeney. She can get you a bed set up at the station and then we can talk about all this later.”

Stephanie stood, her arms clasped tight against her chest. She seemed to stand there wondering if I’d hold her again, if things had changed now that I knew that she’d taken two lives, that she was a damaged and dangerous creature. I wrapped an arm around her and held her to me. She was so small and cold, untouched by the warmth of my body.

“It’ll be all right,” I said, though I had no basis for knowing if that was true. “It’ll be all right.”