“I’m not disappearing.”

“Oh, no one ever wants to disappear. Everyone wants to be in control of their own fate. It’s very difficult to concede the innate powerlessness we all have. It’s far better to manage your lack of control rather than to deny it exists.”

This is Logan Yates, Art of War, talking now.

“Tell me something,” he continues. “Back after the Caleb incident.”

“It was more than a fucking incident, Dad.”

He waves this off. “The day after the incident, your sister was questioned. Here. In this house. What do you remember?”

I think back, but it’s like trying to discern shapes through foot-thick glass. “It’s blurry.”

“You were nearly catatonic. I cut Cora’s interview off before it was over, and I thanked god the cop didn’t talk to you. At one point, you ran off to the bathroom and vomited.”

That I remember.

“I yelled at the detective,” he says, “complaining he was harassing my daughter after she was already upset about the disappearance of a classmate. He backed off because, well, let’s face it, I’ve always been good at intimidation. But I thought he’d be back, which is the reason I set up those three phone numbers to begin with.”

“But the cops didn’t come back.”

He shrugs his shoulders. “I think I overestimated how guilty your sister looked during her interview. No, he didn’t come back. But murder never goes away. Not ever.”

The word murder crawls all over my skin, looking for an opening to get deeper inside.

“But now I think we have run out of time and luck,” he says. “If you want a chance to be free, you need to make that call.”

Silence settles. Here we are, looking at each other, daughter and father, and I feel a profound certainty I’m never going to see him again. I can see it in his eyes, and I’m sure he sees it in mine.

“Pack a bag,” he says. “One for you, one for Max, no more than that. Then take the car. I put some cash in the glove compartment. Get Max, drive to Boston, and park in the Central Parking Garage at Logan Airport. Those are the only instructions I have. Once you’re parked, call the number. Do what they instruct you to do.”

I don’t tell him again I have no intention of disappearing. I don’t think my father can comprehend a person’s willingness to face the consequences for things they’ve done. It’s taken me twenty-two years to understand it myself, but this is where I am. However I think I can justify my past, I have done things. Bad things. Worse than some people, not as awful as others. Yet I see a future for myself. A future where I’ve paid for my wrongs and live life free from prolonged guilt.

Like Clara Tomson, I think.

Free from thoughts of the suicide rainbow. Maybe even free from the dreams that haunt me.

And maybe this is some chemical in my brain, some compound the body generates to battle extreme anxiety, but standing here in this room of death, staring at the man who raised me and now wants me to disappear forever, I have a sudden, irrational, and blissful belief everything will be fine. The truth about Caleb and Cora will come out, and it will be months or even years of stressful legal and emotional struggles, but in the end, I’ll be fine. Cora will be revealed for the person she was, and maybe even more of her crimes will be unearthed. I won’t be taken away from Max. We’ll be the people we’ve always wanted to be.