“What do you mean?” Steph’s tone was sharp but breathy.

Paul stepped toward Emma. “Freya found out something about one of us?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“I . . . don’t know.” As the lie came out, Emma pinched the edges of her cord dress. She just wanted to get out of there now. Compose herself, come back later. She could listen for when Steph seemed to be by herself, and tell her privately, let her absorb it first. “Maybe I should talk to him again.”

“He’ll need to make a statement,” George said.

“Okay.” Emma edged toward the door. She felt as if they were all crowding in on her but in fact they were stationary in their positions, watching her inch away.

When she was almost there, Steph’s voice stalled her. “Both parents?” She was fiddling with the zip below her chin, moving it a centimeter up, a centimeter down, small scratchy noises. “Which parent did Freya mean?”

Emma tried to signal to her that she’d return. “I don’t know,” she said again. Her stomach tipped as she wondered if this counted as withholding information. The awkwardness of the situation rolled itself in with her unease about Zeb, about glimpsing Robin, about coming across another strip of photos in her son’s drawer.

How could she stand in front of this audience and reveal something that might pull the Harlows apart?

28.

STEPH

Once Emma had left, silence cloaked the room. Steph noticed distantly that their ceiling light had two bulbs out, making one half of the living room darker. Everybody else seemed to be on the illuminated portion of a stage whereas she was in the wings, the shadows. She shut her eyes to complete the darkness, trying to grasp what Emma had said, feeling that it was what she hadn’t said that was vital.

“Have you any idea what Miss Brighton’s son might be referring to?” George asked them.

Nobody answered. Steph turned to Paul. “We need to talk.”

Paul nodded. His skin was gray and there were half-moons of exhaustion beneath his eyes. Steph’s glimmer of sympathy was overridden by a quick wave of fear.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Paul said.

“I’d like to discuss this with you both,” George said.

“We need a moment.” Steph left the apartment before George or her in-laws could protest further. Paul caught up with her outside. He’d brought her coat and he slipped it around her shoulders. They walked briskly, without speaking at first. There was a charge in the air as if another downpour was imminent, and the buzz of a police helicopter in the bruised sky. Steph stared at each car and pedestrian that passed them, and noticed Paul doing the same. She had the fleeting, terrible thought that this could be their life from now on: looking for their daughter in every turned-away face or shadowy window.