She didn’t even want to follow her fears to their very end. To the connection between what she knew of Robin’s character and what she was starting to worry she didn’t know about Zeb.

“This has got to stop,” she said into the phone, heat flooding her cheeks. “Stop fucking with my head. Stop sending things to this house. And”—her voice was rising, uncontrollable—“and give me back my son.”

She shouted the last part much louder than she’d intended. Threw the phone against the wall with a crack. She stood panting, and cringing, but filled with a sense of release. Then she heard footsteps down the stairs again. She gulped air as a knock came on the door, and Steph’s voice: “Emma?”

Emma slumped into her window chair. She couldn’t face Steph now.

“I’m okay,” she shouted. “Sorry.”

She heard Steph lingering at the door. Her head felt as if it was going to explode. She laid her brow against the cold windowpane, letting it freeze away all sensation until her neighbor retreated.

36.

PAUL

Paul was flattened against Daniel’s attic wall, listening hard, his heart thrashing. Someone, presumably Daniel, was wandering around downstairs, doors creaking and closing. His movements seemed unhurried, as if he was as yet oblivious to the intruder.

Paul eyed the rear attic window. It was still open a crack where he’d gasped for air, and would probably open further, but how would he get down the back of the house? He peered out and glimpsed the woods again, the furthest trees now silhouetted in a spiky curve along the horizon. Creeping back across the attic, he stared instead down the narrow staircase, his brain fritzing with options.

His muscles tightened when the footsteps grew louder. Daniel was directly below now, on the first floor. Paul held his breath and pressed himself into the wall again. A toilet flushed and a vibration of pipes enveloped the attic. Then the swing of a door, a brief pause, the sound of receding footsteps.

Paul edged his way down the stairs to the first-floor landing. There was a burning in his chest. He could hear the hum of a television, and when he risked a peek over the banister he saw the living-room door was closed. Could he make it out of the front door while Daniel was in there? He snuck down the final flight of stairs, two groaning beneath his feet, but froze when he heard the squeak of sofa springs and a cough.

He was three or four paces from the front door now. His eyes did a speedy assessment of its latches and locks. It looked a simple case of twisting the top latch upward and pushing the handle down.

So why wasn’t he diving toward it?