Their family liaison officer stuck his head around the living-room door. Paul saw his eyes flicker again over his cuts and bruises. Since he’d called George and asked him to come straight over, Paul had managed to dodge all questions about his injuries. He knew he’d have to answer them sooner or later, but right now there were more urgent things.

“I’ve asked the team to look for any information about Kate Thomas or Rebecca Fielding,” George said. “They’re looking into the case described in the article too. And we’ve put out a search for Steph. The helicopter’s looking for her and Freya now.”

Paul stared toward the window, at the starless sky bearing down on the suburban rooftops. Was that the helicopter’s beam he could see, sweeping over the neighborhood, illuminating its nocturnal secrets?

Where are you, Steph?

Who are you, Steph?

He couldn’t help hearing Nathalie’s voice, asking that same question of him, like a reversed echo through time. Couldn’t stop seeing mirrors across present and past: Steph and Nathalie, Freya and Billie . . .

Steph and Kate?

Striding along the corridor into their bedroom, Paul stared at his wife’s clothes in the still-open wardrobe, touching familiar sleeves and collars. His marriage was in these textures: years of feeling this silk shirt brush against his skin as he kissed her, or hooking his fingers into the belt loops of these trousers to draw her close, or vaguely registering the softness of a sweater as he sat next to her on the sofa, Freya on his other side.

It wasn’t possible he’d been oblivious to something so big all these years. Yet fragments of memory were waking: questions that had stirred before, but had always been put back to sleep.

Paul had been obsessed with the life he’d had before meeting Steph and having Freya. The things he’d been forced to hide from them. Had that blinded him to the fact that Steph was evasive about her own past? Had he failed to see that he wasn’t the only one capable of wearing different masks?

If he’d learned anything these last few horrific days, it was that the stories he’d told himself about his life—or others had told him—couldn’t be relied on. They weren’t rigid but fluid, different perspectives flowing alongside one another. He hardly recognized himself anymore. Felt he’d changed as much in the last week as he had during three years undercover. But Steph was supposed to be the constant. His anchor.

“Paul?” George reappeared. “The team’s found some information.”

Paul whipped around. “Yes?”

George passed him his iPad and Paul scanned the email on the screen. Epilepsy medication . . . trial . . . disappearance from the record . . . His vision was fuzzy, like when he was tired and should be wearing his reading glasses, that film across his eyeballs.