When she heard footsteps descending from the Harlows’, she paused. Her eyes rebounded to her pad and she was shocked to see that she’d also drawn the face of an alien-like girl, with wide eyes, trying to lure her back to the past. It was a kind of self-portrait. A version of herself that, until recently, she was sure she’d left behind.

She dropped her pencil. The footsteps had come to a halt outside her door. She heard two people murmuring to one another—Steph and a man with a Welsh accent, possibly the police officer Emma had heard around the building a lot lately. An older couple had also arrived yesterday; Emma had guessed from the resemblance that they were Paul’s parents. She’d glimpsed them only briefly from her window, but their devastated faces had fed her insomnia for another night.

It didn’t feel like a springtime Sunday. It was the third morning of Freya being gone.

Just before she answered the door, Emma remembered she had three strings of glass beads around her neck and an ostentatious ring on each finger. During the night she’d been sifting through her stock, fishing out things she’d managed to sell back to her suppliers, and had begun draping herself in her favorite pieces of jewelry as though to become a walking embodiment of her shop. Hastily she shed the necklaces, slipped off the rings before opening the door.

Steph was wearing the green scarf again, but unwound, its ends swinging. There was a wildness to her bloodshot eyes, while the man was neat and composed next to her. Emma had never thought neat and composed could ever be used in contrast to Steph. Her neighbor seemed about to speak but the man took over, introducing himself as George, the Harlows’ family liaison officer.

“Could we come in?” he asked.

They’d hardly made it through the door before Steph spun toward Emma. “Your partner . . . where is he?”

“My partner?”

“Boyfriend, husband . . .” Steph blinked with impatience. “Doesn’t he live here anymore?”

“Steph,” George said, “maybe we should all go and sit down.”

Steph ignored him. “Do he and Freya know each other?”

“What?” Emma felt like she was in the wrong conversation, a misunderstanding she couldn’t disentangle herself from because she couldn’t quite get a footing in it.

Steph reached into the pocket of her cardigan and drew something out, shoving it at Emma.

It was a strip of photos. Emma’s confusion bled into shock as she held it by its edges. That’s . . . But they . . . She struggled to comprehend the series of snaps taken in a booth. Zeb. And Freya. Squashed together in the four square frames. Playful poses and drunken eyes.

Her heart started to thud.

Steph jabbed a finger at Zeb’s face. “Why’s my daughter having photos taken with your partner?”