The girl caller had repeatedly told me I didn’t know everything about that night. Longing Esme of Belinda’s poems, unshriven and suffering, now clearly thought she needed me. I had her number. She came and went like smoke. Maybe my husband was right, that she was no more than a fantasist or a creep. If she was, she was a fiercely persistent one. It was time to call her back. I reached down into my bag to grab my phone and texted her.

Please answer: I’m wondering if you’re safe.

My phone brrr’ed right then, and I almost dropped it.

But it wasn’t Longing Esme. It was Jep.

“I can’t talk right now,” I said, rushing into the gap after he said hello. “We’ve just seen this woman, the first one...”

“Honey, are you on your way home?”

“Why? Did something happen to Stefan?” A new hot taste of that damned cake rushed up my throat.

“Stefan is fine, and I’m fine. But something happened here.”

“What?”

“Someone’s apparently been in the house. And it’s...not good.”

What someone had done was indeed not good; it was not really damaging, but it made my home feel like it was a haunted house.

Jep met me and Julie at the door and said, in exactly the way guaranteed to make you do just that, “Now, don’t flip out.”