But there was no stopping Stefan. The young guy was fast, but Stefan was faster, and bigger by a foot. Turning on the porch lights, I saw him hit the guy with a textbook tackle before he could gain the alley of aspens that ran along the back of the yards. I grabbed the first thing that came to hand, a fireplace poker, and ran out after Stefan. I heard the “whuff” as he pushed the guy down on his stomach, and Stefan yelling, “What do you think you’re doing in my house, asshole?”

But the next voice I heard didn’t match.

It was small, tearful. I recognized it from a dozen phone calls.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she said. “Please. It’s Esme.”

15

Up close, she was so slight. The stuff of all my nightmares was just a girl, a tall girl, but so slender that her head looked too big for her body, her face shielded by her hood and the dark glasses.

Stefan pulled her to her feet and awkwardly brushed off the snow.

“What the hell is this?” he said.

She was crying hard by then, and the two of us stood there as she wrapped her arms around her thin chest and rocked back and forth, her knees slightly bent, as if she couldn’t support her own weight.

“Please let me come inside,” she said. “I’m scared.”

“You’re scared?” Stefan bellowed. “You’re the one who’s scared? Why are you stalking us? Who are you?”

A light flicked on at the Riboskys’ house. Saying nothing, I gestured for Esme to follow us inside. I needed to call 911 and fast, but if I said nothing, the police would just assume it was an accident and text me to confirm it.

“Are you hurt?” Stefan asked her, none too gently. “If you have broken ribs, you deserve it.”

“I know,” she said and pulled the hood back. Her dark hair was artfully shorn, no more than an inch long, her blue eyes strangely transparent. With her dirty cheeks and pointed chin, she looked like some medieval panting of Saint Joan of Arc. “I would deserve it. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Stefan looked at me, his face wide open and guileless. “It’s you!” he said. “It was you all along. There was no Unabomber. It was just you, the famous Emily. Do you know what she did? Do you even know what she did?”

“I do,” I said.

It was the girl from the pictures in Stefan’s room.

Stefan kicked one of the chairs over. It landed six inches from Molly, who yelped and jumped to her feet, before it skidded across the room, crashing into the wall. He pointed a shaking finger at Esme. “She...she...”