Knowing that she was betraying Jill, but unable to bear the shame any longer, Emily assumed the Esme persona and started texting me, warning Stefan to keep quiet. Insinuate yourself into Stefan’s life, was Jill’s next mandate. But that backfired: It was during those months spent chatting online with Stefan under a fake name and profile, pretending to be a college junior and trying to con him into liking her, that her compassion for Stefan’s true grief overtook her. She felt rewarded by his trust and protective of his broken vulnerability.

Stefan said, “You were that girl? You were the one who stood me up?”

“I was.” The pictures she sent Stefan were of her friend Olivia. To me, she said, “I called myself Stephanie, just so I wouldn’t forget the name. But he thought it was funny, us having almost the same name.”

“You’re pitiful,” Stefan said. “You’re a vile human being.”

He got up and stepped over the back of the chair to stand at the kitchen window, where sleet now spattered the dark glass with a sound like the tsk of disapproving tongues.

He added, “It’s not because you stood me up. I would hope even I could do better than you. No, it’s because everything you did, you meant to do. It wasn’t an accident.”

“That’s not true,” Emily said. “I probably am a vile person. But you have no room to talk.”

Which face of Emily should I believe in? I could recall the cocky scolding attitude of the hooded figure, who tried to run us off the road and then kept coming back to haunt us. Or was this shamed, fragile girl the real Emily, no more than Jill’s pawn? Jill’s motives, if deplorable, were at least comprehensible. Further, all Jill had to do was to conceive of those things, not carry them out. So who was really the more ruthless? No matter who coerced her, what she had done to us on the road a year ago was attempted murder. She belonged in jail, and she would go to jail. I thought of Jill, that arctic morning outside the prison gates. Jill, there to make sure that her handmaiden was ready to perform as instructed. Jill, there to make sure her will be done. What would become of Jill, if this whole tale turned out to be more than just a ruse? What was Jill’s culpability here? Should I call Jill, right now, bring her here? Didn’t she deserve to be in on this? Should I wait a few minutes after I called the police and then, when they were almost here, summon Jill, so that Emily believed that I would give her into Jill’s hands?

Maybe.

Still, there was no reason to alarm Emily, at least for the next few minutes.