And I didn’t. If nothing else, what Emily-or-Esme told me proved that Jill had a capacity for petty vengefulness that she concealed very well.

I left her briefly and followed Stefan upstairs to quietly call the police, and as I got to the landing, I heard him turn on the shower.

When I told the Portland Police dispatcher that there was an intruder in my house, he said, are you safe, can you go to a safe place? I told him I was safe, that I knew the intruder. He paused. Then he asked if there was a domestic dispute in progress. I told him no, there wasn’t, not at all, but to come quickly.

“A car is on the way,” the dispatcher said. I looked out through the porthole window. The stars were beginning to fade into the dark gray sky. It was five in the morning. Then I called Pete Sunday, on the cell number he gave me. I expected him to sound muffled, like one of those people who knocks the phone off the nightstand.

“You have her in the house? Is she restrained?”

I almost laughed. “Uh, no. I wanted to use those zip ties, but I ran out. She’s downstairs, she, well, I spilled some boiling water. She startled me, in the kitchen. She has a burn, but it’s not very bad.”

“Seriously, Thea. I’m on my way. Did you call the police?”

I told him I had, they were on the way, and added, “She denies killing Belinda.”

“What did you expect?”

“I thought she was coming here to confess to me, but what she confessed was that giving Stefan that whole brew of drugs was wrong. She just admitted inciting him to rage over Belinda.”

“Do you believe her?”

“I don’t know. I know she thinks I believe her,” I told him. “She’s the Unabomber.”

“What?”

“She was the guy in the hoodie. The one who kept following me. That was her all along.”

“I thought it might be.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?” It seemed strange, to say the least. “And she is also that girl in the picture, the tall, dark-haired girl. She says her name really is Emily.”

I hurried back down to the living room. Our dog Molly was happily chomping on liver treats, which were scattered everywhere. The empty bag lay on the floor in front of the open door.

Emily was gone.

When the police arrived, they immediately called for more officers and began a neighborhood search, on foot through backyards, in vehicles that sent cones of light into every dark passage.

Pete Sunday said, “We’ll find her.”

But they didn’t find her. They never have.

We were no worse off than we had been, and yet, I couldn’t deny that the conclusion felt worse.