One thing she knew, though: she was loved. Grandma and Grandpa had welcomed them from the beginning. For the past few years, Leni and Mama and MJ had lived in a small rental home in Fremont and visited her grandparents on weekends. At first they’d been on guard constantly, afraid to make friends or talk to strangers, but in time, the Alaska police had stopped looking for them and the threat of discovery had faded into the background of their lives.

MJ made so much noise and had so much energy that the staid house on Queen Anne Hill had become a boisterous place. On their nights together, they gathered around the television to watch shows that made no sense to Leni. (She read, instead; she was on her third consecutive read of Interview with the Vampire.) MJ was the wheel; they were the spokes. Love for him united them. As long as MJ was happy, they were happy. And he was a very happy child. People remarked on it all the time.

Leni saw her mother, standing off by herself at the edge of the playground, smoking, a hand splayed across her lower back in a way that looked unnatural.

In profile, Leni could see how sharp her mother’s cheekbones were, how colorless her lips, how thin her face was. As usual, she wore no makeup and she was almost translucent. She had stopped dyeing her hair a year ago; now it was a washed out, gray-threaded blond.

“I want akutaq!” MJ yelled, tugging on Leni’s sleeve. His voice was sluggish from the stuffiness of his latest cold. Ever since he started at the private school near the house, he—and all of them, really—had battled colds.

“And how do we ask for that?” Leni asked.

“Pleeeease,” MJ said.

“Okay. Go get Grandma. Tell her to put out the dang cigarette and come to the table.”

He was off like a shot, scrawny white legs moving like egg beaters, his blond hair streaming back from his pale, pointed face.

Leni watched him drag Mama back to the picnic table, her face flushed with laughter.

Leni glanced sideways, turning her attention away for just a moment. She saw a man standing near the entrance gate to this public park. Blond hair.

It was him.

He’d found her.

No.

Leni sighed. She hadn’t called the rehabilitation center in years. She’d picked up the phone often but never dialed. It didn’t matter that the threat of discovery had lessened; it still existed. Besides, when she had called, all those years ago, his condition had always been the same: No change.