“Sure you do. You’re the expert. Oh, wait! No, that’s me. This thing is only as good as you not delivering yourself on a platter to the police.”

“I know.”

“You say that a lot. But if you don’t listen to me now, you’ll definitely know soon, one way or the other, about a great many things. And if it goes a particular way, you also have to know that I can’t help you.”

Emma chewed her bottom lip. “Are you saying that because you think it’ll stop me?”

“No. I’m saying it for the other reason.”

“That it’s true.”

“Yeah, if you think you can trust me,” Samantha said.

“I’m sorry. Shit.”

“No shit, shit.”

“I’ll be careful. I promise,” Emma said.

“Uh-huh. Just call me.”

•  •  •

Emma watched the exodus from across the street in front of Gordon Hawley Middle School. It felt impossible to sift for any single kid in the liquid rush of young people pouring from the doors. They wore different colors and carried different things, but in the distance, they all seemed as alike as a romp of otters. And just as energetic. You only noticed any particular one of them when they drew some leaping attention to themselves.

Some of the kids split off for a line of buses. Some milled around in front of a queue of cars, waving their goodbyes as they matched to their rides home. But the girl in the video had been walking when she was attacked. So Marcelline looked to the margins of the crowd as it went ragged in all directions into the surrounding neighborhoods.

There. It had to be her. Same hair. Same stride. A plaid shirt tied around her waist an awful lot like the one in the video. Her features had been blurred out, but Marcelline had seen her on the screen so many times now. She was with another girl. It had been eleven days since the attack. Marcelline watched her for wariness.

Marcelline dropped the transmission back into drive and blew out a deep breath. She didn’t know how to follow anyone. She didn’t want to know how to follow anyone. The girl turned the corner with her friend, heading up the hill and out of sight.

Like the inverse of Emma’s family, who had become just images on a screen to her, it was strange to see this girl in three dimensions in plain daylight. Emma had sought her out and studied this girl’s life the way she had her sister’s. Emma felt both predatory and protective of her. Why and how the Flinck came to be in the girl’s foyer, none of this was her fault.