They found an apartment, his father found a job, and although Daniel wanted to ask his father what had happened, how they had been able to escape, he was afraid to do so.

His father died several years later, when he was a sophomore in college. They’d never mentioned or discussed the house after they’d left it, and by that time the memory of his other life had been completely buried and repressed. As amazing as it seemed, he’d forgotten all about Billingsly and Doneen and what had happened to his mother, and when he thought about his mother, which was rarely, his mind skipped over her death. If pressed, he would have had to admit that he did not know exactly how she’d died.

It seemed strange even to him, and while most of the circumstances of his childhood had been buried in his memory over the years, not all of them had been completely forgotten. He had, for example, been dimly aware on some level that they’d had a servant in their house. It had never occurred to him to wonder how his family had been able to afford a servant, however, and even now the specifics of that arrangement eluded him.

Probably the same way the Brady Bunch could afford their maid.

No. It was nothing so benign as that.

And Billingsly had been much more than just a servant.

Daniel stood before his wife, adamant but ashamed, dead set on the course of action he’d chosen but embarrassed by the melodrama of its origin, the potboiler nature of its cause.

“I have to go,” he said.

Margot simply stared at him.

“I know it sounds irrational. I know it sounds crazy, but trust me, that’s what happened, and… whatever it was, it’s starting again. And it’s trying to involve Tony.”

She was silent for a moment. “I believe you,” she said finally. “That’s the scary part.”

He looked at her, stunned. “You do?”

“Well, not completely maybe. But enough so that I trust your instincts.” She paused. “Don’t forget, I saw that doll, too. I know something’s going on. And if you can somehow… exorcise this whatever-it-is and keep it away from Tony, well then I’m all for it.”