Once the decision is made, everything becomes simple. A tired-looking woman washes her hands at the neighboring basin, while her three children jump up and grab her sleeves. At the woman’s feet is a wicker basket, from which spill tissues, granola bars, buckets, spades, toys and sunscreen. Dee takes the white flip-flop out of her pocket and slips it into the woman’s bag where it blends with the chaos. It will go home with the woman and she will assume she picked it up by accident with her kids’ stuff. It will never be connected with Lulu. Dee knows that if the shoe is found by the canoe-shaped rock, they will do police stuff, like forensics and they will know that Dee was there.

As she heads back toward her parents, she tosses the smooth green stone into the thick brush that hems the beach.

Dee wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and gets up. She seems to be in a different part of the forest, now. It is darker, denser. Groundsel and ivy are knee-deep. She must remember to keep blazing the trees. A giant fern brushes her face. She thrusts it away, impatient. Why does everything in this part of the world have to be so wild and scary?

She can hear feet ahead, frightened, uneven. A child running.

“Lulu,” she calls. “Stop!”

Lulu laughs. Dee smiles. It’s good that she’s having fun. Dee doesn’t mind playing tag for a while longer.

Later, when Dee had time to think, the horror of what she had not told settled into her like disease. It’s too late to tell now, the little voice said. They’ll send you to jail. After her mother left and her father died there was no point in Dee telling, because there was no one left to forgive her.

Dee realized what she had to do. She had to find the person who took Lulu. If she could do that, there was a chance she could be a good person again. It was something to cling to. But tired Karen kept clearing people of Lulu’s disappearance. And as the years went by the possibilities, the list of suspects, was whittled down and down. Dee grew desperate.

She had almost given up, until Ted.

Karen said that Ted had an alibi. Dee didn’t believe it. She suspected that Karen was trying to throw her off the scent, stop her repeating the Oregon incident. Dee knew she had to be careful. She would watch him. She would get proof before she acted, this time. Dee got a little ahead of herself, however. She may as well admit that.