Two weeks later, her mother was gone, but she’d forgotten the camera. Not knowing its contents, her father had had the roll of film developed. When he looked through the sleeve of photos, he shook his head in disgust and began ripping them in two. Blaire stayed silent until she saw him come to the picture of her with her mother. She put a hand on his. “Stop, Daddy. I want that one.”

He’d given her a sad look. “Of course, honey.” It was the last picture she ever took with her mother. Now, she realized what a horrible and selfish thing her mother had done. But for a long time, that photo was her most cherished possession.

15

The next day, Kate balled up the Yale sweatshirt and threw it into the kitchen trash. She knew that wearing it would only remind her of the danger she was in. They still had no leads on the texts or email. All of a sudden, it occurred to her that this person might have done the same thing to her mother before he killed her. Over the years, there’d been the occasional crank sending an angry letter or email, but they’d all been empty threats—except for the one incident that Lily had tried to keep from all of them. It was in the spring of Kate’s senior year of high school, and Blaire was living with them by then. Kate heard the door chime in the middle of the night. She peeked into Blaire’s room, but she was sound asleep. Kate had gone downstairs to see Lily tiptoeing down the hallway. Her hair was a mess, and she looked exhausted.

“Mother, where were you?”

“I had to take care of something,” she’d whispered. “Everything’s fine. Go back to bed.”

A month later, the summons to appear in court came to the house. Her father happened to be home when the certified notice came, and signed for it.

“What’s this?” he’d asked as he handed the official-looking document to Lily.

Kate had watched quietly as her mother’s face turned red. “I was going to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“It was last month. You were at the hospital. Margo called late at night. She asked me to pick her up.”

He frowned. “Why?”

Her mother sighed. “Her husband had hit her. When he was asleep, she called and asked me to get her,” she rushed on. “By the time I got there, he’d awakened and pulled a gun on us.”

“What?” Kate’s father exploded. “She should have called the police, not you.”

Lily shook her head. “She had before. It never did any good. She just wanted to go . . . get to a safe house that night.”

Kate had run over to her. “Mother! He could have killed you!”