Nicholas came back to the hotel at four, and we went to dinner at a restaurant close by, the Redeye Grill. We started with small talk, which considering where we’d ended the evening before seemed especially peculiar. He waited until we had mostly eaten before he asked, “Elise, what’s wrong?”

I didn’t answer. I was afraid to answer.

“Was it because I told you that I love you?”

I slowly nodded.

He frowned deeply. “And you don’t love me.”

“I’m madly in love with you,” I said.

His look of sadness gave way to a smile. “Then what’s the problem?”

“You can’t really love me,” I said. “You don’t know me.”

“I know you,” he said. “I know that in spite of a harsh childhood you’re kind and giving and sweet. I know that you give more than you take. I know that you’re grateful for even the smallest acts of kindness. And I know that I can’t live without you. What more do I need to know?”

My eyes welled up with pain. I could no longer keep my secret from him. “There’s something you don’t know about me. Something I’ve done. Something horrible.”

He looked at me for a moment, then said, “Does it have to do with Hannah?”

Chapter Twenty-Six

CHAPTER

Twenty-six

I had locked from him the deepest chambers of my fear, only to discover that he had his own key.

Elise Dutton’s Diary

Every part of me froze. When I could speak I asked, “How do you know about Hannah?”

He didn’t answer. I could see my fear reflected in his eyes. I would say that I felt as if I’d been stripped naked, but it was more than that. I felt as if my skin had been flayed, my innermost parts exposed to the world.

“How long have you known this?” I asked. “Did you know before the contract?”

He gazed at me anxiously, then said softly, “I knew long before the contract.”

“How?”

He looked down for a moment, then said, “We’ve met before.”

“I’ve never met you before.”

“Yes, we have,” he said. “But in the state you were in, I doubt you would remember. I wouldn’t have.” After a pause he said, “Do you remember that I told you I worked for the prosecutor’s office?” He paused again, and I was terrified of what he was going to say. “I had been there about a year when we got a call from the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office saying a child had been left in a car and died of hyperthermia. They weren’t sure whether to arrest the mother. I was sent out to assess the situation.”

Suddenly I knew who he was. Tears welled up in my eyes. “You’re the man who interviewed me.”

He nodded.

I was speechless.