Nine-oh-five P.M., Jason finally had Ree down for the night. It hadn’t been easy. The growing media camp had kept them housebound for most of the day, and Ree was punchy from lack of fresh air and exercise. Then, after dinner, the first of the klieg lights had powered on, their entire house now lit up bright enough to be viewed from outer space.

Ree had complained about the spotlights. She had whined about the noise. She had demanded that he make the reporters go away, and then, when that hadn’t done the trick, she had stomped her foot and demanded that he take her to find her mother right now.

In response, he offered to color with her. Or maybe they could work on origami. Perhaps a stimulating game of checkers.

He didn’t blame her for scowling at him and storming around the house. He wanted the reporters to go away, too. He’d like their old life to resume anytime now, thank you very much.

He’d read an entire fairy novel to his daughter, all one hundred pages from beginning to end. His throat hurt, he’d lost command of the English language, but his daughter was finally asleep.

Which left him alone in the family room, blinds and curtains tightly drawn, trying to figure out what to do next. Sandra remained missing. Maxwell had a court-ordered visit with Ree. And Jason was still the primary suspect in his pregnant wife’s disappearance.

He had hoped, in his own way, that his wife had run off with a lover. He hadn’t really believed it, but he had hoped, because given all the options, that one kept Sandy safe and sound. And maybe one day she’d change her mind and return to him. He’d take her back. For Ree’s sake, for his own. He knew he was not a perfect husband, he knew he had made a terrible mistake during the family vacation. If she’d needed to punish him for that, he could take it.

But now, as day three closed and the hours dragged by, he was forced to contemplate other options. That his wife hadn’t run off. That something terrible had happened, right here, in his own home, and by some miracle, Ree had survived it. Maybe Ethan Hastings had grown frustrated with his unrequited love. Maybe Maxwell had finally found them and abducted Sandy as a ploy to gain his granddaughter. Or maybe Sandra had another lover, this mysterious computer expert, who’d grown tired of waiting for her to leave Jason.

She’d been pregnant. His baby? Someone else’s? Had that been what triggered this whole thing? Maybe, with Ethan Hastings’s help, she had figured out exactly who he was, and she had recoiled at the prospect of bearing a monster’s child. He couldn’t really blame her. He should be terrified at the thought of reproducing as well.