Ree prattled about Mr. Smith’s great escape, how no doubt he would be meeting up with Peter Rabbit and maybe they’d both come home with Alice in Wonderland. Ree was at the age where she easily blended fact and fantasy. Santa was real, the Easter Bunny was best friends with the Tooth Fairy, and there was no reason Clifford the Big Red Dog couldn’t have a play date with Mr. Smith.

She was a precocious child. All energy and high hopes and huge demands. She could throw a forty-five-minute temper tantrum over not having the right shade of pink socks to wear. And she had once spent an entire Saturday morning refusing to come out of her room because she was furious that Sandra had bought new curtains for the kitchen without consulting her first.

Yet, neither Sandra nor Jason would have it any other way.

He looked at her, Sandra looked at her, and they saw the childhood neither one of them had ever had. They saw innocence and faith and trust. They relished their daughter’s easy hugs. They lived for her infectious laugh. And they both, early on, had agreed that Ree would always come first. They would do anything for her.

Anything.

Jason glanced at the unmarked police car sitting outside his house, felt his hand curl into an automatic fist, and checked the reflex.

“She’s pretty.”

“Mr. Smith is a boy,” he said automatically.

“Not Mr. Smith. The police lady. I like her hair.”

Jason turned back toward his daughter. Ree’s face was smudged with peanut butter in one corner, jelly in another. And she was looking at him again with her big brown eyes.

“You know you can tell me anything,” he said softly.

Ree set her sandwich down. “I know, Daddy,” she said, but she wasn’t looking at him anymore. She ate two green grapes half-heartedly, then rearranged the others on her plate, around the white petals of the daisy. “Do you think Mr. Smith is okay?”

“Cats have nine lives.”

“Mommys don’t.”

He didn’t know what to say. He tried to open his mouth, tried to summon some kind of vague reassuring phrase, but nothing would come out. He was mostly aware that his hands were shaking convulsively again, and he had gone cold somewhere deep down inside, where he would probably never be warm again.

“I’m tired, Daddy,” Ree said. “I want to take a nap.”

“Okay,” he said.

They headed upstairs.

Jason watched Ree brush her teeth. He wondered if this is what Sandy had done.

He read Ree two stories, sitting on the edge of Ree’s bed. He wondered if this is what Sandy had done.

He sang one song, tucked the covers around his daughter’s shoulders, and kissed her on the cheek. He wondered if this is what Sandy had done.