Ree’s gaze went up. D.D. swore to God the child looked right through the one-way mirror to her father’s face. “Mommy said, ‘I still love you.’ Mommy said, ‘Don’t do this.’ Then everything went crash, and I didn’t listen anymore. I covered Lil Bunny’s ears, and I swear I didn’t listen anymore, and I never, ever, ever got out of bed. Please, you can believe me. I didn’t get out of bed.”

“Am I done?” the child asked ten seconds later, when Marianne still hadn’t said anything. “Where’s my daddy? I don’t want to be in the magic room anymore. I want to go home.”

“You’re all done,” Marianne said kindly, touching the child softly on the arm. “You’ve been a very brave little girl, Ree. Thank you for talking to me.”

Ree merely nodded. She appeared glassy-eyed, her fifty minutes of talking having left her spent. When she tried to rise to her feet, she staggered a step. Marianne steadied her.

In the observation room, Jason Jones had already pushed away from the wall. Miller made it to the door just ahead of him, opening up the room to the brilliant fluorescent wash of hallway light.

“Miss Marianne?” Ree’s voice came from the interrogation room.

“Yes, honey.”

“You said I could ask you a question …”

“That’s right. I did. Would you like to ask me a question? Ask me anything.” Marianne had risen, too. Now D.D. saw the interviewer pause, squat down in front of the child, so she would be at eye level. The interviewer had already unclipped her tiny mic, the receiver dangling down low, in her hands.

“When you were four years old, did your mommy go away?”

Marianne brushed back a lock of curly brown hair from the girl’s cheek, her voice sounding tinny, far away. “No, honey, when I was four years old, my mommy didn’t go away.”

Ree nodded. “You were lucky when you were four years old.”

Ree left the interrogation room. She spotted her father waiting for her just outside the door, and hurled herself into his arms.

D.D. watched them embrace for a long time, a four-year-old’s rail-thin arms wrapped tautly around her father’s solid presence. She heard Jason murmur something low and soothing to his child. She saw him lightly stroke Ree’s trembling back.

She thought she understood just how much Clarissa Jones loved both of her parents. And she wondered, as she often wondered in her line of work, why for more parents, their child’s unconditional love couldn’t be enough.

They debriefed ten minutes later, after Marianne had escorted Jason and Ree out of the building. Miller had his opinion. Marianne and D.D. had theirs.