As I run across the street to use our neighbor’s phone, a ripple of noise like the roar at a football stadium rolls through the crowd. I turn back to our house, expecting to see the roof collapsing, the spectacular climax of residential fires. But it’s not the roof. The crowd parts like the Red Sea, and my mother comes running through the open space.

She’s carrying Annie in her arms.

Relief surges through me with such force that I nearly faint for the second time. But I run forward and hug them both as tightly as I dare. Annie’s face is white with terror, and her chin is quivering.

“Someone dropped her off at Edna Hensley’s,” Mom gasps. “Edna answered her door and saw Annie standing there crying.”

A heavyset, blue-haired woman I faintly recognize has appeared behind my mother, wheezing from her exertions. Edna Hensley.

“Where do you live?” I ask her.

“About a half mile away. You’ve been there before, Penn. When you were a little boy.”

“Who dropped her off?”

Edna shakes her head. “I didn’t see anyone. Not a car, not anything.” Her gaze darkens. She reaches into her pocket, pulls out a folded sheet of construction paper, and hands it to me.

I unfold the paper with shaking hands. Printed on it in magic marker are the words: THIS IS HOW EASY IT IS. LAY OFF, ASSHOLE.

Livy braces me from the side, making sure I keep my feet.

I am back in Houston, watching Arthur Lee Hanratty’s brother carry Annie out of the house, a tiny bundle about to disappear forever. It’s as though I missed him that night, and he has returned to try again. But he can’t. He’s been dead for four years. His youngest brother is alive, but this isn’t his work. Whoever kidnapped Annie today could easily have killed her, and the last surviving Hanratty would have done so, taking his revenge for his two brothers. This is something else entirely. This is a warning. This is the Del Payton case.

“Mom, take this piece of paper to the Lewises’ house and put it in a Ziploc bag. I’ll take care of Annie.”

She is reluctant to go, but she does. I thank Edna Hensley, then carry Annie through the crowd to Livy’s borrowed Fiat and sit in the passenger seat, hugging her against me, rocking slowly, murmuring reassurances in her ear. She is still shivering, and her skin is frighteningly cold. I need to find out everything she can remember about her kidnapper before she starts blocking out the trauma, but I don’t want to upset her any more than she already is.

“Annie?” I whisper, lifting her away from me enough to look into her hazel eyes. “It’s Daddy, punkin.”

Tears spill down her cheeks.

“Everything’s all right now. I love you, punkin.”