Those were magic words in the Ortiz household. No one ever argued with Virginia’s bad feelings. Once, her mother became convinced that something was wrong with her mother back in Mexico. She sent her brother over to check, and he found Becca’s grandmother lying on the bedroom floor with a fractured hip.

Another time, the family booked a Caribbean vacation. Two days before they were scheduled to leave, Virginia canceled it. “Something awful is going to happen. I know it.” A day later, a storm hit, leveling the entire resort, and killing two tourists. After twenty years of marriage and countless examples, her father didn’t argue with her mother. He went upstairs, packed up a bag, and said he was driving straight to Palo Alto.

There had to be a good reason why Becca went along and her mother stayed behind. They never spoke about it. Everything Becca saw and heard that day was hers to bear alone.

Becca remembered the long drive, sitting in her father’s gray Mercedes, dread gnawing at her, rereading Robbie’s text messages with fresh eyes, seeing now the growing paranoia and anguish. She didn’t tell her father, telling herself it would all be okay once she saw Robbie again.

“We arrived at my brother’s apartment in Menlo Park. My dad knocked and knocked on his door. No one answered, and he finally said to hell with it. He grabbed his tools from the car and picked the lock and we stepped inside.” Becca could remember it all so clearly, following her father into the apartment. She saw the blood covering the walls, symbols and nonsensical words on what seemed like every surface. She remembered screaming, and her father, who was always so gentle, shoving her out the front door, shouting for her to go to the neighbors and call 911.