Dr. Frederick Mitchell. The name trips an alarm in my brain. Dr. Frederick Mitchell, Dr. Frederick Mitchell. Then it comes to me: the huge, barrel-chested man who came to our house a few weeks after my mom died, months before Jasper and I ever went to Maine after Cassie. I remember his strange way of talking and his ill-fitting glasses. I remember how sure I was, even then, that he was not who he claimed to be. And now, here he is. It all but seems to prove the connection to my dad’s research.

Dr. Haddox holds the door open behind him, moving to the side to let another man through.

And there he is. I want to be seeing things, but I am not. The same hair, same eyes. Still handsome, but this time he is in a suit and the way he carries himself is completely different. He has perfect posture and a confident stride. Nothing about him is like a wounded dog.

“Excellent, so this is Dr. Mitchell from the NIH,” Dr. Haddox begins.

But this Dr. Frederick Mitchell isn’t the Dr. Frederick Mitchell who came to our house. No, the man standing there with the handsome face and the steady posture is the one who convinced Jasper and me to trust him. The man we listened to and followed into that dark, abandoned camp. The man who we were grateful let us come along. The man who had such a real-sounding stutter until it vanished instantly.

Officer Kendall of the Seneca police.

In my head, I shout: Everyone run! That is a bad, bad man. But I can’t. I shouldn’t. There’s a chance Kendall doesn’t know that I am here. And so I hide, duck farther out of view. I squeeze my body tight so I don’t tremble.

Jasper. He is the only other person who was there with Kendall. Who knows him like I do. I need Jasper there to tell me I’m not imagining things. That this man really is Kendall.

“Thank you, Dr. Haddox,” Kendall says, stepping forward. “And thanks to all of you for your patience and understanding. This is quite an unusual situation, and it’s taken us a moment to get our bearings.”

He sounds like he has spoken to hundreds of patients, hundreds of times before. Comforted them and reassured them, dispensed complex medical information and delivered damning diagnoses. Who is this man? For all I know, he is an actual doctor. Maybe he was lying before up in Seneca.

“Please,” Teresa says. Her voice is high and shrieky. But I am still close enough to feel that excitement underneath. Like she’s waiting for the real show to begin. “What’s going on?”

“First of all, I want you to know that you will all be fine,” Kendall says.