I reach in and take out the bracelet. It’s a small gold chain with a name written in cursive across a narrow gold bar. I know this bracelet. I have one just like it. It’s at home. Eva has one too. I don’t know if she wears hers, though. I don’t wear mine. I stopped the day Hazel left.

I brush my thumb over the name inscribed on the bar.

Hazel.

And beside it the symbol that I hate. IVI.

A gift for the daughters of The Society. Like we’re all some big, creepy family. They give them to the parents with each female birth. My parents kept extending the chain as we grew, proud that we were Society’s daughters.

This is Hazel’s. She never took hers off. Never.

Was she here?

I slip the bracelet around my wrist and close the clasp.

Was Hazel here? And did Dad know?

Suddenly no longer tired, I go downstairs. There was a flashlight in one of the drawers in the kitchen. I get it and switch it on. It’s a good one. Strong. I walk to the small study and open the door. I shine the light over the interior, see the messy desk that’s too big for this tiny house, too grand. I see the worn Chesterfield against the far wall. The empty bottle of whiskey in the trashcan, the one that’s only a third full on the desk beside a tumbler with whiskey residue inside it.

I roll the chair back behind the desk and sit down, shining the light over the top of the desk, opening folders and peering at the papers inside. But they don’t mean anything to me, and honestly, I’m not sure what I’m looking for. Well, I guess I am. I want to see if there’s more evidence of Hazel having been here. I want to know if this is truly Dad’s house.

But I don’t find anything in here useful. Nothing in the drawers but more folders containing names I don’t know.

The sound of a police siren demands my attention, and I gasp, my heart racing as I fumble to switch off the flashlight. I sit in the pitch-black, trying to remember if I’d left any lights on. The kitchen.

Shit.

But then the sound fades, and I realize how paranoid I’m being. Santiago can’t find me here. Not yet. I have some time. And I’m dead on my feet.