That’s when it hit her. They needed to reverse the order. The voices in the room faded into a low hum as Lila moved pieces around in her head. It would work. Suddenly excited, she explained her idea to the detectives, and they gave her their complete attention. In their eyes, she wasn’t a girl with broken parts. She was a prosecutor. And she felt the way she had when she stood atop that rock wall.

As they left the conference room, Niki said to Matty, “You go on ahead. I’ll meet you in the atrium.” To Lila, she said, “I have something I want you to see.”

In Lila’s office, Niki pulled a flash drive from her pocket and handed it to Lila.

“What’s this?” Lila took a seat at her desk.

“Spencer’s mother paid him a visit last night.”

Lila plugged in the drive and pulled up the footage.

“Fast-forward to minute seven,” Niki said.

“What am I looking for?”

“Watch his reaction. I’m curious if you see what I see.”

Lila moved the indicator to the seventh minute and hit play. The screen was split. On the left was a woman who Lila assumed to be Spencer’s mother, and on the right sat Gavin. The footage started with Gavin talking, making no attempt to hide his lisp.

“Is that all they asked about,” he said, “my allowance?”

“No,” the woman said. “They asked me about a bunch of names.”

Lila saw Gavin cock his head as if curious. “What names?”

“They asked me about that girl you went to high school with, um, Eleanora what’s-her-face.”

Gavin’s eyes widened slightly before returning to a heavy-lidded stare, held without a blink. Recognition?

“And then there was a Chloe and a Virginia and…” Amy was counting the women off on her fingers, pausing at number four to come up with a name. Gavin’s breathing had shallowed. A line formed between his eyebrows, flashing a note of worry before it disappeared again.

“Now I remember,” Amy said. “The fourth girl’s name was Lila Nash. That was the one.”

The change was, at once, subtle and stark. Gavin’s eyes deepened, and the line on his forehead returned—and stayed. His lips went tight until he pressed out his tongue to wet them. His breath stopped in his chest long enough for his mother to notice and say, “Are you okay?”

Gavin’s features turned blasé once again as he answered, “Never heard of her.”

“He knows me,” Lila whispered. “His face when she said my name…He knows me.”

“That’s how I see it too. It’s nothing we can take to a jury, but…there’s something there.”

“What about his alibi?”

“I don’t know. I’m still looking for his roommate. I’m also trying to track down footage of the graduation ceremony. There has to be a video out there showing that he didn’t walk across the stage to get his diploma.”

A cold wave washed over Lila, a fear so pure that it blinded her for a second. She spread her fingers open on her desktop just to feel something stable. One of her ghosts now had a face and a voice. She had no memory of him, but at the same time, she had no doubt. A man who had murdered at least three women—and almost a fourth—had left her alive. He had made a mistake and would surely seek to rectify that.