“You are,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, and went to open the driver’s side door and get out. Run. He put his hand on my arm, his finger on the part of the burn that wrinkled the underside of my bicep.

“Don’t,” he said.

He held me like that, stock-still, for longer than I would have thought possible. He kept waiting for me to look at him. When I did, his face was unusually kind, with a soft mouth and bright blue eyes.

He let go of my arm and fished a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. Lucky Strikes. He lit one with an old flip-top Zippo.

“Is it your car?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“I didn’t—” I stammered. “I thought I could cut through the woods to my house.”

“You can,” he said.

“I’ve never done it,” I said.

“You did it the other day,” he said. He smiled.

“You saw me,” I said.

“I was watching,” he said.

I thought for sure I had never seen him in my life. I’d gotten used to everyone in town—everyone who came in and out of the diner, who worked in town, who went to the school. I would have remembered. I asked him if he was new.

“I’m just here on business,” he said. He blew out a straight line of blue smoke.

“I’ve never seen you,” I said.

“You’ve just never noticed,” he said.

It left me with just one response. I took at drink from the bottle and offered it to him. “But you’ve noticed me,” I said.

He smiled again, his eyes narrowed, and he took the bottle from my hand, brushed my fingers. “I know who you are,” he said.

I asked him his name, and he told me people called him Baby Jane, a name I’d never heard, didn’t understand, and didn’t question. I said it back to him. It felt like uttering a magic word. Like learning to say Rumpelstiltskin.

I said my name was Shannon.

“I know,” he said.

THREE: KATERI

MONDAY, OCTOBER 16

“My name is Kateri,” she says, making herself small, lowering her hips to the floor by the little girl. “What’s your name?” The girl has on jeans and little hiking boots, a sweater that’s caked with mud and what looks like blood.

She raises her head and peeks out through her fingers. Her hands and face, too, are speckled with spatter. Her fingertips, deeply stained.

“It’s okay,” Kateri says. “You’re safe with me.” She pulls her own sweater down, concealing her weapon and her cuffs. “May I sit here with you?”

The girl nods. When she takes her hands down, her little face is gaunt, hollow under the eyes, which makes them look huge. She has a round, turned-up nose and chapped lips. Over the bridge of her nose and across the tops of her cheekbones are a smattering of light freckles.

“I’m supposed to wait,” she tells Kateri.

“For what?”

The blood on the girl’s hands is so dark, it’s like ink, seeped into the creases of her skin, her fingerprint whorls, her cuticles. Her eyes are wet with tears, and she pokes her tongue at the worst crack in her lip so that it glistens with fresh blood.