“You’re quiet, Hardy-girl,” Max says. He’s wearing sunglasses and I can’t see his eyes as he looks at me, but I can see myself reflected in the lenses and, like Dad, I look smaller, shrunken. I did sleep last night, but it was a sleep full of broken dreams, all nightmares. I didn’t wake up refreshed. If anything, I feel worse today, the world more disjointed. I still haven’t started on the sleeping pills—I’m worried I’ll fall into a dream I can’t climb out of.

Max, since he got here, has become another Max again. The awkwardness that’s hovered around us since our disastrous night in my flat seems to have gone, on his part at least, and he keeps touching me—my arm, stroking my hair. I think I’m alone, feel a touch, turn, and he’s there, a smile on his face, like nothing happened, like he didn’t practically run away screaming after sleeping with me, that I didn’t almost kill him by grabbing the steering wheel and crashing his car. But it’s the painted-on smile I first saw that night in my flat, the one Sophie saw and didn’t like. I don’t know where I am with him—he’s like the spring weather, going from sunshine to rain in seconds, and it keeps me off balance. Instead of leaning closer as he gets more affectionate, I find myself stepping away, hiding when I see him coming.

Detective Levinson called this morning. They checked the house but found no sign of anyone being in there other than the window I’d left open. The wind and rain had blown in, erasing those paths of footprints. He said there was no sign of a suitcase anywhere in the house. If I didn’t have the photograph I took, I’d wonder if it was ever there. He didn’t give any indication he doubted anything I said, but I heard it anyway as he told me the only fingerprints they could pick up off the shoes were mine. I didn’t mention that I’d taken the photograph, because when I went to the album at home to find its twin, it wasn’t there. The page was empty.

“I’m okay,” I say to Max with a smile, putting my own sunglasses on.