“Do you want to cover this bit of gray here?”

Sherri put an alarmed hand to her temple, where the stylist, Brittany, was pointing. Sherri had come to the salon that Rebecca had recommended, Shanti, for a simple cut, although she wished she were getting full foils, like she would have in the old days. She missed her glimmering, shimmering hair. It wasn’t in the budget, even if she could have allowed herself.

“Yes!” she said. “Absolutely.” Sherri had been blond for so long; she’d only gone back to her natural color in that tiny bathroom in the awful motel room. She hated her natural color—a beigy brown that made her think of sand after it had been doused by a wave. She hadn’t noticed the gray in her temples. How long had it been there? She supposed the blond highlights had covered the gray all that time.

“It’s just a tiny bit,” said Brittany merrily. “No worries.”

Well, that was easy for Brittany to say. She was probably twenty-four years old. It worried Sherri plenty.

“Lean back,” said Brittany later, when she’d retrieved Sherri from the cozy chair where she’d been dozing while the color set. Brittany’s skin was smooth and plump and her eyes were gigantic. She wore several bracelets on each arm that clinked musically as she went about her business, and after she washed the color out of Sherri’s hair and put the conditioner into it she gave Sherri a scalp massage that was so good it was practically orgasmic. It had been a really long time since another person had touched Sherri with any sort of tenderness.

Suddenly Sherri thought about Katie at the amusement park. What if she got separated from Morgan and Alexa? What if somebody from their past had followed them there and was going to snatch her from one of the lines? An amusement park would be a very easy place to snatch a child. Sherri never should have allowed Katie to go.

She strained very briefly against Brittany’s hand as though she planned to lift her head out of the sink, wrap it into a towel, and drive to Canobie Lake herself. Brittany kept her gentle grip, and Sherri forced herself to settle. The girls were with Alexa, not by themselves. Everybody had a phone. Katie knew to shout for help—no, to scream for help—if she ever found herself in trouble; and the girls knew to stay together the whole time, even in the bathroom. Especially in the bathroom.

Soon enough, because of the warm water, the ambient white noise of the salon and the comforting sensation of Brittany’s fingers, she allowed her mind to drift.

Three days after she found the necklace, Bobby told her he’d be out of town for two nights. Business, he said. She didn’t ask where: she never asked.