I wait for the ding of the bell and think about Poe with his scar and his ex–Special Forces mien and his eerie silence. They won’t be silver or golden bells for me tonight, but iron ones.

Oh fuck.

Now I see them coming inside, uniformed and armed with black devices, walking over the polished hardwood of my house, leaving scuffs and tracks. I see Thomas and Reverend Carl and other men, one carrying a small box with a counter set to zero that will snap on my wrist like an iron shackle. I see the television cameras and the news reporters, all flashing and straining to catch a glimpse of the former Dr. Jean McClellan, now destined to a life of silence and labor in the fields of Iowa, the fisheries of Maine, the textile mills of Alabama. Subsequent to a public shaming, of course.

Steven, I think. What have you done?

They won’t go after Lorenzo. I know this. The follies of men have always been tolerated.

Sonia comes running into my room, eyes glowing. The boys’ footfalls move in the other direction, into the main part of the house, where Patrick has gone.

“It’s okay, baby girl,” I say, taking Sonia into my arms. “It’s okay.”

But it’s not okay. Nothing is okay as I sit here with my back to the bed frame, rocking my daughter, waiting for the inevitable doomsday clang of the doorbell.

Chapter Thirty-five

THIRTY-FIVE

Five horrible minutes pass before Patrick’s footsteps come running back down the hallway.

“It looks bad,” he says. “Whatever it is, it looks bad.” His face is a map of worry, all lines on a parchment-pale landscape.

But the doorbell hasn’t rung.

I pull myself up, scoop Sonia into my arms, and follow Patrick to the kitchen. The parade of vehicles is still in the street, still screaming their sirens and polluting the night with blue and red. Six men stand guard on the front porch of the Kings’ house, two more at the back door.

It’s not me, I think. It’s not me. It’s not me. It’s not me.

A woman’s scream pierces through, all the way into our kitchen, and I risk a look out the window.

Leo moves to turn on the light.

“No. Keep it off. Keep it dark,” I say.

What could Olivia King have done?

If someone you knew—maybe even someone you really love—did a shitty thing, would you rat them out?

And then I realize these men are here not for Olivia but for Julia.

I turn away from the window. Here’s Patrick, next to me, still a ghoulish pale. Sonia I’ve sat on one of the barstools by the island. Sam and Leo stare at the scene next door through rounded eyes the size of Frisbees.

Only Steven isn’t here.