In Eve Nichol’s kitchen, there’s a strange feeling of suspension, of normalcy disrupted. Polly’s report card on the fridge under a Hamburglar magnet, a vacation photo of Polly and Eve curled at the edges, both of them in bright dresses, squinting at the sun with the same bold happiness, Eve’s springy hair blown over part of Polly’s smile. Every object in the room gives off a charge of intimacy and exposure. The jar of Oreos on the counter next to an envelope full of coupon clippings. The cat clock over the fridge with its tail swinging back and forth.

“I got here the night of, just after midnight,” Rod says.

“The girls were still here?” Will asks. “Polly’s two friends?”

“Gillian Pelham and Kate McLean. They’re our main witnesses. Mom was sound asleep and didn’t hear anything. Neither did Annie, Polly’s sister.”

“That’s a blessing, I guess,” Will says, while inwardly my heart breaks for her. When this monster had come for her daughter and held a knife to her throat, Eve had been unconscious, incapable of coming to Polly’s rescue.

“Mom and Annie went to bed around nine-thirty,” Rod adds. “The girls were having fun all night, playing dress-up and board games, putting makeup on each other. At ten-thirty or so, Polly went out to the living room to get the girls’ sleeping bags, and the guy’s in the hall with a knife drawn. Big guy, heavy and bearded, middle-aged. He’s got a duffel bag, too, with rope and a hood inside. All premeditated, obviously.”

“Where was the print you found?”

“On the top bunk bed.” He points. “It’s just a partial, and pretty smeared. We’ll see if we can use it.”

“Why didn’t Mom hear anything?” Will asks.

“She had a bad migraine and went to bed early. She probably couldn’t have stopped him anyway,” Rod goes on. “She’s a slender woman, and he had the knife, remember?”

“Barresi mentioned that he asked the girls which one of the three lived in the house,” I say, jumping in. “That seems to suggest a stranger, right?”

“Not necessarily. I’ve seen custody issues where the parent hires someone to snatch the kid and make it look like a stranger.”

“Right,” I say. “But in this particular family, the parents are amicable, it seems. Six years in and no court orders or restraints in place. No domestic disputes.”

“Not that we know of,” Rod adds. “But apparently he told the girls, ‘I’m just doing it for the money.’ Then when Polly offered him fifty dollars from a box on her dresser, he ignored it.”

“That’s odd,” Will says. “Though I guess if he’s a gun for hire as you say, he could have gotten stressed out or disoriented. Afraid of getting caught.”