Perhaps it was madness coming to the Pritchards’ home, given what she knew of them: they were convicted murderers, they’d starved children to death and left others emaciated, and she felt sick every time she thought about the conditions in which police had found the infants. But picturing them was enough to give her the rush of adrenaline she needed.

Alice knocked, glancing back over her shoulder in the hope that someone might be there to see her go in. It was too late to turn and walk away—this was her only hope—and she had to believe that no matter how wicked they were, no matter how evil this family could be, they might know where her daughter was.

The door scraped open, and a bulky man filled the space. He was backlit by the hallway pendant, and it wasn’t until he stepped closer that she saw his hair, thinned to long wisps and combed across his crown. There was something birdlike about him, his fleshy cheeks divided by a long hawkish nose that threw his top lip into shadow. He was every bit as repulsive as she’d imagined him to be, but he wasn’t one of the men her mother had described.

“Yes?” he said, glaring at her from beneath hooded eyes.

“I’m sorry to bother you . . . I hope you don’t mind me calling in like this,” she said, pressing her weight from one foot to the other. “It’s just that I wanted to stop by and say hello. I’m going to be moving in soon, just down the street.”

He continued to stare.

“And I thought it would be nice to meet the neighbors. Mr. . . . ?”

“It’s not a good time right now. The wife gets a headache in the evenings.” His voice was a small monotone. “Come back during the day.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Who’s there, Frank?” a woman shouted from the front room.

“It’s . . .”

“Grace, my name is Grace,” Alice said, forcing a smile.

“Grace,” he called back, “a new neighbor—”

“Well, don’t be rude. Show her in!”

“You heard her,” he said, taking a step backward. “You’d better come in.”

Alice’s hairs stood on end as she passed by him, stepping cautiously into a hallway that stretched down a dark passage to the back of the house.

“Living room’s just down there.” He pointed to where a streak of light shone beneath a door.

“Come in, don’t be shy,” a voice sounded from the other side of it.

The floorboards creaked as Alice took one small step at a time, measured against her breathing, before the loud clunk of the front door being shut behind her made her jump, and Frank’s heavy footsteps followed her in.