Elizabeth had Theo in his car seat hooked on one arm and a heavy diaper bag over the other, and she looked like she might have apologized or hesitated, but as a reporter broke free from the pack in front of Lena’s house, she hurried in after me.

I locked the door behind her and motioned her through the kitchen and into the family room, far away from the front windows. Sure enough, I caught a glimpse of movement on the other side of the door, but thanks to Michael’s wire cutters, no doorbell sounded. And they’d already been warned about knocking on the door. Alondra had been positively terrifying.

Elizabeth set Theo’s seat down carefully. His dark lashes curled against his rounded cheeks, and one hand made a loose fist while the other relaxed open, the palm smaller than the pad of my thumb. “I brought some sandwiches. I thought, if you weren’t busy, we could have lunch. But then I didn’t want to wake Grace up with the doorbell.”

As if in answer, Grace gave two strong frog kicks and crossed her eyes at the star dangling from the play arch over her head.

“The doorbell doesn’t work anyway. How have you been?”

The words seemed so banal, so ordinary. Something I might have said to anyone at any point in my life. But this was the first time I’d seen Elizabeth since everything happened, and I wasn’t sure why she had come. Did she wonder if I knew more than I was saying?

She glanced at the sofa and then instead sat on the floor in a single, fluid movement, still so poised, even though her hair looked like she’d scraped it back into a ponytail with her hands, and she wore no makeup. “I’m fine. I’m worried about you. Everything sounds so awful. Wyatt said Michael was going back to work, so this is your first day alone. Has it been like that outside the whole time?”

I nodded, a lump in my throat. I’d been so busy holding it together for Michael and being calm and soothing for Grace that sympathy almost unhinged me. I sat next to the baby quilt and ran a finger across Grace’s feather-soft hair. Maybe she just felt sorry for me, the naïve wife, a trusting idiot who didn’t ask enough questions.

Elizabeth straightened a corner of the quilt and set the play arch swinging again. “Do you need help with grocery shopping? Or anything, really? I could organize some meals—”

“No thank you!” My words came out more strongly than I’d intended. But the last thing I wanted was for women I sort of knew to come into my house with pity in their eyes or worse, morbid curiosity.

Elizabeth flushed. “Of course. I wasn’t thinking.”