Voice mail. Was he ignoring me? Maybe he thought I’d taken the easy way out, leaving him in danger. Maybe he thought if he pretended we didn’t exist, he wouldn’t miss us so much. Maybe he was hurt, or even dead. No, someone would have told me. But I felt sick and afraid.

Awkwardly, with one hand, I texted Call me ASAP.

Grace had one hand up against her forehead and the other flexed open, her tiny fingers spread wide. Despite the toxic mix of worry, irritation, anger, and fear, despite every dark possibility my mind could conjure, I could feel deep peace, untouchable, in these moments when she and I were alone.

But I’d felt the very same way on the night when everything started. I shivered. Would I ever feel safe again?

On my phone, I pulled up the article Rahmia had texted earlier. Studying the picture of Marcus Fontenot, I could almost conjure the day Lena and I had driven downtown. Like the other victims, he’d been part of a vulnerable population, but that hadn’t meant he was unloved or forgotten. His family knew he was missing, and they’d been working to bring him home. All the other victims had been real people with a network of relationships cut short at the moment of their death. Cut short by Lena and Brady, vicious hunters who preyed on the unsuspecting.

I dropped my phone on the bed beside me and caressed Grace’s warm head. I’d never be so trusting or unprepared again. I’d fight to preserve this undeserved peace, this uncomplicated love.

And my anger at Aimee, my wish that she “get what she deserved,” seemed like the petty thought of a child. Aimee had parents, I knew that, and an older brother. If the friendship I’d had with Lena wasn’t a total lie, then she might want to kill Aimee in some twisted solidarity. But human beings weren’t things to be smashed.

Grace relaxed, her rosebud mouth slack. I gathered her onto my shoulder, burping her with a gentle firmness, fighting the urge to clutch her tightly. If anything happened to her, I’d never recover.

And then my phone rang, and her body went stiff for a second as she startled. I shushed her, groping for my phone. A number I didn’t recognize with a Texas area code. A jolt of fear pierced me. Grace squirmed again, no longer asleep, as I raised the phone. “Hello?”

Michael said, “Kacy, it’s me.”

Relief at hearing his voice, familiar and unchanged, ran hot through me. “What number is this?”

“They took my phone. Alondra picked up this burner.”

“Who took your phone, the police? Why?”

He sighed. “The FBI. I guess they want to verify my story or something. It’s been a long day.”