I’d have to be. Just like when Michael and I had sneaked out of the house with Grace, I’d have to escape without making Lena suspicious.

I slid into the back beside Grace’s car seat, the phone still clutched in my sweaty hand. “Dad, we’re going to the police station. The one in Montclair.”

“I’ll need directions,” he said, pulling away from the house.

“Exit 148.” No need for a GPS, since my recent trip to the museum had refreshed my memory. I didn’t want just any police station, or even the closest one. I wanted the one on the way to the museum. The one where I’d been taken after Aimee framed me. Where I hadn’t been believed, where I’d been so afraid I’d be charged, where a local reporter had caught wind of the story and my old life had ended. That was fear, but what I felt now, choking me, making it hard to breathe or even think—this was terror.

“How do you know that woman found us?” my mother asked.

“Alondra,” I lied. If my parents knew I’d gotten texts from Lena, there was no way they’d let me protect them. They would die to keep me safe, and I couldn’t let that happen. My voice sounded shrill and fake in my ears. “She told me which police station to go to. Let me see your phone for a sec.”

Mom passed it over. In the darkness, I couldn’t see her face, but the faint scent of her gardenia perfume mingled with Grace’s sweet baby smell. If we just kept driving, we’d be safe. This was a place where Lena couldn’t touch us. We’d outrun her, and then …

And then she’d bide her time and strike us later when she chose. Nobody could run forever. My mother, bludgeoned, beaten, dead.

I opened my contacts and entered Alondra’s name and number into my mother’s phone with the designation lawyer. Leaving that screen open so it would be the first thing Mom saw when she unlocked her phone, I clicked it off and passed it back to her.

My father’s silence became heavier and heavier. As he signaled our turn off the Garden State, he said, “Kacy, exactly what did this lawyer say to you?”

Heat rose in my body. “She texted that Lena was in our area and we should go to the police station.” The words sounded like something from a script, so fake. But he had to believe me. I couldn’t let Lena come after him.

“Did you call her?” he asked.

At the same time, my mother said, “Why the police station?”

“No, I didn’t call her.”

“Try her now.” My dad merged the car smoothly with traffic, thick and slow, off the exit.