My name is Diane, and my son Tyler is nineteen, home from his first year of college, and he'd been telling me for weeks about someone new in his life, someone he was finally ready for me to meet.

Tyler picked up the phone.

He looked at me once, then answered it and put it on speaker without me asking him to.

"Marcus." His voice was flat in a way I had never heard from him before.

"Tyler." Marcus's voice shifted immediately — softer, more personal, the warmth flooding back in like he'd turned a tap.

"Are you okay?

I've been worried about you."

"I'm fine."

"I need you to know that I'm not angry at your mother.

I understand why she reacted the way she did.

She was scared.

She's protective of you.

I actually respect that."

Tyler said nothing.

"But Tyler, what she did tonight — locking me in a basement, calling the police on me — that's not normal.

That's not okay.

And I'm worried about you being in that house with someone who would do that."

"She's my mother," Tyler said.

"I know.

And I know you love her.

But love doesn't make someone right." A pause, perfectly timed.

"I've never been anything but honest with you.

You know that."

"Did you ask me where she lived on purpose?"

A beat.

"What?"

"You heard me.

Did you ask where my mother lived, whether she had a security system, whether she traveled — did you ask those things on purpose?"

"Tyler, I asked because I cared about your family.

Because I wanted to understand your life.

That's what people do when they're building something real."

"And Lily?

Why did you ask about Lily?"

Another pause.

This one was different — shorter, tighter.

"You mentioned her.

I was being polite."

"You asked how old she was.

You asked what town she lived in."

"Tyler—"

"Answer the question."

The silence on the line stretched three full seconds.

"I think," Marcus said slowly, "that your mother has gotten inside your head tonight.

And I think you're going to regret this conversation when you've had some sleep and some distance."

"Maybe," Tyler said.

"Or maybe I'm seeing clearly for the first time in seven months."

"Don't do this."

"The detective is coming back tomorrow morning," Tyler said.

"If you have something to explain, explain it to him."

"Tyler.

Don't—"

"Goodbye, Marcus."

He ended the call.

Set the phone face-down on the counter.

Stood there with both hands flat on the surface and his shoulders rising and falling with slow, deliberate breaths.

Then he turned around.

"He paused," Tyler said.

"When I asked about Lily.

He paused."

"I heard it."

"He always has an answer for everything.

Seven months, he always had an answer.

That was the first time he didn't."

I didn't say anything.

I let him have the moment of it.

"I need to call Lily," he said.

"Tonight.

I need to warn her."

"Yes," I said.

"You do."

He picked the phone back up.

I watched him scroll to Lily's name, and I thought about Karen sitting at her kitchen table three years ago, and the detective with the coffee stain on his collar, and the eight or nine photographs spread across the surface, and the one face I had never been able to put down.

Tyler stepped into the hallway to make the call.

I heard Lily answer on the second ring, groggy and confused, and I heard Tyler's voice drop into something careful and serious.

I stood in the kitchen alone for a moment.

Then I picked up my own phone and sent a text to Detective Rourke's number: *He called me.

I have the number.

He called Tyler too.

Tyler has a recording.*

Three minutes later, Rourke replied: *Don't delete anything.

I'll be there at eight.*

I looked at the back door.

The deadbolt.

The chain.