My twin sister d*ed in a car crash ten years ago — last Monday, a local dentist's office called asking me to come pick her up because her phone had died.

My hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped the phone.

Clara saw my face and crossed the room in three steps.

She looked at the screen.

The sound she made was not quite a word.

"He knows," I said.

"He's known." Her voice had gone very quiet and very still, the way a person goes still when panic has moved past the point of expression.

"He's been watching.

He's been waiting for me to surface." She took the phone from my hand.

"He didn't know about Lily specifically.

But he knew I had a reason to stay hidden.

He just found the reason."

"We have to get to her.

Right now."

"If we run straight to her, we lead him straight to her."

"If we don't go to her—"

"I know." Clara set the phone down.

Her jaw was tight.

"I know." She pressed her fingers against her mouth for a moment, thinking.

Then: "Call the neighbor.

Don't use your phone.

Use the clinic's number — no, that's already compromised." She looked around my apartment.

"Do you have a landline?"

"Nobody has a landline."

"A neighbor you trust?

Someone on this floor?"

I thought of Mrs.

Okafor in 4B, who had given me soup when I had the flu two winters ago and had never once asked me anything personal.

"Yes," I said.

"One."

"Go.

Borrow her phone.

Call the neighbor watching Lily.

Tell her there's a family emergency and you're sending someone to pick Lily up.

Don't say who.

Don't explain." Clara was already moving, pulling on her jacket.

"I'll go out the back.

I know how to move without being followed.

I've had ten years of practice."

"And then what?

Where do we take her?"

Clara stopped.

She turned around.

"We're not running," she said.

"Not this time."

I looked at her.

"I have everything in that envelope," she said.

"Names, dates, a timeline, two photographs I shouldn't have been able to get but did, and a recorded phone call from four years ago where Daniel told me exactly what happened to Philip Hare." Her voice was steady.

"I've been carrying that envelope because I was afraid.

Today he sent a photo of my daughter to your phone." She picked the envelope up from the table.

"I'm done being afraid."

"Clara—"

"I need one thing from you." She held my gaze.

"I need you to trust me.

Not because I've earned it — I know I haven't, not after everything.

But because right now, today, I'm the only person who knows exactly what he's done and exactly how to prove it."

I looked at my sister.

Alive.

Ten years older.

Carrying an envelope that had lived in three hiding places.

"Tell me what you need me to do," I said.

We moved fast after that.

I went to Mrs.

Okafor, who lent me her phone without a single question, and I called Clara's neighbor, a woman named Pat, and told her there was a family situation and that Clara herself would be there within the hour.

Pat said Lily was fine, they were watching a film, and she'd have her ready.

Clara went out through the building's service exit.

I called one more person from Mrs.

Okafor's phone.

Someone I had met two years earlier through a colleague — a woman named Detective Rhonda Vass, who worked financial crimes and had given me her card at a work event and said, in the offhand way that turns out to matter, *if you ever hear anything that doesn't sit right, call me directly.*

I had kept the card in my desk drawer for two years without knowing why.

Rhonda picked up on the second ring.

"It's Sarah Ellison," I said.

"We met at the Harmon Group event.

I have something that doesn't sit right.

I have a lot of things."

A brief pause.

"Talk to me."

"Not on this phone.

Can you meet me in person?

Today?"

Another pause, shorter.

"Give me an address."

I gave her mine.

Then I went back to my apartment, sat down at the kitchen table, and waited.

Forty minutes later, Clara walked through my front door with a small girl who had dark eyes and a gap where her front tooth used to be, holding a stuffed rabbit by one ear.

Lily looked up at me with Clara's exact expression and said, "Are you really my aunt Sarah?"

I couldn't speak for a moment.

"Yes," I managed.

"I really am."

She considered this seriously.

Then she held the rabbit out toward me.

"This is Gerald.

He gets scared in new places.

Can he sit with you?"

I took Gerald.