“I am so sorry,” he said.

I turned to face him. His eyes were shining under the lights, but the tears didn’t fall. Daniel had long ago mastered turning fear into stillness. He’d grown up in Patricia’s shadow and learned early that survival meant getting quiet enough that the predator’s eye passed over you.

“I should have seen it coming,” he said. “I never should have let her take them out of my sight.”

I put my hand over his. “We trusted a grandmother. We trusted family. That’s the normal thing to do.”

He shook his head. “No. I trusted my mother after thirty years of knowing exactly what she is.”

It was the first fully honest sentence he had ever allowed himself about Patricia Hayes.