Isabelle rushed out wearing the same cream sweater she had worn to brunch that morning, her hair perfect, her face wet with carefully timed tears.

“How could you do this?” she cried.

I looked at her, not as my wife or the woman I once loved, but as the person who had not protected my daughter.

“Where were you?” I asked.

Her mouth trembled.

“I did not know it was this bad.”

“That was not my question.”

Her eyes flicked toward the detective behind me.