And for once, in that kitchen, the coldness that had made me good at my job made me able to save my own life.

Chapter 4 — Six Days of Silence

That evening, Julian arrived home carrying a bouquet of grocery-store flowers, and he leaned down and kissed my forehead as though he had not, hours earlier, torn my entire life apart.

“Missed my girls,” he said, smiling, and the ease of the lie, the sheer smooth effortlessness of it, told me everything I needed to know about how long and how well he had been lying.

“We missed you too,” I said, and I smiled back, and my smile was as smooth as his, because in the hours since the phone call I had made a decision.