I carried Leo back to the kitchen, and I sat down on the floor again beside Lily, and I pulled her in against my side, and I told her that I needed her to tell me the whole story of her day, from the beginning, and that no matter what she told me, she was not in one particle of trouble.

And slowly, in pieces, she told me.

Wendy had gotten a notification on the secret phone shortly before noon.

She had changed into nicer clothes, and done her makeup, and told Lily that she’d be gone for seventeen minutes — a strange, precise little number, seventeen, the kind of specific figure a person invents to sound trustworthy.

She had given Lily two instructions.

Keep Leo in the room with you.