She is thirty-four now. She has short hair and a scar through one eyebrow that was not there before and a job managing a garden centre in Fresno, and she came to Pacific Pines specifically to see me, which she said in the first minute so that I would not think it was a coincidence.

“I want to tell you what happened,” Clara said. “And I want to say first that I’m not angry and I’m not here to make you feel bad. I’ve thought about how to do this for two years.”

“Okay.”

“The phone was wrong.”

I put down my cup.

“He found it eleven days later,” she said. “It was in my coat lining. I had been so careful, Samantha, I want you to know I was careful — but he did the coats.