“I’ll bring the dish back to your place tomorrow once she wakes up,” he said.

At twenty past two, I told Julian I needed to use the downstairs bathroom before driving home.

He stood beside the kitchen table and watched me walk down the narrow carpeted hall toward the back of the house.

Chloe’s bedroom door was shut tight at the end of the hallway.

Mounted high on the white door frame, seven feet up from the floor, was a brand-new brass deadbolt.

The strike plate had just been screwed into the frame, and little curls of yellow wood shavings lay on the blue carpet beneath it.

A small brass key with jagged teeth sat half-turned in the lock cylinder.

On the floor beside the baseboard lay Bunny, Chloe’s stuffed rabbit, one worn cotton ear tucked under the wall molding.

I bent down, picked up the rabbit, and rubbed the soft fabric between my thumb and fingers.

The master bedroom door swung open three inches with a sharp click of the latch.

Victoria stepped out into the dim hallway in a gray sweater with the sleeves tugged down over her wrists.

She slipped a glass medicine bottle with a sticky amber cap behind a tall ceramic floor vase by the linen closet.

Then she pressed both hands flat against her waist, her knuckles going white against her dark skirt.

“What are you doing back here, Brenda?” she asked, her voice a sharp, breathy whisper.