“Mommy tried to stop him.” Before I could ask what she meant, I heard it — a car door, somewhere out front, beyond the house.

Maya’s whole body seized and she breathed one word into my neck, Julian, and I did not wait to find out.

I had my phone out with one hand while I held her with the other, and I called 911 as I moved, low and fast, along the fence line, and I told the dispatcher in a voice I barely recognized that I had found my ten-year-old daughter frightened and hiding at her mother’s house, that there were bags sunk in the swimming pool, that the mother was missing, and that the man of the house might be coming back this minute.

The dispatcher’s voice went very calm and very clear.

Do not confront anyone.

Do not go back for anything.