“I’ll get her here,” I said. “Make sure your contact is here, too.”

“Good luck,” Trev called as I raced out the door.

30

ELIZABETH

“WHAT’S TROUBLING YOU?” AGGIE ASKED as she spooned me a serving of Stroganoff. “You have that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“Like you’re lost in thought.”

I tried to shake off whatever that look was, and set my chin in my hand. “I had one of those moments today. Where I thought I saw someone who looked like my mother, and then was immediately filled with despair when I realized there was no way it could be her.”

I grabbed a biscuit from the basket on the table. “Are you going to call Dr. Sedwick and tell him I’m having delusions?”

Aggie didn’t say anything for the longest time. I looked up. She stood over me, the pan of Stroganoff in one hand, the spoon in the other, both hanging there like she’d been frozen in place.

“Aggie?”

“Your mother?” she finally said. “Where did you see her?”

She said see her, as if it was a fact.

I frowned. “Crossing Washington Street.”

“Did you see her face?”

“No.”

“Was she with anyone?”

“Aggie?” I said. “Why—”

Her eyes were locked on something in the backyard, but when I followed her line of sight, I caught only a flicker of motion beyond the fence.

Aggie set the pan down on the table and raced around the peninsula with a speed I hadn’t thought she was capable of at her age, and with her ailing hips. She tore her cell phone from its charger, her fingers racing over the screen.

“Are you calling Dr. Sedwick?” I asked, disgruntled.

“Where’s Nick?” she said, ignoring my question, never taking her eyes from the phone.

“I don’t know. Why?”

The back door opened.

I expected it to be Nick, as if he’d been summoned by Aggie’s inquiry.

But it wasn’t.

Aggie dropped the phone to the counter with a clatter.

I lost all feeling in my body. I couldn’t even feel the beating of my heart in my chest, though I could hear it drumming loudly in my ears.

The person standing in the doorway was my mother.

The kitchen went eerily quiet. My heart slowed to a staccato beat.

“Elizabeth,” Aggie said sharply. “You should leave.”

I heard Aggie’s words, but I couldn’t make sense of them. It was as if she’d spoken in a language I did not understand.

Chair legs scraped against the floor. I looked down, realizing it was my chair, realizing I was now on my feet. My hands trembled at my sides.

“Elizabeth,” Mom said, and took a step toward me.

It was startling, how little she had changed. The wrinkles around her eyes were cut deeper with age, but that was the only visible sign that six years had passed since the last time I’d seen her. Her hair was the same dark auburn, the same length it had been, cut just below her shoulders.

Her lips were tinted with the same lipstick—her favorite shade, Vintage Rose. She’d bought it in bulk, afraid that it would be discontinued. All these details came together, forming a picture I didn’t want to see.

Nothing had changed in my mother’s life except that I’d been absent from it.

I’d thought she’d died.

“Don’t come any closer.” Aggie’s voice was pitched low and throaty.

“Elizabeth,” Mom repeated, and locked her eyes on me, eyes that were watery and tinged red. “Honey, I—”

Aggie came around the peninsula and put herself between me and my mother. “No,” she said, as if she were reprimanding a dog for digging in the garbage. “Don’t you dare.”

“Mom,” I whispered. “Where—How—”

A tear streamed down her face, and she swiped it away with hands that were dry and cracked. Whenever she’d worked long shifts at the hospital, her hands looked like that from too much washing. It was a detail so familiar, it was almost as if the years between us had evaporated and I was a little girl again, happy to see my mother home from work.

But I wasn’t that girl. And six years was a long time to go without the one person you needed most.

“Listen to me, honey,” she started. “We have to leave. Now. It’s not safe here.”

“Don’t listen to her, Elizabeth,” Aggie said. Her shoulders were rigid, her back pulled up in a straight line. “You are not welcome here, Moira.”

“Aggie!” I said. None of this made sense. I needed more time to process. I’d dreamed of this moment every day since I’d escaped. I was not going to force my mom right back out the door.

Mom looked past Aggie at me. “Please, honey.”

Where had she been? Why hadn’t she been here?

“Please, baby,” she said. “You have to listen. Nick is not who he says he is. He’s dangerous. He was sent here to kill you six years ago, and he’s here to finish the job.”

“Do not listen to her,” Aggie said.

With a swiftness that Aggie could not match, Mom stepped around her and took my hands in hers. Hers were cold and shaking.

“You have to come with me. I know someone who can help us.”

Aggie was suddenly beside me. She whacked my mom’s hand with a wooden spoon. Mom’s face hardened as she pulled back.