THE BIKER SCREAMED “GET DOWN!” AT A MOTHER AND HER TWO KIDS IN A DINER—SECONDS LATER, THEY DISCOVERED WHY HE WAS TERRIFIED.

Rachel knelt beside her daughter in the office, between a filing cabinet and a box of paper napkins.

"What blue notebook, baby?"

Lily rubbed a finger along the seam of her overalls. "The one the lady dropped. In the parking garage."

On the day they left Cleveland, Rachel had been bringing the children home from a dentist appointment. A woman had stumbled from a stairwell in the municipal parking garage, one heel broken and blood on her sleeve. She had pressed something into Lily's hands before disappearing through the exit.

Rachel remembered her own panic, Lily crying, Owen asking why the woman was hurt. She remembered putting both children in the car. She did not remember a notebook.

"I put it somewhere safe," Lily said.

"Where?"

"I forgot. I was scared."

Owen spoke without looking at them. "She told me a man in a blue tie was coming. He was the one who hurt her."

The office smelled of burnt coffee and printer ink. Rachel could hear the diner refrigerator buzzing on the other side of the wall. She wished she could be an ordinary mother irritated about spilled juice. Instead she was asking a first grader to remember the worst afternoon of her life. 'It's okay if you don't know,' she said. Lily nodded, but Rachel could see the little girl searching her own memory as if forgetting might be a punishable offense.

From the kitchen came a crash. Rachel pulled her phone from her pocket. No service. Not one bar.

Mrs. Miller slipped through the door. "Back alley's clear for the moment. Bear says you should decide whether to take his truck or go with the county deputy."

"There's a deputy?"

"Called five minutes ago. Could be here any second."

Rachel was already standing when Owen said, "Mom, remember the police officer who asked why you quit your job?"

She did. Officer Grant Cole had come to their apartment the night she took the children away. He'd known her new address before she told her sister.

"What's the deputy's name?" Rachel asked.