But it was something more. It was her smile, the shape of it—the wideness. Goose bumps rose down my neck. I heard Bennett’s words again: older than us.

  I shook my head, to concentrate. To keep the past from rising up and overlapping with the present.

  I read her employment history, but there was only one place listed before here, a few years earlier: in Ohio.

  A wave of intense nausea washed over me—a darkness, settling in my limbs, before everything went numb.

  My hand shook as I grabbed my phone and scrolled through my call log. I moved back in time to more than a week ago, to before the box arrived. The only number that didn’t have a contact attached. That out-of-the-blue call that had caught me off guard, like whiplash: Is this Arden Maynor, daughter of Laurel Maynor? Ms. Maynor, I’m afraid we have some bad news—

  Every nerve was firing as I called that number back now.

  When that man had called, I hadn’t asked for specifics, too caught by the shock of the moment. I had accepted what he said at face value: that they had taken care of everything, and all that was left were her possessions. It was part of my past, and I’d wanted to keep it there. There was nothing I could do about it now. I couldn’t get off that call fast enough.

  I held my breath one second, two, as the number processed. It was late; I expected the call to go to an answering service, but I needed to hear who it belonged to.

  It rang once, and then I heard it: a muffled echo.

  I put the phone down. Dropped it to my side. Listened, my nerves on fire, my heart in overdrive, as another phone rang, in echo—from somewhere down the hall.

  I stumbled to the end of the hall, into my bedroom, looking for the source. Another ring—in the closet, on a shelf. In that box.

  The phone that I’d ignored—the old flip phone, useless, presumably dead.

  Someone had turned it on. The screen was lit up and ringing.

  I sank to the floor, feeling four walls closing in and not caring, not caring at all. I opened the phone, checked the outgoing call log. The only thing that existed, not deleted, were calls, one right after the other, on the night of Sean Coleman’s death.

  Like someone had stood just outside this closet, with the window open, watching me there. Watching me and wanting me to wake—or wanting someone to find me there with the body. Calling the number until I heard it. Until I woke.

  Not Nathan Coleman but a woman. A woman with long brown hair, disproportionate to her small frame, and a too-wide smile—standing there, like I’d summoned her.

  The moment I had feared for years.

  I wasn’t sure how long I’d been sitting on the floor when I heard the footsteps.

  A flurry of movement under my bedroom window.

  I stood, silently walking through my bedroom, to listen but not be heard. There was movement coming from outside the house, but there were barely any lights on inside. I couldn’t be seen.

  And then: the creak of a wooden step out back.

  I remembered waiting on Rick’s couch, waiting for the police. The time stretching and contracting when he told me: It takes so long for help to get here.

  911 DISPATCH CALL CENTER TO CENTRAL VALLEY POLICE DEPARTMENT

  DATE: AUGUST 28, 2020

  TIME STAMP: 9:21 P.M.

  911 DISPATCHER: We’ve got a report of a home invasion happening at 23 Old Heart Lane. Unidentified female. The call disconnected and we can’t make contact again.

  POLICE DISPATCH: Copy. Is caller still inside?

  911: Yes, single female inside the house. She said she was trapped.

  PD: Sending units to 23 Old Heart Lane. Any further information?

  911: That’s all we got before the line went dead.

  CHAPTER 27

  Friday, 9:20 p.m.

  I CLOSED THE BEDROOM DOOR, grabbed the ladder from the closet, hand on the hook-and-eye latch. Ready, waiting, ear pressed to the wooden door.

  Listening for the rattle of that back door. Or the sound of breaking glass. But there was silence.

  I opened the bedroom door again, slipped out into the dark hall. Other than a dim bulb left on in the corner of the kitchen, only the television glowed in flashes of light. I padded barefoot down the hall toward the entrance of the kitchen, peered around the corner, but couldn’t see anything out the window, into the night—the back porch light was still out.

  But I heard the moment the key slid into the lock, the latch turning, and then the creak of the back door swinging open.

  I held my breath. Eight steps to the front door. Car keys on the entryway table. Three steps across the front porch. Seventeen steps to the car.

  All I could see out back was her silhouette, illuminated, until she stepped inside.

  I saw her before she saw me, clinging to the corner of the hall, in the shadows. Her long hair was pulled back now, and she wasn’t wearing the glasses from her photo. She was smaller than I remembered, all sharp angles. I saw her look to the counter, where the wine bottle sat, still open. She picked up the empty glass, peering inside.

  “Mom?” I asked, stepping out of the shadows.

  Because there was still the chance that this was the drugs and the wine; that this was the nightmare. Not that she’d sent me that box herself, setting up that call, convincing someone else to make it, convincing me that she was dead.

  But then she spun around, setting down the empty glass, and there was no going back.

  This was the person Rick had heard me yelling at—shouting to get away from me.

  The familiar laughter I’d heard at the hospital; that voice leading the detective to my office. A moment I had been expecting, subconsciously, for years. So close and yet continually out of sight.

  “Hi, baby,” she said, her face splitting open in that too-wide grin.

  “Mom,” I said, “what did you do?” There were so many layers to that question. What had she done, to Elyse, to Sean Coleman—to me, twenty years earlier.

  “I kept you safe,” she said, walking toward me. “You’re safe now. This can all be over. Here.” She gestured toward the table, expecting me to be malleable and compliant. “Sit, sit.”

  She’d thought I’d finished the glass. She’d thought I was under the influence of whatever she’d been drugging me with. Watching, learning my routine. Had she sneaked into my unlocked office, copying the key to my house? It wouldn’t be hard. Anyone with a badge would have access. I’d been too trusting, too complacent, in my new life, thinking myself anonymous and safe.

  I stepped back instead of forward.

  “Arden, come here, come sit,” she said, hand at my back, guiding me to the table.

  My feet started moving forward of their own volition. I sat in the chair she’d pulled out. Yes, I was malleable and compliant. She took the phone from my hand, sliding it into her back pocket.

  “Mom. I thought you were dead,” I said.

  “Did you, now?”

  “You sent me that box.”

  She smiled sadly. “I thought you would look for me. I thought you would speak. But you just… put it in the closet, went on with your life. I thought you would recognize things, and, well.” She shook her head, half a smile. “You always did surprise me.”

  “You changed your name,” I said.

  “You’re not the only one who can start over.” Her hand ran down my hair. “You and I are survivors, baby girl.”

  My head was fuzzy, but I didn’t think it was the medicine. It was her, and the echoes of the past—the way I couldn’t differentiate between then and now.

  She walked over to the counter, pulled down a mug, like she had every right to be here.

  “Mom,” I said again. “Mom, did you hurt them?”

  “Did I what?” she asked. “Hurt who?” She filled the mug with water from the sink.

  My throat was dry. I didn’t know where to start. “Sean Coleman.”

  Her face turned hard, angry, and I remembered the mood swings, how intense she could be. “Sean Coleman had been blackmailing us for years. He was… a drain. A leech. Taking something that wasn’t his. You know I saw him last week? Walking into the hospital lobby? He did a double take, called my name. My old name. He was coming for us, baby. You’d never be free.”

  She had it wrong. Sean Coleman had been looking for me because he thought his son was going to come to me, the same way he’d come to Sean. The same way he’d come after my mother ten years earlier. Sean was coming to help me, and then he saw my mother.

  Was that why he’d been watching? To see what she would do?

  This. This was what Sean Coleman had been warning me about with his letter. Not his son. But this: my mother. And now she was here.

  “No,” I said. “It wasn’t him.”

  She turned, looked at me hard. “Don’t be naive, honey.” She turned back to the kitchen cabinets, heated up the mug of water in the microwave. “I have always, always been there to help you. Who do you think called the police when Nathan followed you?”

  That anonymous call, I suddenly understood—when she said she had kept me safe. She had called it in, made sure the police came after us. And now Nathan Coleman sat in jail, the case circling around him instead of me.

  “His father was blackmailing us for years. Well, like father, like son, it seems.”

  “It wasn’t his father. All those years, the letters, the blackmail—it was the son. It was always Nathan,” I said.

  She stared at me blankly and then took a deep breath, her shoulders pressing back. “No, he was watching this house, Arden. He was watching you.”

  “No,” I said, my voice rising, “he had come here to warn me. Not about his son. Not that at all. He was coming here to warn me about you.”

  I stood up too fast, the chair pushing back.

  She tipped her head, momentarily confused. “Arden, calm down. You’re not acting like yourself.”

  She was right. I needed to calm down. Couldn’t let the panic settle in, rendering me useless, telling me to run.

  Six steps to the back door; thirteen steps to the front door. Could I make it to Rick’s house? To his shed? To his guns? With a stiff knee and one good arm?

  No one was here—no one could help.

  The microwave beeped, and I saw her fingers find the amber vial of my prescription from Dr. Cal in the space beside it. I saw her read the label, then quickly turn it back.

  “Mom, I need to know. I need to know what happened back then.”

  She sighed. “Go lie down, Arden. Rest, I’m making you a hot chocolate.” She pointed down the hallway, and I complied.

  I started walking down the hall, then heard the gentle rattle of pills, like I had so many times in my memories. My mother, at night, making me hot chocolate—to calm me. The rattle of pills to stop me.

  A chill ran down my back. Had she always been this person—even before? Like Emma Lyons had said? Had she drugged me long ago, before the episodes? Dr. Cal had said that sleepwalking was, unfortunately, a side effect of other medications.

  Whom had I been living with all those years? A monster?

  I kept moving, barefoot, quietly—by the glow of the television—peering around the living room for something I could use.

  “Arden,” she said, voice closer. “Where are you going?” The squeak of a hinge, a click, and then the last of the lights went black.

  She had just cut the electricity. And I understood: She knew exactly what she was doing. We were bathed in darkness, and then all I could feel were the walls on either side of me closing in. I couldn’t run from this anymore; couldn’t ever be free of it if I did.

  I stood perfectly still, my eyes unaccustomed to the dark. I couldn’t tell where she was—could hear only my own rapid breathing, my own heartbeat, until the shock of her cold fingers at my elbow, her grip tightening.

  She jerked me toward her, and my arm pulled. I yelled out—the flash of another memory then, another time, another possibility.

  “Did he hurt you?” she asked, her voice in my ear.

  “Yes,” I whispered, but she didn’t release her grip.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ve got something to help you. Come. Come on.” And then we were moving, down the darkness of the hall, my free hand feeling for the wall.

  A door opened, and I could feel the chill of cooler air escaping. “This way,” she said, pushing me toward the staircase. One way up. One way out. “Don’t move. I’ll be right there.”

  And then she closed the door.

  There was no light in the stairwell, just darkness. The narrowed walls, the smell of wood. My entire body began to tremble.

  Like so long ago—the only clear memory. Of walls and stagnant water and no way out. I did now what I must’ve done back then. Not going back the way I came, but forward. I went up.

  I stood in the middle of the room, in front of those glass windows: the only way out. I could feel the panic brewing. Knowing the eaves were narrowed, and the space was finite, and there was one way out of this room. I held myself very still, and I sat in the single rocking chair in the middle of the room, staring at the beveled glass windows, until my eyes adjusted to the dark.

  And I waited.

  Because I needed to know. I needed the truth. I needed to come face-to-face with myself, and with her.

  The door opened again; the scent of hot chocolate wafted through the room. She ascended the steps and walked around the rocking chair so she was standing between me and the window, the moonlight fracturing through the glass. Like she had been here before, knew her way around. I suddenly knew she’d been the one to remove that light bulb. She’d been here all along.

  “Here,” she said, holding out the mug. “For the pain.”

  “I don’t want it. I want you to tell me what happened back then.”

  Her mouth was a thin line before breaking into a small grin. “All right. Drink, and we’ll talk.”

  I took the cup from her hands, and she waited until I brought it to my lips, taking a sip.

  The liquid burned. A piece of me in exchange for a piece of her. How far was she going to take me? Was she feeding me this in the hope that I wouldn’t remember? So I would remain compliant? Or did she want to hurt me?

  “How did this happen?” I asked, gesturing to my left arm. “Back then.” Bennett had an opinion, the doctors had an opinion, Nathan had an opinion. But none of them knew for sure.

  She cocked her head. “You really don’t remember?”

  Emma Lyons had told me about that doctor—how he thought I’d been lying. Six years old and lying because my mother was in the room.

  “Did you hurt me?” I asked.

  She looked off to the side. “It was an accident. You had some reaction to a medication, it was making you wired… you were uncontrollable, Arden, truly, I had to—” Her arm flung out to the side as she spoke. “We were on the steps—I swear, you were going to take us both down, and I—it all happened so fast. I tried to pull you back, but you screamed and I let go. And you fell.” She shook her head. “I was trying to keep you from getting hurt, I promise. But a child’s bones are so fragile.”

  A flash. Someone grabbing my arm—a pop, a crack. Bracing myself and falling.

  Steps. The only steps could’ve been to the basement.

  And then—a pain so bright and intense it stole my breath.

  Her face. Her voice. Okay, okay, stay calm, take this—

  It was her. Always her.

  When had my omissions turned to lies? When I was six, in the hospital, with my mother standing over me? Had she believed even then that I understood and was complicit? A survivor, like her.

  The medication must have caused the sleepwalking episodes—whatever my mother had given me at night, trying to keep me calm and complacent while she went on with her life. But children didn’t react the same way adults did. They were more prone to sleepwalking, to overexcitement.

  “You staged the whole thing?” The whole story. A fraud.

  She stared at my cup, waiting, and I took another sip.

  “No, it all took on a life of its own. It was supposed to be just a few hours. Just a little while. Your shoe outside, to lead them to the woods, where you wandered off and could’ve gotten hurt all by yourself. But it all got carried away. It rained—it poured, and the shoe got caught on a grate, and, well.” She shrugged. “It took on a life of its own, and we just had to seize it.”

  The cellar. The four walls. The stagnant water and the cold rocks. The unfathomable darkness and the pain—for which she must have treated me. The black hole of my memory while I’d been kept unconscious. A pain medicine she must’ve given me to keep me that way.

  “How did I get underground?”

  She waited until I took another sip, and I could see the white granules of my medicine. How much was too much? Did she know? Did she care?

  “The media attention got to be so much, they were going to find you. They were coming with infrared, and I got you to an access point closer to the river.” She gave a small laugh. “My God, Arden, you about gave me a heart attack. They couldn’t find you. You weren’t there. I told you to sit tight, but you didn’t. You didn’t.”

  Her reaction on the television was surprise—she hadn’t been acting. I had gone missing. I had traversed the darkness on my own. I had saved myself.

  “I know it must’ve been terrible, but you have gotten so much from it. So much. And we have another opportunity right now.”

  I shook my head. Hated that she was here, that she couldn’t stop. That all she ever saw in me was another opportunity worth taking, another story to spin, another piece of me to give away.

  “People are going to want to talk to you. To us. That boy tried to frame you, and you survived it—again.”

  “Mom, stop,” I said, eyes closed. Because I realized something—every night, even before Sean Coleman, she had been drugging me. She had been up here, keeping me in the dark; locking me outside. Had she been trying to scare me, to make me run or call for help? Did she bring me outside, leading me into the night, for nothing more than a story? Putting my life in danger so I’d have to get help, get attention? So people would notice?