He gave her nothing to react to and nothing that would reveal what he already knew.

The strategy now depended on getting Lily safely away before Sarah understood that anything had changed.

She watched them leave, still apparently believing that Marcus was simply overreacting to his daughter’s clinginess that morning.

She had no idea that the footage had been found.

No idea that evidence was already being gathered.

And no idea that Marcus knew Julian’s name.

Sarah thought she was watching a temporary disruption.

Instead, she was watching the beginning of the end of everything she had spent a year building.

Chapter 12 — Evelyn

Evelyn lived less than twenty minutes away.

When she opened the door and saw Marcus holding a suitcase in one hand and Lily gripping the other, she immediately understood that something serious had happened.

She was Hannah’s mother.

She had learned to recognize disaster in the faces of people she loved.