“Why are you so scared?”

“My husband and his family are ultraconservative,” she blurted out. “It was a big deal for him to marry someone outside of his culture. He thinks I was a virgin when we got together. Please, please, don’t ruin this for me.”

“I’m not interested in your marriage, only what happened that night.”

“I sat in my car, and cried, okay? That’s what I did. I realized how stupid I’d been, believing a man like Ishaan would want me for anything but a little fun.” Her fingers trembled as she flipped down the visor to look in the mirror. “God, my face. I have to calm down.”

“So you’re telling me you turned around and left? Sure.”

“I didn’t leave. I was frozen.” She powdered away the perspiration with a hand that shook. “Then the storm ramped up and I got scared about driving in that kind of weather.” A pause. “I saw something. I never told anyone.”

My pulse kicked. “What?”

“The rain was awful—you remember, don’t you?—and I’d parked a ways down the Cul-de-Sac so no one would notice me—I’d borrowed a dark compact from a friend for that night.”

Nice bit of premeditation there, but she was so obviously panicked that I didn’t think she was capable of lies.

“I couldn’t see clearly, you have to believe me.”

I nodded; the rain had been ferocious that night, coming down in silver sheets of glass. “Go on.”

“I saw your front door open—”

“It’s not visible from the street.”

“What?” Lines furrowed her forehead. “It was, I swear. There was a great big gap in the trees.”

My memories rolled backward, all the way to the diseased tree my father had hired an arborist to remove a month prior to my mother’s disappearance. “Yeah, you’re right. Go on.”

She looked so grateful it almost made me feel bad. “The door was open, backlighting your mother’s silhouette as she stumbled out. Her gait was off, and she wasn’t moving like she should.”

My gut clenched.

“Then the lights of a Jaguar parked on the street flashed, as if the alarm was being deactivated. I’d seen that car on the street, had been all but certain it was hers.” When red stained her cheeks, I knew she’d considered damaging the vehicle.

But she didn’t confess to that. “I thought she was drunk and got all hopeful again, thinking she wasn’t as great as she looked on the surface. I was planning to call the cops and dob her in for driving under the influence.”

Shallow, sucked-in breaths. “Then someone else was there beside her. I couldn’t see them properly. They were just a shadow in the rain and in the dark, but I’m sure they went to the driver’s seat and your mother went to the passenger seat.”

“Was it my father?”

“I don’t know. I never saw him leave the house, but I was watching her, and by the time I looked back, the front door was closed. Or at least I couldn’t see any light—someone could’ve just switched everything off.”

“Was the person who got in the car with her tall or short? Big? Small?”

A long pause. “Not big or tall enough for me to take note. Honestly, all I saw was a vague person-shaped shadow . . . but I made a mistake and accidentally touched my phone. The screen lit up my face . . . I was sure whoever it was saw me.”

The bus turned into the school gates.

“Do you remember anything else about that person?”

“No, I’m sorry. I’ve been so stressed ever since she was found, thinking the police would track me down, and telling myself they wouldn’t. How did you find out I was there that night?”

“Your car was caught by the security cameras of a neighbor’s house,” I lied. “The police noted it down at the time, but didn’t pursue anything because they thought my mother had run off.” The lie wasn’t one that made much—or any—logical sense, but she was too distraught to see the holes in my logic.

I saw the holes, however, and I still had no idea how I’d first uncovered the information. Had I actually seen her car that night, even through the rain?

“Are the police going to come after me?”

“If you’re telling the truth, I won’t nudge them to look up that old report.”

Turning in the seat, she clasped her hands to her chest. “Please, please believe me. I didn’t do anything to your mother. That’s all that happened that night.”

“Go over it again.”

She did, her story consistent though the words changed. This wasn’t something she’d practiced over and over again to deliver like a speech. It even made sense that the gates had been open when she left—the Cul-de-Sac had a new system these days and the gates shut automatically two minutes after being opened. Back then, however, we’d had to use our remotes to trigger them shut when we left or they’d stay open.

Whoever had been driving the Jaguar must’ve forgotten that step.

“Was anyone else awake in the Cul-de-Sac that you could see?”

“Your closest neighbor. There was a light in a second-floor window—I noticed because I wanted to make sure not to park in anyone’s line of sight. And a few security lights kept going on and off, but I think that was the storm setting them off. Otherwise, it was dark.”

Her recollection matched mine. Rare flashes of light in my peripheral vision as I . . . As I what? Pulse speeding up, I fought not to clench my fists. “I need your address and phone number in case I have further questions. Don’t try to lie—you’re not exactly difficult to find.”

She scribbled down both. “Please don’t come to my house. I’ll meet you anywhere else.”