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“I’m sure it’s her,” she said. “Back up. You’re too close.”

She didn’t need to see his face to know he was rolling his eyes. Straightening, he said, “Does this mean Alanna Jarrett and Sylvia knew each other? All the way back then?”

“I’m not sure,” said Josie. “Maybe Sylvia was at the party with whoever her client was at that time. Otherwise, why would she have a baby with her?”

“Didn’t the guys on this case talk to everyone who attended this makeup party?”

“Yeah.” Josie took a long sip of her latte. “They talked to every guest—meaning everyone who had been invited according to Alanna’s list. Apparently, she always asked for the names of every attendee beforehand. She wrote out their names on the sample bags she gave out. If Sylvia came with one of the guests on the list for the purpose of watching the woman’s infant while she participated in the party, her name wouldn’t have been on that list.”

Maybe the client hadn’t even mentioned that she’d brought her doula and baby with her. Even if she had, Josie wasn’t sure they would have bothered to track Sylvia down. She hadn’t been there for Alanna. Hadn’t planned to be there at all.

“That baby can’t be one of the Holmes’s children, right?” Turner went back to his desk and plopped noisily into his chair, clicking away at his own computer. “If it was, Miriam Holmes would be on the guest list.”

Josie stared at the photo, at the unencumbered smile on Sylvia’s face. There were a handful of photos taken with her grandchildren in which she’d looked just like this, in which she’d let her guard down. However, in every other picture Josie had seen of the woman, either her fake smile was firmly in place or she looked grim, downright miserable at times. Even in the photos taken of her with her sons when they were infants, there was a brittle quality to her smiles. Probably because she’d been putting on a façade for her husband, the man who had groomed her. The man who, Josie suspected, had expected her to be prettily made up at all times, even after giving birth or performing one hundred percent of the childcare.

“Nope,” Turner grumbled. “Miriam Holmes was not on the guest list.”

Maybe that was when the façade had started. Sylvia’s mother had disowned her when she got married. The only person Sylvia had left in the world was her husband. The power dynamic of their relationship had been uneven from the start. He’d not only been an adult seducing her when she was still a kid but he’d also been her boss. It had probably been easy for him to manipulate her and she had likely been desperate to keep him happy. Her security depended on it.

Josie couldn’t even imagine the pressure she must have been under and the toll it must have taken on her to always look perfect even after pushing a whole human out of her body, not to mention the months that came after. The feedings every couple of hours until the baby could go longer between meals. Getting them into a sleep routine. Teething, spit up, illness, late night diaper changes. Josie knew from witnessing Misty navigate the first year of Harris’s life that sleep was a distant dream for parents of newborns.

Turner’s chair gave a rhythmic series of creaks as he rocked back and forth. “What the hell does this mean, Quinn?”

Josie couldn’t imagine the sense of betrayal, the feeling of failure, and the agony of being abandoned again when her husband left even though she’d done everything he’d asked of her. What must it have felt like to believe that perfection couldn’t keep someone around? Not just someone but the man who had pledged to love her and stand by her side for the rest of their lives. The father of her children.

Had Sylvia ever been able to look at her sons without feeling the sting of that betrayal?

“It’s too weird that they were both at that party only two weeks before this guy killed Alanna Jarrett,” said Turner. “Where does the killer come in? What’s the connection from him to Alanna to Sylvia?”

Erin West had lamented that Sylvia had been mean to Carter. It was a rare fissure in the mask that Sylvia showed the world.

Again, Josie’s mind flashed back to Wren’s sketches of Dex. The pristine, unscarred Dex and the real Dex.

I knew this guy. This guy was my dad and he was the best.

Which woman had Carter and Dean known? Which Sylvia had been their mother? The one who smiled genuine, loving smiles at strangers’ babies or the bitter, overworked, thoroughly exhausted woman who couldn’t stay awake to make dinner for her sons?

The man Sylvia had been dating for four years hadn’t even known the real her. Louis Fisher had never gotten close enough to find out about her hoarding. The only people who had ever known the real Sylvia were her sons. They had grown up largely fending for themselves while she took care of other people’s children. What had she been like at home with them when she didn’t have to perform? When, as Carter said, she’d used up all her energy and patience on the babies she took care of and had nothing left for him and Dean? Had she looked at their faces and seen the ghost of her husband? Was that why she’d told them they were bad? That they’d embarrass her if her clients met them? That their efforts to keep the household running smoothly were never enough?

Turner’s fingers drummed against the armrests of his chair. “Fifteen years ago, this asshole started killing. Alanna Jarrett was his first victim. Didn’t Holmes tell you that fifteen years ago he kissed Sylvia West right before she told him to fuck off?”

“That’s right.”

Erin West had talked about how Molly and Piper transformed Sylvia. Given everything they had learned about Sylvia from her fellow church members, Pastor Deegan, Louis Fisher and even Dr. Holmes, she had been warm and amiable, caring and sweet. If that had been the case, why would she need to transform? What exactly was she transforming from?

“You think he was following Sylvia? Saw her at this party and that’s where he found Alanna Jarrett?”

Fifteen years ago. The kiss. The rejection. They’d always thought that was what had triggered the Last Kiss Killer, but what if it wasn’t? What if the case had never been about the kiss?

“Fifteen years ago,” Josie mumbled to herself. A buzz spread through her body. She checked the exact date on the photo and then pulled up her internet browser. In the search bar she entered Dean West high school quarterback Paoli Pennsylvania. It only took a few minutes to find the high school Dean had attended. She did another search, her heart going into overdrive when she found what she was looking for.

“Turner.” Josie didn’t need the rest of her second latte with the way her heart was hammering in her chest. “We’ve been looking at this entire case wrong. Really, really wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“The murders aren’t about being rejected after a date. The victims aren’t surrogates for a romantic partner, they’re surrogates for a parent. A mother.”

“You’re telling me you think this guy was killing his mother over and over again? That’s what you got out of that picture?”