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I wait.

My mother has been getting feelings for as long as I've been alive. Feelings about houses. Feelings about flights. Feelings about whether I should take particular jobs, date particular women, eat particular foods, or once, memorably, enter a Barnes & Noble in Connecticut because she claimed the building had “trauma trapped in the foundation.” Her feelings have predicted approximately nine hundred catastrophes, all of which have failed to occur.

“The tape?” I ask.

“No.” Her fingers tighten around my wrist. “Something's wrong.”

I exhale and turn back to the laptop. “Mom, please.”

“Baryn.”

“You're worked up because we're about to watch evidence connected to the murder of a young girl. Your nervous system is allowed to have opinions about that without the universe personally sending you a push notification.”

Usually that would get something out of her. An offended noise. A lecture about intuition. At minimum, a correction that the universe doesn't use push notifications.

Instead, she stays quiet.

When I look over, she's still staring at the door.

Faun is too.

My mother finally blinks and looks away from the door, rubbing her palms over her thighs as though she can physically wipe the feeling off. “You're probably right.”

I stare at her, dumbfounded.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just want to appreciate this moment.” I gesture between us. “You said I was right. Out loud. With no qualifications. I wish I'd been recording.”

“Don't make me take it back.”

“Thank you.” I turn to the laptop before she can say anything else. “Now, for the love of god, can we please watch the fucking tape?”

I press play.

The video opens on the same dark stretch of street Serena and I have already watched enough times that I know exactly what's coming. The Mill House in the background. Casey's unsteady framing. Pastor Scofield stumbling toward his car. Beside me, my mother is still, all traces of her earlier theatrics gone as she watches the scene unfold.

Scofield gets behind the wheel. The car moves. Casey follows. The chief arrives.

My mother's brow furrows.

I glance at her to gauge her reaction, but she doesn't look away from the screen.

The third man appears at the edge of the frame, distant and blurred in the low light. He crosses toward Pastor Scofield while the chief stands beside the cruiser, and my mother leans closer.

Then she shakes her head. “This can't be right.”

A cold little knot forms behind my ribs. “What can't be right?”

“Go back.” I drag the video back several seconds, and she leans so close to the laptop that Faun stretches his neck toward her, concerned he's about to be excluded from whatever we're doing. The police chief comes back into frame, and my mother taps the screen over his face. “Him. I've seen him before.”

“It's a small town. You were here for a little while before you managed to locate me. In that amount of time, you could have encountered half the population.”

“No, not here.” Her brow pulls tighter. “I've seen a picture of him.”

“Where?” My brow twists in confusion.

“I don't remember.” She waves me off, eyes narrowing at the frozen image. “Give me a moment.”