I don’t have time to wonder if I’ve made a mistake by closing the door on Dean. Don’t even have time to change out of my jeans that are clouded in flour. Before the sun is fully up, my phone starts ringing. Signs are going up. Vendors are setting up. There’s broken beer bottles on the walkway around the park that have to be cleaned up before the last of the tents can be set up. Glass everywhere, apparently. And bags of kite string missing from Dean’s ticket hut, where he was working on those little homemade kites for the kids all week. There’s just so much to do—and all of it is the last thing I want to be thinking about.

And no wind. Which is pretty much death for a kite festival.

But I throw myself into it, trying to take care of whatever I can control. An hour before the festival is supposed to start, families are already arriving—before the people hired to direct traffic are here. A town the size of Portage doesn’t have much parking near the Harborwalk, so it becomes gridlocked.

But the next thing I know, Georgina from the coffee hut is out there directing traffic, Joanna’s calling about the glass, Renee says we’ve already sold fifty cupcakes, and Hal from the hardware store is getting more string for the kids’ kites.

A breeze tickles through my hair, and there’s this thought that maybe Dean was right and everything might actually come together.

The first kite goes up. A blue-and-yellow fish that climbs slowly into the sky before taking a fast nose dive. But another follows it—popping up. One after another as the breeze picks up. Little homemade ones.

Larger dual-line ones. For a second, I forget my constantly chiming phone and stand in the park, just staring up as they start to fill the sky. So many colors coming together and bouncing around each other.

And I remember Dean. It comes so suddenly, flicking into my head like a light turning on or a sail catching on the wind. He ran ahead of me, trying to get that red kite to lift. But it tumbled and then he turned, stopping in the grass for me to catch up. Eyes just as blue as they are now.

“Your turn, Elly.” He handed me the kite.

Even though I can’t see them in the memory, I feel my brother there. And Sebastian. We must have played and run and laughed. And then those memories were buried by darker ones.

Just as quickly as it came, the memory flickers away. I scan the park—families filling up the space. Children with their faces painted and homemade kites they’ve decorated clutched in their hands. A snow-cone van pulls up, making its way slowly down the sidewalk so it can set up at the edge of the park.

It stops for a woman who’s standing in the middle of the sidewalk. She’s staring up—just like I was. Dark, wild hair.

Like mine.

A green skirt billows around her legs. The only thing between us is grass and twenty yards. No guards. No glass. No defendant’s table. No brothers or closet doors or boxes of syringes. Nothing but air and grass.

The van turns off the sidewalk to go around her, passing in front of her.

A trickling fear curls down into my legs and makes me want to push away from her. To run—fast and far, just like she always told me to do.

The van drives across a corner of grass and then bumps back onto the sidewalk, and I glance down at my phone.

When I look up, she’s gone.

Just… gone. I scan the area. She can’t be gone. But there’s no hint of her. A woman pushes a stroller down the sidewalk, passing over the exact spot my mother had been standing a minute before.

Did I imagine her? Like my memories that are always so strong? Taking me out of reality and pushing me backward?

My breath catches in my throat. I’m not sure.

But I’m not taking the chance. Just like with Dean, there’s no room for chances with my mother. I take out my phone and call the police.

“We’ve actually been trying to contact you,” Detective Jordan says as soon as I say my name.

“What? Why?” I press the phone close to my ear. An announcer is introducing one of the kite demonstrations, and the speaker keeps crackling. I’ve had too many phone calls to keep up with today, but I would have answered a call from the police department.

“We dispatched a unit to locate you,” he says quickly. “There’s been an incident at Palmer’s.”

“Where?” The name is vaguely familiar, but I can’t place it.

“An assisted living place on Becham Road. I can’t disclose the details yet, but we’re looking for a person of interest.”

The facility Charles is at. Something’s happened to him.

Oh, no. No. She went after Charles. Not me. Not Anthony.

Did she go to the Heroine first? I need to call Dean. But first I need to tell the detective that I saw her.

“I saw my mother,” I blurt. “At the park—”

There’s a rush of talking on the other end of the line. I know he’s not talking to me, so I just stand there and wait, my stomach twisting into knots. Kites bob around me. The world spins so fast that I don’t know how much longer I can keep my balance. I can’t keep waiting on the phone. I need to call Dean.

Then the detective’s back, saying my name. Asking me questions. I answer as briefly as I can. Tell him where I saw her. What she was wearing. Who else might have seen her. I answer every question that I can, giving every detail I can remember.

They have to find her.

The announcer starts talking again, and I tuck the phone close to my ear. Detective Jordan’s saying something about Palmer’s that I can’t hear over the speakers. Then he says that term: person of interest. I start walking toward the other side of the park. Opposite from where my mother had gone. Toward the Harborwalk and the Heroine.

“Can you help us find him?” the detective asks.

“Him?”

“Yes,” he says. “Like I said, we’re looking for your brother. He’s a person of—”

“You already said that, and I understand the words, but I don’t really know what that means. What’s going on with Anthony?”

There’s a long pause on the other end, then he clears his throat. “I’m only telling you this because you contacted us about Mira Jacobs. Anthony’s wanted for questioning. He’s a suspect in the murder of Charles Archer.”

I repeat the words in my head. Charles is dead. Does Dean know?

And they think Anthony did it?

“But I saw my mother,” I say quickly. Except they don’t know why that’s relevant. “Charles was one of her past victims,” I explain. “It has to be her.”

“There’s no evidence of her at the scene of the crime,” he says carefully. “But your brother was seen on the security tapes going into the building. Not long after, Charles was discovered dead.”

“It can’t be Anthony.” My voice wavers. I don’t know what to believe. “Have you talked to Dean?”

“No, we’ve been trying to locate him as well.”

My hands start shaking so hard I can barely hold the phone. Dean. Everything else around me evaporates. Just gone. Like it was never there to begin with.

“Look, Ella, I think we should send a car to pick you up. Bring you down to the station. You can wait there while—”

I disconnect the call.