Sheriff Turner moved faster than I had ever seen a man move. He put Gideon and me in the back room, then met Dorian at the door himself. When Dorian reached for the phone he had returned to collect, Turner already had it as evidence. There was no scene. Two deputies Turner had called were pulling in behind Dorian’s truck before he understood what was happening. He asked for a lawyer within a minute, and that told me everything. A grieving widower did not need a lawyer merely to collect his phone.

The photos were enough for a warrant on Rosalind’s house. My daughter was found in the basement, behind a door. Marlene was alive—thin, frightened, and alive—in the concrete room I had seen in that picture on my kitchen chair. For five years, I had believed she was gone. Now the truth was beginning to take shape.