The camper door opened, and Lydia forgot how to breathe.
For the entire drive to Trinity Pines, she had imagined that door opening onto a dozen terrible possibilities.
Hazel crying.
Hazel missing.
June injured.
Charles struggling with Caleb.
Every nightmare had been sharper than the last.
Instead, a tiny blonde head appeared behind the officer.
“Mommy?”
Hazel darted forward before anyone could stop her.
Lydia was out of the car before Nick had fully shifted into park.
She dropped to her knees on the gravel and caught her daughter so hard that Hazel squeaked.
“You came!” Hazel said, delighted rather than frightened.
Lydia buried her face in the child’s curls.
She felt warm skin.
Two little arms.
A racing heartbeat that was not her own.
Safe.
Hazel was safe.
Nick reached them seconds later and wrapped both of them in his arms.
Only then did Lydia look over Hazel’s shoulder.
Caleb stood twenty feet away beside a picnic table.
An officer had positioned himself between Caleb and the family.
Another was speaking to Charles.
June stood near the camper steps, pale and furious, one hand pressed against her chest.
Caleb looked older than Lydia remembered.
Prison and five years had changed the surface of him.
His cheeks were heavier.
His hair had lightened.
A beard covered the jaw she had recognized in Hazel’s photograph.
But his eyes had not changed.
Lydia knew those eyes.
They moved over her with the same calculating stillness that once made her wonder which version of him she was about to face.
Then Caleb smiled.
It was small.
Almost friendly.
That frightened her more than if he had shouted.
“Lydia,” he said.
Nick immediately moved in front of her.
“Don’t speak to her.”
One of the officers raised a hand.
“Sir, stay where you are.”
Caleb lifted both palms as though everyone else were being unreasonable.
“I’m not doing anything.”
June gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
Lydia finally found her voice.
“What happened?”
June crossed the gravel and pulled Hazel toward her for a moment, kissing the top of her head before answering.
“It started maybe forty minutes ago.”
Charles joined them.
His usually cheerful face had hardened.
“He walked into the site from the trail,” Charles said.
“Said he was camping a few spots down.”
“At first we thought he was just being friendly,” June added.
“People talk at campgrounds.
You know that.”
