It probably would have worked, too. She would have gone back to Algonquin Lane, concocted some story about what had happened, why she’d gone missing for several hours. But she couldn’t go home now, not without Heather. Mr. Dunham was right. They would never forgive her. She would never forgive herself.

THEY CALLED HER Ruth, told people that she was a distant cousin, unknown to them before the fire that had killed her family. Outside the house that’s all she was, a distant cousin who may or may not have been falling in love with her newfound boy-cousin, but she was Tony’s wife from the day she crossed the threshold. She shared Tony’s bed-and quickly discovered she didn’t enjoy it. The sweetness, the compliments from their time on the bus-those were gone, replaced by an urgent, not-quite-brutal sex notable primarily for its brevity. When she felt wistful for home, when she dared to say that perhaps she should go back, that there must be a way, Stan Dunham told her that she had no home. Her parents had broken up and drifted away. Her father was a failure, her mother an adulterer. Besides, she was an accessory now, someone who had helped to cover up a crime, and she would be charged if she came forward. “I used to be a police,” he said. “I know what’s happening with the investigation. You’re better off with us.”

It did not escape her that the Dunhams were the kind of family for which she had yearned in recent years. Normal, she would have called them, with a father who had a real job and a mother who stayed home and baked, tying bright aprons over her dresses. Irene Dunham seemed to have more aprons than dresses, in fact, and she baked every day of the week. Her piecrust was famous, she told Sunny, bragging on herself with a self-satisfied air that Irene found unacceptable in others. But her pie, for all the prizes it had won, was dust in Sunny’s mouth, and she never finished a slice. Irene didn’t seem to care for Sunny much, blaming her for everything that happened, standing by her son no matter what he did.

As Sunny got older, she sometimes tried to say no to Tony when he wanted sex, and he would hit her, blackening her eye on one occasion, dislocating her jaw another, punching her so hard in the stomach that she thought she might never breathe again. And one time, the last time, just about killing her. Admittedly, this was after she had struck him with the poker from the living-room fireplace, the same poker she had used to break the heads on Irene’s beloved dolls.

This was their official wedding night.

It was almost midnight, and the elder Dunhams were asleep as usual, but for once they couldn’t ignore the noises coming from Tony’s bedroom. Irene Dunham had gone straight to her son’s side, although he had nothing more than a bright red line of blood across his cheek, the one blow that she had landed before he pulled the poker from her and began beating her, then kicking her. Stan Dunham had gone to her, however, and in the moment that he reached for her and their eyes met, Sunny saw that he knew, had always known. He understood that his son had killed Heather, that her death was not an accident. She hadn’t fallen and hit her head. Tony had beaten her, or thrown her to the floor and pounded her head until it broke. Why? Who knows? He was a violent, frustrated man. Heather was a mouthy little girl who had ruined his plan. Perhaps that was reason enough. Perhaps there could never be reasons enough for what he’d done.

“You have to leave,” Stan Dunham told her, and if his family heard his words as a punishment, an exile, she knew he was trying to save her. The next day, he found a new name for her, taught her the trick of disappearing into a little dead girl’s unclaimed identity. “Someone born about the right time, who died before getting a Social Security card, that’s what you want.” He bought her a bus ticket and told her that he would always be there for her, and Stan Dunham was nothing if not true to his word. When she was twenty-five and decided she wanted to learn how to drive, he had come down to Virginia on weekends and patiently guided her through empty school parking lots. When she decided, back in 1989, that she wanted the training necessary to get hired on as a proper computer tech, he had underwritten it. When Irene died and Stan no longer had to worry about his wife’s grudging oversight, he purchased an annuity for Sunny. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it helped her make car payments and, lately, deposits to her savings account, which she hoped to use for a condo if the real-estate market ever cooled down.

It was only when Penelope Jackson showed up on her doorstep a week ago to the day that Sunny learned that Tony Dunham had an annuity, too. And that, when drunk, he had spoken of his crimes and his early marriage, telling Penelope that she would never get away from him because he had once killed a girl and covered it up, with the help of his father and the girl’s very own sister.

“Here’s where he grabbed out a square inch of my hair,” Penelope said, showing a bald patch behind her ear. Then, tapping on a large, grayish front tooth, “This is a bond, and not a good one at that. Fucker pushed me down the front steps after I sassed him. When I found out that his father had paid for an annuity for some other woman, I thought I should come visit her, see what she went through that was worth getting money from the Dunhams. Because the only thing Tony’s ever given me is a promise that he’ll hunt me down and kill me if I ever leave him. He’s after me now. You have to help me, or I’ll go to the authorities, tell them what I know about you. You covered up a murder, and that’s as good as being a murderer.”

It had taken the better part of three days, but she used the methods that Stan Dunham had taught her long ago and found Penelope a new name, then obtained the documents she needed to create a new life. She also had taken five thousand dollars from her savings account and given it to Penelope, who then booked a flight to Seattle out of Baltimore-Washington International. She had begged Penelope to pick another airline, one that flew out of Dulles or National, but Penelope was adamant about using Southwest. “You build up credits for free tickets with them really fast. Rapid Rewards, they call it.”

So for the first time in almost twenty-five years, Sunny had crossed the Potomac and headed into Maryland, then up the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. “Keep the car if you want it,” Penelope said, but Sunny couldn’t imagine doing that. How could she explain some old junker with North Carolina tags? Her plan was to park it at the airport and take a train back into D.C., the Metro the rest of the way home. But, having come so close to home, she couldn’t see the harm in going a few miles north, then doubling back. As she got closer to Route 70, she began to think about visiting Stan, something she had never dared, no matter how ill he became, because a visit would mean signing in, leaving tracks. But Penelope had said he was bad, demented and nearly dead. If they didn’t ask for ID, she could give them a fake name. Or perhaps she could go drive past Algonquin Lane, see if it really was the cherished home of her dreams or merely a ramshackle farmhouse in a not-great corner of Baltimore.

And then the car had slipped away from her, her life had slipped away from her, and in her panic and confusion she’d begun to tell the truth, only to regret it instantly. “I’m one of the Bethany girls.” If she told them everything else, they would bring back Tony and make her admit to the world that her sister’s death was her fault. Besides, who knew what lies Tony would tell, what violence he might do to her? So she blamed everything on Stan, knowing he was safe in his own way, and said she was Heather Bethany. Heather, who had never done anything worse than snoop and spy on an older sister. Their resemblance had always been profound, and there was nothing about Heather’s life that Sunny didn’t know. It should have been easy, being Heather.