“Odea”—Dr. Chaudhary pronounced her name very carefully, as if it were made of glass and might shatter in her mouth—“it’s my job to make sure that you won’t try to hurt yourself again.”

Dea felt the words like a full-body slap. She went hot, then cold. She should have known Dr. Chaudhary was a shrink. No wonder she was so good at dodging questions.

Dea swallowed. “I wasn’t—I wasn’t trying to hurt myself.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Dr. Chaudhary inclined her head, but obviously didn’t believe her. In some ways, Dea couldn’t blame her. Dea’s mom had vanished, she’d been visited by the cops, and less than an hour later she’d hydroplaned her car off the road, driving batshit fast in the middle of nowhere.

And Dea couldn’t explain why. If she said she’d only been trying to avoid the men with no faces, Dr. Chaudhary would probably have her locked up forever.

“Please.” Panic was pulling at Dea from all sides. She felt like she was drowning in thin air—in the clean, bright room, drowning in sheets and wires. “It was an accident, I told you. I—I would never kill myself.” She choked a little on the words.

Dr. Chaudhary began taking notes again. “Have you ever thought about dying, Odea?”

“I mean, I’ve thought about it . . .” Dr. Chaudhary wrote something down and Dea quickly added, “But everyone thinks about it. Don’t they?”

Dr. Chaudhary looked up, sighing. “No,” she said bluntly.

Dea didn’t believe that. Sometimes she thought about getting splattered by a semitruck or falling out of an airplane or getting crushed by an AC unit tumbling off a roof—stupid stuff, improbable stuff, just because it was interesting to think about how thin the seconds were between alive and not. “I’ve never wanted to die,” she said. It was true. No matter how lonely she had been, in whatever bleak, dust-blown place she and her mom had ended up, she had never wanted to die. Only to find a place, any place, where at last, she belonged.

“I’m very glad to hear that,” Dr. Chaudhary said with finality. She stashed the pen at the top of the clipboard and jogged the sheath of papers together neatly. “We just want to keep you safe.”

Dea felt a surge of hope. “So does that mean I can go home?” she said.

“No.” Dr. Chaudhary smiled in a way meant to convey kindness and patience and pity all at once. “The fact is, you did almost die. We’re going to keep you here for a few days. I’ll speak to you again tomorrow.”

“You can’t do that.” Dea struggled to sit up as Dr. Chaudhary stood and began to make her way toward the door. “You can’t keep me here if I don’t want to stay.”

Dr. Chaudhary turned with one hand on the door. “Yes, we can,” she said softly. To her credit, she sounded almost regretful.

“But—”

“Don’t get agitated, Odea. Just try to get some rest, okay?” And she left the room, closing the door firmly behind her.

When Donna Sue announced a visitor, Dea hoped for a brief moment that it would be Connor. Instead, it was Gollum, dressed as always in a Windbreaker several sizes too large for her, clutching a collection of water-warped women’s magazines from several months earlier. Dea bit her lip to keep from crying. She’d never been so happy to see anyone in her life.

“In case you got bored,” Gollum said, setting the magazines down on Dea’s bedside table. “Or were curious about the best lipstick colors for last spring.”

“How did you know I was here?” Dea asked, her throat raw.

“Are you kidding?” Gollum sat down in the chair Dr. Chaudhary had vacated and drew her knees to her chest. Her sneakers were green. Dea knew she was doing her best to seem easy, casual. “No one’s talking about anything else.”

Dea groaned. That meant Connor had heard, of course. Even if she did make it out of the hospital—even if her mom did return—she didn’t see how she could ever face anyone in Fielding again. They would have to move.

Gollum fiddled with the bottom of her Windbreaker, where the hem was torn. “You want to talk about what happened?”

Dea sat up a little. “You don’t believe I tried to kill myself, do you? Gollum?” she pressed, when Gollum didn’t immediately answer.

“No, no,” Gollum said quickly. Her face was red, which made her hair look practically white.

“Good,” Dea said firmly. “Because it was an accident.”

Gollum made a face as if she were trying to swallow a hot pepper. She clearly wanted to ask more questions—Dea was sure Gollum had heard that her mom had disappeared—but let it drop. “So how long do you have to be here?” she asked.

“Don’t know.” Even thinking about it made her feel panicky again. “Only a few days, I hope.” She took a deep breath and, before she could stop herself, blurted: “Have you talked to Connor?”

Gollum adjusted her glasses with the knuckle of one finger. “Tried to,” she said. “He wasn’t in school yesterday, and his phone was off.” She made the hot-pepper face again. “There’s some woman poking around doing research about . . . you know. His mom and brother and the murders and stuff. She’s like a graduate student or something. Supposedly she’s writing a book about it.”

“Yeah,” Dea said. “I heard.”

“She even showed up at school. She was waiting in the parking lot after last bell. She managed to corner me but I didn’t tell her anything. I felt kind of sorry for her, actually.” Gollum shook her head. “She seemed pretty desperate. I think she really thinks she’s going to figure it out.”

“When the cops couldn’t?” Dea said.

“Cops are idiots,” Gollum said matter-of-factly, and Dea wasn’t going to disagree. “And listen . . .” Gollum looked suddenly uncomfortable. She shifted in her chair, which gave a little squeak. “She has your name. Kate Patinsky. She knows about you.”

Dea’s heart began to speed up. “Knows what about me?”

Gollum didn’t look at her. “That you and Connor are . . . close.”

Were, Dea almost corrected her. But saying that would make it real, and she couldn’t.

“Anyway,” Gollum said. “I’m pretty sure he’s avoiding her or something. I’ll keep trying. I know he must be worried about you.”

Dea closed her eyes, remembering his look of horror, the way he’d said what are you? She had the urge to cry again, so she kept her mouth shut.

Gollum stood up. “I should go,” she said. “My dad had to drive me in the pickup. He’s waiting in the parking lot.” Gollum, Dea knew, had flunked her driver’s test three times in a row, despite her claim that she’d been driving tractors for years on her family’s farm. “I’ll come back tomorrow, okay?”

“Sure,” Dea said, still fighting the feeling she was going to break down at any second. “I’d like that.”

Unexpectedly, Gollum reached down and gave Dea a hug. They’d hardly ever hugged, Dea realized. Although Gollum was thin, she was surprisingly strong, and her hair smelled like mint.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” Gollum whispered, and that did it: tears stung Dea’s eyes before she could stop them. When Gollum pulled away, Dea swiped quickly at her face with a palm.

“Gollum!” Dea called Gollum back before she could slip into the hall. “My cat, Toby. He doesn’t have anyone to feed him . . .”

Gollum grinned—the first time she’d smiled since entering the room. “Already took him home,” she said. “The chickens aren’t too happy about it.”

She was gone before Dea could even say thank you.

The cops came in the evening. Briggs and Mr. Bigshot Connelly looked comically out of place in the small, bright room, like overinflated action figures.

“If you’re here to talk about my mom, I have nothing to say,” Dea said quickly. She was getting better at maneuvering with the IV in her arm, and she managed to roll over, so she was facing the window.

“We just came to check in, see how you were getting on.” That was Briggs. Dea knew the cops had probably saved her life, but she felt nothing but resentment: they’d had her followed, they’d forced her to go tearing across Indiana like a maniac in the rain. If it weren’t for them, she might never have turned on County Route 2. She might never have seen the monsters.