Taylor picked up her report and returned to her bedroom to proofread. On her computer screen, she could never find the mistakes that spell-checkers missed. Somehow they just leaped off the page when it was actually a page.

She pulled out a yellow highlighter and positioned it to mark whatever she needed to fix.

First page, perfection. Not a single mistake, grammatically, thematically, or otherwise. The second page, not so much. She’d switched the first name and the surname of the Italian artist. She wasn’t too hard on herself. It could happen to anyone.

Underneath was a third, and ultimately devastating, sheet of paper.

It was an e-mail to her father and she almost didn’t bother reading it. But the subject line caught her attention: Warning!

Before she even finished reading she had it in her sister’s face.

“Holy crap,” Hayley said. “What’s she talking about?”

Taylor shook her head. “Dunno, but let’s ask Dad.”

As they went downstairs, they could hear their mother and father talking by the kitchen sink in slightly hushed tones. Valerie had just gotten home from filling up the car. She hadn’t even removed her coat. Her face was ashen, her eyes pinched together in worry. Kevin, who had his back to his girls, noticed Valerie’s eyes track the twins as they entered the room.

“Hi, girls,” he said, turning to face them. He wasn’t a very good actor, but he tried valiantly just then. He put on a smile. “Great dinner tonight. Mom and I were just talking about how you both are giving her a run for her money when it comes being Top Chef around here.”

Taylor held up the e-mail. “That’s not what you’re talking about, Dad,” she said.

He looked at the paper. “Where did you get that?”

“She picked it up from the printer by mistake,” Hayley said.

Taylor spoke up. “Mom, Dad, what is this woman …” She looked down at the paper. “What is Savannah Osteen talking about?”

Kevin took the paper and pretended to give it a cursory read. Its contents were already burned into his memory. If a radio game show host called just then and asked for a word-for-word recounting of the “worst letter you’ve ever received” for a $10,000 prize, Kevin would be able to start spending the cash right then.

Instead, he lied.

“I don’t know,” he began, clearly struggling before gaining some steam. “Nothing. She’s a nut. I get letters like this every day from people who want to marry me or want to kill me.”

Valerie studied Hayley and Taylor. It was clear that Kevin’s blame on a crazed fan was a complete failure.

“Girls, I think we should all sit down for a moment and talk,” she suggested.

Taylor glanced at their father, who was still muttering about the crazed fan. “I agree, Mom. Let’s talk.”

Hayley joined her sister and peered at their father, who now looked embarrassed and a little irritated.

Valerie led them to the old pine kitchen table, finally peeling off her coat and setting it along with her purse and keys on an empty chair.

“I’ll go first,” she said, while Kevin, paper now folded discreetly in half, slid into a chair next to her. It was happening so fast, he wasn’t exactly sure what his wife was going to say.

Valerie began by reminding the girls of their short stint as subjects for the University of Washington study.

“We’ve mentioned that,” she said, “remember?”

The girls nodded.

“We were exceptional, right?” Taylor said.

“In every way, of course. Just like me,” Kevin said, meaning it, but also trying to lighten the mood in the kitchen a little. “And your mom, yes, let’s not forget her.” Ordinarily, he didn’t mind tension, because it was a great motivator—but not when it came to his family. His attempts to smooth things over fell completely flat.

Valerie went on to talk about the protocol for the study, how excited they’d been to have the university learn more about language development by studying the girls.

Hayley smiled a little. “We did say some crazy stuff, didn’t we?”

Taylor cut in. “Yeah, remember ‘levee split poop’?”

A look of recognition came over Hayley. “I’d forgotten that one. That was one of our classics.”

“So what’s with this Savannah?” Taylor asked, guiding the conversation back to the e-mail she’d accidently retrieved from the printer.

“I didn’t have my training back then,” Valerie went on, “but looking back now, I can clearly see that she had some serious emotional problems.”

“Very unstable,” Kevin added. “She just kind of fell apart on us. She was supposed to come back to do more follow-up sessions and she just vanished. Quit the program. The university. We never heard from her again.”

“As I recall, neither did the university,” Valerie said. “You made multiple calls there, didn’t you?”

Kevin nodded.

“What happened to her?” Taylor asked.

“Who knows? With the kind of work your mom and I do, we probably know better than any family around that the world is full of misfits, tortured souls, and the wholly unbalanced,” Kevin said.

“Why is she talking to Moira Windsor?” Hayley asked, knowing the answer.

Kevin looked away. “Moira’s writing an article and wants info on you two.”

Taylor spoke up. “So, what does that have to do with Savannah?”

Kevin looked at Valerie. She wasn’t answering, so he did. “You know that the ten-year anniversary is coming up,” he said. “We’ve talked about that.”

There was no need to say what anniversary. In the Ryan household there was always … IT.

VALERIE: I have a conference in Port Townsend Thursday and Friday … crossing that bridge only makes me think about IT.

TAYLOR: Tell me about how you and mom stayed by our sides at the hospital after IT happened.

HAYLEY: Even though I have no memory of IT, every time a short bus goes by I wonder about IT.

KEVIN: IT almost cost us everything.

“Someone at the Herald probably tipped off Moira about the anniversary and the tragedy of Katelyn’s death. Linking all of you together, though none of it is related whatsoever,” he said.

“Talk about someone trying to capitalize on a tragedy,” Taylor said, looking at her father. Despite the seriousness of the moment, it was a playful poke at her dad’s true crime writing.

“Thanks for that, Tay,” he said.

“What video is Savannah talking about?”

“She taped you girls,” Kevin said. “You know that. I asked the school for a copy after she quit, but they never got back to us.”

Valerie smiled as a happy memory crossed her mind. “Yes, we wanted it because we didn’t have the money for a video camera back then. It would have been nice to have. You girls were so tiny.”

Kevin suggested a slice of Dutch apple pie, like it was some worthy distraction from the conversation that was really going nowhere. Hayley got up to get the plates.

Taylor looked at her mother directly, without saying a word. She was playing the old chicken game, a stare-down, just to see what she could read in her mother’s eyes. Valerie turned away first.

Later that night, Hayley and Taylor talked through the outlet cover.

“I hate it when they lie to us,” Hayley said in a soft whisper.

Taylor rolled over to get closer to the outlet. “No kidding,” she said. “I felt like calling them on it.”

“Me too. We’re going to have check out Atlanta Osteen,” Hayley said, deliberately using an incorrect first name.

“Savannah,” Taylor said.

“Whatever,” Hayley went on. “I hate it when parents name their kids for the states the moms got pregnant in.”

“It’s a city.”

“Okay,” Hayley said. “I hate when parents name their kids after cities too. Geographic names are just plain dumb.”

“Remember how we had four Dakotas in fifth grade?”

“Good night, Taylor.”

And though they were joking a little, both girls felt very uneasy about what had transpired that evening—the e-mail, the discussion with their parents. There were things about their own lives that were foreign to them. Undeniably, there was some irony to all of that. On separate occasions, Colton and Beth had remarked about how open-minded their parents were. Hayley and Taylor knew there was an invisible wall there too.