Three

On her last morning in Virginia Anna sipped her coffee and stared up at the sky. It was a clear bright day, clouds passing over blue. She was tired in a way that made the world seem insubstantial. The sun was rising and the park held a dreamlike sheen. No leaves on the trees but the air was bright. She sat on a swing with her first coffee of the morning, scuffing her shoes in the sand. Only when she looked at her daughter did she feel awake.

Chloe lay on her back in the stroller staring up at the clouds.

An n a   a n d   Chloe were in the park when Liam Deval came to them. Anna looked up— a man approaching over the lawn, the sunrise behind him so she couldn't see his face— and because she couldn't see who it was she assumed the worst and thought she was finished, she clutched the chains of the swing so tightly that blood began to throb in the palms of her hands, she tried to steel herself but her last thoughts raced together and all she could think of was how sad it was that she'd had so little time with her daughter. She looked at Chloe, trying to memorize the soft flush of her skin and her wide unfocused eyes, her miniature hands clenching and unclenching above the blankets, the heartbreaking smallness of her fingernails, but then Liam called out her name over the grass. Anna let her breath out all at once and blinked away tears.

   "It's you," she said, "I'm so glad it's you," but she understood immediately that something was wrong. He held her for a moment and stroked her hair when she stood up from the swing, glanced over his shoulder before he looked at her again.

   "Anna, we have to leave again," he said. "I think he knows you're here."