She googled “Witness Protection Program” and picked up several salient facts, although overall the machinations of the program seemed to be largely undocumented. She learned that witnesses were usually given a lump sum with which to start their new lives and that after that they were on their own, and that it wasn’t very much—around sixty thousand dollars. Sheesh. She learned that Sherri and Katie had to take their new identities to their grave. Even if Sherri met someone and fell in love and decided to get married, she had to do it under her new name. She learned that some witnesses requested an improvement in grades for their children along with doctored school records (usually denied). She learned that it was common for witnesses to be allowed to keep or alter only slightly their first names and the first letter of their last names so that they had time to catch themselves when signing paperwork or a check. She learned that there had been over 18,000 witnesses protected in the program, and that 95 percent of them were criminals themselves, making Sherri and Katie a tiny subset of an already small group.

She tiptoed up the stairs again to check on Katie. Still sleeping. She stood in the doorway of Katie’s room and took a deep, deep breath, feeling the weight of this new secret, which she had wanted to possess so badly and now wanted only to jettison.

She returned to the notebook and flipped past the page where Katie’s writing ended. There was a blank page, and another blank page. Alexa continued flipping. There was a little more writing on the next page. It was smaller and more scrunched up than the other writing, as though the person who was writing it wanted to both hide it and put it out there.

There’s one more thing I haven’t told anyone.

Whatever you do, diary, you can’t tell.

The writing ended there. Alexa flipped again.

Here it is. Secret #4. This is what I want to say when Mom asks me why I wake up screaming. I don’t want her to get that sad and worried look on her face so I don’t say what I’m thinking.

Which is that I’m scared that the bad men are still out there. I’m scared the bad men are coming for me.

Alexa slipped the notebook back under Katie’s pillow.

Sherri came home around ten. They did the how’d-everything-go-oh-totally-fine routine, and then Sherri reached into her shoulder bag (front rack at Marshalls, Alexa guessed) and pulled out her wallet. Alexa thought of the large Silk Stockings sum she’d recently deposited into her secret account, and she shook her head.

“This one’s on me,” she said.

“Oh, don’t be silly,” said Sherri. “I’m not expecting you to work for free!”

“No, really,” said Alexa. Granted, she had only a nebulous idea of how much it cost to be a real person, but she was pretty sure sixty thousand dollars didn’t go very far in Newburyport, and Sherri was working just part-time, which couldn’t pay very much. How could Alexa possibly take money from this woman, this government witness, and sleep comfortably at night? “It was fun for me,” she told Sherri. “I promise. Honestly, we watched TV and hung out. It doesn’t feel like work at all. I insist.”

“Really?” Sherri stopped rummaging in the bag and looked at Alexa, relieved. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.” Alexa squinted at Sherri and tried to see the woman from the newspaper articles. Sure, hair color could do a lot. So could makeup. And clothes. Alexa squinted harder. It was difficult to see, but the other woman, the former Sharon Giordano, was in there somewhere.

“Is everything okay?” asked Sherri. “Anything wrong with your eye? I swear the people who lived here before kept cats even though the landlord swore up and down that nobody has had pets in here. Are you allergic?”

Alexa recovered, blinking. Yes, she could definitely see the woman from the newspaper. “Everything’s great,” she said. I’m scared the bad men are coming for me, Katie had written. Her heart thumped. “Couldn’t be better.”

She was gathering her keys and her phone when Sherri said, “Alexa? Can I ask you something?”

Alexa immediately started to sweat in panic. She knows, she thought. Somehow she knows I know.

“Sure.” She couldn’t believe how normal her voice sounded.

“What’s a Boda Borg party?”

“A what?” Alexa was momentarily disoriented, wondering if Boda Borg was some kind of mob term. Then she remembered that it was a real-world gaming environment that had been all the rage for a while in middle school. Not for Alexa—she wasn’t a gamer, real world or fake. But some people got into it.

“A Boda Borg party. Katie mentioned that someone named Riley is having one? She was distraught over not being invited. And naturally when you’re new to town you can’t expect to get invited to everything right away, I told her that. I told her it was nothing to get so upset about. But try explaining that to an eleven-year-old.” Sherri sighed. “It’s hard starting over, no matter what age you are.”

It won’t be for me, thought Alexa. Not in L.A. But she felt hurt and angry on Sherri and Katie’s behalf.

“Boda Borg parties are the worst,” she said. “They’re chaotic and stressful and the traffic getting there is always terrible and nine out of ten times a kid throws up on the car ride home. Believe me, Katie is lucky to miss it.”