“You know, I once got into such shit in this park.”

“You did?”

“Last year, we knew this barman at the hotel across the road and he used to get us a bottle of whiskey sometimes. He skimmed a little off the shots he poured. So we used to come here and drink it, and then we got caught.”

“What happened?”

“I drank too much one night, and passed out on a bench, and a security guard found me and called my dad.”

“Crap!”

“That’s when my dad took me to that AA meeting.”

“And you haven’t drank since then?” I asked.

“Nope. It’s not like he told me to stop drinking, but he did want to show me what the potential consequences were, since addiction can be genetic.”

“Why do you hide the fact you don’t drink?”

He shrugged. It wasn’t his usual cool and casual shrug. “Probably the same reason I don’t tell people about Lisa.”

“Scared of being judged?”

“Does that make me a coward?” he turned and asked.

I glanced at him to gauge his body language. His shoulders were a little more slumped than usual, as if he were carrying just a little bit of extra weight. “I don’t know. I’m the last person in the world you should ask. I’m always scared I’m being secretly judged. I’m scared of everything.”

“You? Never!” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t give a crap—in a good way! You have opinions about things. You voice them. You tell strangers off in supermarkets. You’d rip up protestor’s signs. I did nothing but stand there and watch them. You’re brave . . . I’m the coward.”

“What?” I swung around and looked at him. “Brave? I don’t . . . no. I’m . . . not. Trust me.”

We’d been talking so much that I hadn’t noticed we’d walked all the way through the park. I was about to suggest we turn back when something caught my attention. I turned to look at it, needed to look at it, and just like I’d felt when I’d seen Rose’s cross, I was pulled toward it. Jake came up next to me and we stood in utter silence as we took it in. No one dared to speak.

“How are you supposed to find her like that?” I finally broke the silence, and reached out to touch the tattered piece of paper with the old, weather-beaten photocopy on it.

“‘Natasha Lewis was last seen wearing a pink Dora the Explorer T-shirt and blue shorts playing outside her parents’ house in Table View on February 21, 2021. She is eight years old, weighs approximately twenty-five kilos and her height is one hundred and twenty-five centimeters.’”

The words seemed to reach out from the paper and kick me in the gut.

“She’s the same age as Lisa,” Jake said.

“Yeah.”