I was still awake when the sky began to lighten and the early-morning sun streamed into our master bedroom, filtered through gauzy curtains. James still had not returned to bed. I got up and headed downstairs, my body stiff from the sleepless night. James was asleep on the couch in the living room, an empty glass on the coffee table beside him. I thought about waking him, but decided I needed to have a few minutes alone before I faced the day. I headed into the kitchen and made coffee, poured myself a large mug, and sat at the kitchen table, contemplating what lay before us.

The shocking reality was, Hannah had most likely been murdered. If she’d died of natural causes, her body would not have ended up buried on the camping grounds in a grave deep enough that it took twenty-five years to uncover her. I knew the police had used tracking dogs to comb the area. They’d tracked Hannah’s scent to the beach, and then lost it. How was it possible they couldn’t have tracked her back to the campgrounds? I supposed even trained search dogs could only do so much.

But I couldn’t figure out whether the police would be able to find out now what had happened to her. Between the amount of time that had passed since Hannah’s disappearance and the apparent state of her remains, it seemed unlikely that they’d find any new physical evidence. If something like this happened today, detectives might be able to track potential suspects through cell phone tower data and surveillance camera footage, but Hannah’s death had predated all that.

“Hi, honey.”

I looked up and saw James standing in the doorway to the kitchen. He looked as tired as I felt.

“Good morning. I made coffee,” I said.

James nodded, and went to pour himself a cup in his favorite mug, the one with a picture of Snoopy from the Peanuts strip, dancing. Paige had given it to him for Father’s Day years ago. By now, it had been through the dishwasher so many times, the cartoon had almost completely faded away. He joined me at the table, mug in hand.

“Sorry about last night. I couldn’t sleep at first, so I was watching TV down here, but I must have drifted off on the couch.”

“I understand.” I sipped my coffee. It tasted bitter. “You had a difficult day.”

“I’ve been thinking: to make things even worse, this could get a lot of media attention. She was just starting to get famous when she disappeared, you know.”

She, again. I wondered why he had such a hard time saying Hannah’s name.

“I know. I thought of that, too. It’s like my PR brain switched back on.”

“Did you ever handle anything like this?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I worked on campaigns for soda, laundry detergent . . . things like that.”