I clasped her hand for the last time, feeling the cool, rubbery webbing against my own warm fingers. “Be safe.”

The conference took place two days later at the county sheriff’s headquarters. Jim and Sue Vanderhei were there, along with Mike Huizenga, Kyle Middleton, and their parents, me, Cody, Chief Bryant, Detective Wilkes, and Sheriff Barnard. I have to admit, it was pretty much the last place on earth I wanted to be. Seattle would have been a lot nicer. The sense of anguished loss and devastating guilt hanging over the room was palpable, so much so that I found myself wishing Stefan were there to siphon off a measure of it, like he’d done at Thad’s funeral.

And no, I hadn’t seen Stefan or spoken with him since the night it all went down. As he’d said, he could wait.

Silence weighed heavy on the room. Sheriff Barnard and Chief Bryant exchanged a glance. They were cut from the same cloth: big men in positions of power who knew how to use their imposing presence well.

“Anything you boys want to tell us about the night Thad Vanderhei died?” the sheriff asked gently.

Mike Huizenga shook his head violently. Kyle Middleton wrapped his arms around himself and shivered.

“All right, then.” Sheriff Barnard nodded at Detective Wilkes, who opened a file and slid a handful of photographs of the rusalka in her tank across the table. “Let us tell you. Chief Bryant?”

The chief cleared his throat. Leaning forward to prop his elbows on the table and fold his meaty hands over each other, he laid out the whole sordid story from beginning to end, periodically consulting with Cody or me to confirm a detail.

At first, the parents were in utter denial. I couldn’t blame them. It really was unthinkable, and all the more so because the young men involved were raised in devout Christian households and taught to revile the very existence of the eldritch community. But then, I suppose that made the temptation posed by forbidden fruit all the stronger.

At any rate, it wasn’t long before the boys’ reactions made it impossible to deny the truth. Kyle simply shut down, going into a state of glaze-eyed catatonia and refusing to respond to his parents’ insistent questions. Mike Huizenga broke silently, tears streaming down his broad face, his linebacker’s shoulders shaking.

The room got very quiet.

“So it’s true,” Jim Vanderhei said after a long moment. No one answered him. “Whose idea was it to put Thad in the river?”

Chief Bryant glanced at me. “That’s one detail we don’t know,” I admitted.