Nate walked quickly back through the woods to Beatrice’s body. He flashed back to another body. For years he’d used regret over Robbie as a stick to beat himself with. Now here he was, standing on the edge of a forked road, choosing between right and wrong once again.

Nate blinked, seeing Josh’s smiling face in his mind.

You’re a good guy, Daddy…

How could he look Josh in the eye and say he was one of the good guys if he let Emma continue down this path? What she was doing was wrong, and he couldn’t cover for it.

He wanted to be the man his son thought he was. More than that, he wanted to teach Josh to be good, to do better than him, to respond courageously to every challenge. Maybe it would still result in heartache and tragedy, but at least he’d be doing the right thing.

He fingered the chip in his pocket, deciding to call Lieutenant Dyson and tell him everything. But first he had one more question for Emma about the owner of this chip.

He snapped off his gloves, threw them in the trash, and slipped the evidence bag into his pocket, his knuckles brushing against the tin of toothpicks he kept there. He pulled it out and opened it, extracted a toothpick, and rolled it between his fingers. After a moment, he slipped the toothpick and the tin into the trash bag.

Nate knelt and squeezed Beatrice’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m going to make this right.”

Nate’s phone rang, and he straightened and answered it, his shoes crunching on gravel as he moved closer to the water. The waterfall hissed in the distance.

“Nate?” Kia sounded out of breath, as if she was running. “Ben’s not here.”

“What? What do you mean, not there?”

“One of the doctors said he left around lunchtime. He wasn’t under arrest, so they couldn’t hold him. Nobody knows where he’s gone!”

CHAPTER 39

I RETURNED TO JOSH’S ROOM, rage and anxiety swirling in my belly. Everything was unraveling like a cheap sweater. How could Nate do this to me? To Josh? How could he think there was any choice at all?

Moira was sitting next to Josh reading a book, the gentle sound of his snores filling the room. Her phone was playing Christmas songs, which reminded me it was only three days away. It certainly didn’t feel like Christmas.

I sat on the other side of Josh and watched him sleep. After a moment, Moira put her book down. She looked at me, then down at the floor, and took a deep breath.

“I know we haven’t always seen… eye to eye, Emma,” she said. “I just wanted to apologize if I’ve ever come across as, well, cold.”