“Did you get my message about picking us up something to eat?”

I remember now: she texted in the car but I was too busy at the time trying to remember anything else Grace might have said about GoodSam to register.

“You forgot, didn’t you?” She rolls her eyes at me as her shoulders drop even further towards the ground and her hand lifts to squeeze her temples. “I haven’t had anything since breakfast. I can’t think straight I’m so starving.” She walks past me as she pulls her phone out of her pocket and lifts it to her ear.

“Hello. Yes, can I get a large ham and mushroom please.” She looks round at me to see if I want a pizza too but I shake my head. I can’t think about food until I’ve talked to someone about what I’ve found. Now Mum’s here, the urge to tell her fades, it doesn’t feel right somehow. We’ve never been close in the way she wishes we were—best friends sharing secrets and confiding in each other. We’re no Meg and Grace. I know she thinks it’s because I’m too like my dad, independent, a lone-wolf type. Besides, this thing with GoodSam could be nothing and I can see Mum’s exhausted, she’s got enough on her plate. I realize with a flash of guilt that I’d rather talk it through with Jon. After all, he’s a journalist, he’d be able to think about it rationally rather than emotionally, know whether it’s something worth pursuing or not. I go back to my room, take the photocopied diary out from under my bed, and slide it into a large brown envelope. Putting it in my backpack, I walk quickly down the corridor and say, “Just popping out, Mum, won’t be long.”

I quickly pull the door shut behind me and pretend I don’t hear her calling back, “Where are you going, Car?”

The shingle grinds together like broken teeth as Jon walks up to where I’m sitting on the beach at Angel’s Bay, just below the spot where Grace and I used to fly our kites. It’s stopped raining but the downpour has softened the vivid summer colors, the early-evening sky like a vast watercolor above us.

Jon didn’t sound particularly surprised when I called him. I told him I had to tell him something. He didn’t ask what it was over the phone, he just said, “Where shall I meet you?”

It was a relief to know he was coming. GoodSam might be nothing, but if it wasn’t? I needed Jon’s years of experience to help me figure out what to do next.

“You OK, Cara?” he asks, looking at me carefully before sitting tentatively on the still-damp shingle next to me.

I can’t wait anymore. I breathe out and tell him about seeing GoodSam on Grace’s computer, that I think she liked him. I tell him about the last time he’d logged on to the forum. Could GoodSam have helped Simon find Grace? Or, even worse, could GoodSam be Simon himself? He listens to it all without interrupting, just raising a single eyebrow. It feels good to be listened to, really listened to, and now I’ve started talking I find I don’t want to stop.