I froze. They hadn’t seen me yet, so I could still turn and run. But where? I couldn’t go to Alex’s – I couldn’t draw them to his door. Besides, some deep streak of stubbornness rose up in me, the same that had stopped me from breaking down when, at just nineteen, I had been sentenced to death by lethal injection. I hadn’t done this. I would not accept the blame. I had every right to go to my own home. Several passers-by had already stopped to gawk, and I even recognised some of them – the guy with the man-bun who ran the kayak rental in summer, the woman from the pet shop where I bought Brandy’s treats. It was a small town. People knew each other.

I walked down the lane, never breaking my stride or taking my eyes away from my front door with its cheerful green paint. Ten steps, twenty – that’s all it would take, and I’d be safe. They couldn’t hurt me.

‘Rachel!’

‘Casey!’

They were shouting both my names.

‘Have you anything to say, Casey?’

‘How does it feel to be accused of so many murders?’

‘Did you do it, Rachel?’

Focusing on my front door while fumbling in my bag for my keys, I had a hazy impression of people with microphones and cameras. Camera flashes went off as I kept walking, taking me back twenty years. Casey! Why did you do it?

‘Rachel!’

Just get in. Get in. I knew that once I was inside, they couldn’t follow me.

‘Casey!’

The keys were in my hand, hard and cold. One reporter got too close, stumbling in his haste – so close I could smell his coffee breath – and I gave a sob and lunged forward, scrabbling for the lock.

Please open. Please!

The lock turned and I almost fell in. I slammed the door behind me, hard. The noise level dropped, though I could still hear them calling, and then they began knocking and ringing the doorbell. They had taken their pictures, filmed me for the evening news and the morning papers. Me with my head down, not answering their questions. Would people watch it and decide I was guilty? Not just of Anna’s murder, but of David’s and Abby’s and Madison’s? No smoke without fire, they’d say. She’s a killer. I always knew it.