He looked for the initials on the tree trunk. He smiled when he saw them. P.D. Then underneath his initials were A.H. and A.H. The twins. Red-hot anger roared through his veins when he saw that someone had X’d out Cady’s initials. Who would do that? He hadn’t done it, so who did that leave? Jeff? No, Jeff was dead. Well, maybe Jeff had done it before the accident, and he’d just never seen it. Boomer then. Amy or Andy? Was it done before or after the tragedy?

He tried to remember what they’d done that summer after the accident. He’d drifted away from the twins and stayed close to home. Boomer had gone away somewhere and hadn’t come back until school started in September. What did Amy and Andy do that summer? To his knowledge, nothing. Together, they would have had the guts to sneak back to the grove. Did they hate Cady? Did Boomer hate her? He knew Jeff King had hated her but didn’t know why.

Pete closed his eyes as the rain beat down on him. He was ten years old again, his heart thumping in his chest as he watched Cady inch out to the zip line, Jeff King behind her. Andy was the first one to throw a rock. Amy laid her camera down on the mossy bank and joined her brother by picking up a rock. He’d done the same thing. His eyes snapped open. He didn’t want to relive the last part of that particular vision.

Did Amy take pictures that day or not? He’d asked her at the Fourth of July town picnic that summer, but she’d whispered that she didn’t want to take them to the drugstore because then everyone would know they’d been there that day. She’d said when she saved up enough money from her allowance she would send them away because if you did that, the company sent you a free roll of film. He’d never asked her again.

Pete ran his fingers along the grooves of his initials, wishing the sun was shining and that he was a kid again. He climbed into his car, staring up at the Judas tree. His heart felt heavy in his chest as he realized, one way or another, they were all Judases. The only difference between them and Judas Iscariot was they didn’t have thirty pieces of silver to show for what they had done.

Pete swung out onto the highway to head for home. He did a double take as he sailed through the yellow light at the Super Wal-Mart. He saw Boomer Ward seated behind the wheel of a dark green Range Rover headed in the opposite direction. Where was he going? At the gym, he’d looked like he was prepared to work out for a few hours. Maybe he rented a house or an apartment close by. He shivered in his wet clothes, wondering if Boomer was going to the Judas Grove.

Mac Ward climbed out of the Range Rover, his face set in grim lines. He waited for his dog Ozzie to leap to the ground.