“And he found…” Jack didn’t speak the word Evelyn aloud. She must’ve suspected it would feel like a knife in Dr. Holloway’s heart. It would probably always feel like a jagged blade had lodged itself there, making it difficult to breathe. Speak. Sleep. Raven knew that feeling well, and his heart surged with warmth when Jack’s fingers found his across the wide expanse of the car.

“Evelyn died between eleven and one,” Raven said, hitching in a breath. He felt guilty for thinking of his mom when she wasn’t the one who’d just died, but if she hadn’t been killed, she’d be sitting in the front seat right now, her fingers twining with his dad’s. Then again, if she hadn’t been killed, Evelyn would’ve never moved into their house, and none of this would’ve happened.

The thought unsettled him.

“It would’ve been literally impossible for you to have poisoned her,” Raven pushed on, ignoring the intake of breath from the front of the car. The tensing of his father’s shoulders. He had to explain this part, in order for Jack to understand their deception. “You were in the car with my dad at the time, driving back from the airport. As soon as we explained that to the detective, he put in the call to let you out.”

“But I told him I’d been with Belle,” Jack blurted, almost as if she hadn’t wanted to. Those words had a mind of their own. They slipped into the world, trickling around the quiet of the sedan. “I gave Belle an alibi.”

“And the detective knew you were lying,” Raven said calmly. “If you’d told him you were with my dad, it would’ve sealed Belle’s fate.”

“Didn’t he think it was strange?” Jack’s brow was furrowed, her gaze shifting to Raven’s dad in the front seat. “He interviewed you the night of the murder, right? Wouldn’t you have mentioned me then?”

“I was in shock,” Dr. Holloway said simply. “I hardly remembered the drive to the airport, let alone what happened after. The detective understood that, and he has me on camera leaving the house at ten. He has me on camera coming back after one.”

Jack was silent a minute. They were nearing Holloway Manor, and the camera above the gate captured their progress toward the great stone house. The house that had felt haunted for years. The house that felt more haunted now. Raven hoped Jack would stay in his room that night. They could lie under his covers, all wrapped up together. They could protect each other from the storms raging in their hearts and the eerie quiet of the world outside.