The locks on the outside were to keep someone in. They were on Will’s door and on Amy’s. Is she guilty or is she another Logan?

The words under the wallpaper—HELP ME—were a plea from a boy who had been washed away, just not like people thought.

The stick drawings—one big and one small—a child and an adult. A son and his mother. Logan did them over and over again because he hasn’t forgotten. How could he?

He counted hundreds of horrible days with the tally marks surrounding those drawings.

And Amy’s journal, when she said I can’t possibly know the truth.

I almost wish I didn’t.

74

I delete the message to Amy, because there’s another way. Instead, I go back to the spot below Will’s window. Except that’s not the name I plan to say if he wakes up.

The stones clatter against the glass, then fall into the space between me and the wall. If Jane or Chris comes out, I’ll tell them what I know and hope it scares them away. But no one comes. Their house is so big and the space between the rooms so vast that I’m left alone to wake their “son” for as long as it takes.

Eventually, the curtain twitches, and he looks down at me. I sign for him to open the window, but he just stares. Is this the boy that needs saving, or am I making a massive mistake?

There’s only one way to find out, so I say, “Logan,” then again, louder this time, making sure my lips are exaggerating the sounds.

One shout, that’s all I get. Any sound can be “just a noise” in the night, so I take a deep breath, dare myself, then yell. The first syllable is swallowed by the darkness, but the second echoes…before joining the buzz of the street lights and the hum of whatever comes out at night.

He heard it. The whole street heard it. Most of them will fall straight back to sleep, convinced it was in their dreams or someone shouting as they stumbled home from the pub. But Logan doesn’t. He looks at me, and I wait for something, anything. I wait for him to tell me I’m right.

Instead, he shakes his head and disappears behind the curtain, leaving me alone on the street, staring up into the darkness.

75

I wake up to the smell of Sundays, and, as I roll over, the list of clues crinkles beneath me.

Aaron’s laugh comes first, then Nia’s voice, then the dull mumbling of the radio.

Mum loves Sunday, because it’s the day we feel most like a family. Aaron has been here all night, and his sister has woken up happy, and Jay “gets things done.”