Logan doesn’t move for a moment. He looks at me, and I want to say the right thing. But what is that? Then he turns and follows Amy and Jane, and I walk to the end of the street, where the police car is parked in the Pearces’ driveway.

The gate isn’t locked anymore, and the front door is open. Chris stands with his arms crossed, and I think of him that day in the woods, when Amy set this plan in motion and he didn’t stop her.

“Tom…” Mum says from behind me. She hugs me and Nia joins in and Jay stands a few steps back.

“That was intense,” says Nia.

People are starting to gather in the street, talking in hushed voices. Then another police car arrives, no siren this time, no flashing lights, just two officers who stride quickly inside.

Amy was the one who had to release the truth, and, today, she had the strength to turn the key in the lock and finally open the door.

95

Not everything ends with an explosion.

For a while, with Jane threatening to charge through our house, I thought it might. But the truth is a lot calmer.

That night, the police knock on our door and Mum hands over the recording.

I write a statement that sounds ridiculous when I read it back. I can see the disbelief on the officer’s face. Then his partner shows him the picture of Logan Connolly before he went missing, and another of him now.

Whatever the policeman was about to say evaporates.

In its place, a single sound: “Oh.”

And now we’re all watching from my bedroom window as police tape is stretched around a house that suddenly looks smaller.

Amy has already left, her and Logan driven off in different cars for different destinations. I don’t know where she’s gone, but I desperately hope she comes back.

I always wondered why she chose me—if I really was a random first friend or if it was more than that. It definitely was for me.

When the final car pulls away, Mum and I are still watching. We’re used to looking through windows more than Jay and Nia.

“We did it,” Mum says, but we don’t feel happy. How can we when we’ve just destroyed a family?

It’s not until I think of Logan’s real mother that I smile. I’m not naive. I know whatever happens next is not going to be easy. But I hope the damage Jane caused isn’t irreparable. I hope Logan remembers his mother as more than just a stick figure carved into a wardrobe.

It was just the two of them—like Mum and me—and then they didn’t even have that. They were two broken souls, each grieving for the other. Two lives made dark and lonely because of a tragedy that shattered three more.

96