“Hmm,” Robin said. He couldn’t help thinking how convenient that was. But he also thought Matthew had seemed truthful—he had willingly told Robin the story, even the parts that made him look bad. It was hard to think he could be lying, seeing as he made himself look pretty guilty.

“They’re gone and those were the last things I ever said to them.” Matthew was still wading in the past. Robin looked at him and wondered how Matthew would go about killing and disposing of his friends. As usual, he came up with nothing.

As soon as questions started with How...? this whole case slammed into a brick wall.

Because, well. How?

Robin took out his phone, swiped to the picture of the Standedge Five in the basement of The Hamlet. He slid it across to Matthew, pointing at the smudge on Tim’s wrist. “This was the tattoo you saw?”

Matthew only had to glance at it. “Yes. That’s it. ‘Ascend.’” And then he looked at the picture, really looked at it. “What is this? I don’t remember this.”

Robin realized his mistake too late.

Matthew’s eyes sparkled, with equal amounts of regret and redemption. “This proves it. This proves they were meeting. I was right. Where did you get this?”

“It’s hanging in the basement of The Hamlet.”

“When was this...?”

Robin sighed and ran his hands through his hair. He decided to tell the truth. “It was taken three days before the Incident.”

Matthew looked up from the photo and surprised Robin—by laughing. Uncontrollably. “Three days. Three. Days.” He gave out a fresh cackle. “I was right. I was damn right.”

Robin just watched as Matthew rapidly went through the stages of grief.

“Why the hell would they do that? Three days before... I was right there. Right there.”

Robin changed the subject. “So you’d go through the tunnel a lot—like a ritual? Like the tunnel was important to the group? Did something happen that first time you went through the tunnel when you were young?”

The question helped Matthew calm down. He sniffed. “Nothing tangible, physical. I think as kids, we spent so long being afraid of that place—afraid of what was lurking inside Standedge. Then that day, we found out that we were afraid of nothing. And even more than that, it was actually kinda cool. You understand?”

Robin mulled it over for a second and then nodded. He’d had things like that when he was a child too. He had been afraid of dogs until his grandma got an old sheepdog. Now he was a dog person. It was a coming-of-age moment—when you realized your worst fears were utterly unjustified. Of course, that led into the discovery that there were far more tangible fears in the world, but that was by and by. “So the trip was what brought you all together?”