It wasn’t possible, I told myself. Vera would come back from wherever she’d gone. John would call. And soon I would be gone, where Davis couldn’t find me. Where Ellie couldn’t, either.

By one o’clock, she still wasn’t back. Meanwhile, it had begun to snow. I was sitting by the window, watching the flakes fall, tracing circles in the frosty glass and looking for any sign of Vera’s car, when I saw a police cruiser coming down the road. It slowed, and as it did, my pulse sped up. It stopped in front of my house.

I whipped the drapes shut as my mind tried to make sense of it. It had to be routine, nothing more than a follow-up. Officer Parker had found the camera on the bank of the river last night, just before the rocks turned to water, smashed beyond repair and marred with John’s blood. The rangers had searched the area, and there wasn’t a single sign of John, and the working theory, just as we’d hoped, was that he’d been washed away, dying on impact or shortly thereafter. There was an all-points bulletin out for his body, but we both knew nothing would turn up.

A knock shook the door, and Dusty barked furiously.

I opened it to see Officer Parker and a man I didn’t recognize. He was tall and wore a lightly crumpled suit, his round belly bulging behind the button-down shirt.

‘Miss King,’ Parker said.

‘Hi,’ I managed. My eyes flicked to the man and back to her. ‘Is there news?’

Parker didn’t answer my question, but her eyes were warm. ‘This is Detective McKnight,’ she said. ‘Can we come in?’

Fingers tingling with nerves, I ushered them in and offered them coffee. Parker insisted she didn’t want anything, but McKnight, after delivering a firm but sweaty handshake, took me up on it.

Standing in the kitchen, waiting for it to brew, my mind reeled. Again I told myself that this was all routine, that it was probably just a run-of-the-mill follow-up.

The machine finished, and I took two mugs from the cabinet, but one of them slipped, water through my fingers, and struck the floor, instantly shattering against hard ceramic tile. I imagined John’s camera shattering. And John shattering, too.

‘You okay in there?’ the detective asked.

‘Fine. Just one sec,’ I called back, though if he only turned his balding head, he’d be able to see exactly what was going on. I shooed Dusty away, then swept the remnants of the mug into the dustpan and tossed it into the trash, as if it were evidence of my lies.