The man who’d stolen my life was dead. In time, the media would release details of the diary, and that would go some way to exonerating me, at least for people who wouldn’t go so far as to believe that Kevin and I had acted together and that he’d deliberately kept me out of his writings. The police had kept me in Sydney for a week, wanting to talk about Dale, Khalid Farah, Kevin. Why I’d been at a house the police knew Kevin had been at only hours before he had been murdered. Why I’d called his ex-girlfriend, and what we’d spoken about. Whether or not I believed Dale Bingley had set out to murder Kevin, and whether or not I’d been there when he did. I’d brought Sean to the interrogations and enacted my right to silence. There was no case against me. The police couldn’t put me at the scene of the crime. I’d reported my phone stolen and thrown out my shoes, and no witnesses had seen me or Dale driving there that night. The case against Dale also had major problems. There was no gun found at the scene or anywhere near it. Dale wasn’t talking. His lawyer was one of the country’s top QCs. If he got into trouble, there would always be a provocation defense. Temporary insanity. Self-defense. Whatever they liked. I didn’t think the case against Dale would hold up. Or that he would care if it did.

Amanda knew that my wife had offered to give me back something of what I had lost. In the week I’d been in Sydney, I’d seen Lillian again, this time alone with Kelly at a McDonald’s, Jett nowhere to be seen. She’d asked me again to come home. I’d given her my answer.

Knowing all these things, Amanda stood beside me saying nothing, chipping old paint off the cubby beside her with her thumbnail. Maybe she was afraid to ask if I was going back. I didn’t know what fear was like for her, my strange little partner.

“I’m sorry about Sweeney,” I said. Amanda turned toward me too fast, betraying the terror I knew was there. I dipped the brush in the paint. “I know you liked her.”

“I did like her.” Amanda nodded. I saw her glance at my bare ring finger, quick as a flash. She looked away again. Cool and distant, or trying to be.

“They’ll be angry at us,” I said. “The Crimson Lake cops.”

“Mmm,” Amanda agreed.

“On the next case, we’ll have to keep our heads down,” I said.