Mike is fairly sure Carrie never has these moments of weakness. She always does the right thing, no matter what the cost, which is why she’s looking at unemployment, and why she’s back in town to solve another mystery.

This is what Carrie never saw, why he can’t quite forgive her — or Danny, or the Bright girl, or the Weiss kid. (He was a cop and a father. He knew more than any of them thought. He knew. He kept their secrets for years without them ever knowing it. And he’s never asked for so much as a thank you.)

They never understood the cost they inflicted on everyone else around them, just by doing what they did. Just by existing.

They almost always won, and when they lost, they had their terrible certainty that it was only temporary. Because they didn’t understand failure, even when they failed. They would always get back up again. They’d get the bad guys eventually.

Carrie and her friends don’t realize that normal people give up all the time. That’s what makes them human. Normal people stumble along, learning as they go. They get knocked down, and sometimes they stay down. Normal people make accommodations. They compromise.

Carrie won’t. None of them will. They have the same childish insistence that the world should be different, that it should be the way they see it. And they will never quit. No matter what.

Even today, she never flinches from the truth. She doesn’t understand how other people can see it as uncomfortable, how they can prefer the shadows to the bright glare. There isn’t room for so much as a little white lie in her world — and she can’t understand why anyone would live any other way.

He compromised. He can admit it. The morning after the massacre, when the rest of the town was still in shock, Mike was called to a meeting in the mayor’s office. Together, they engineered the cover story.

Mayor Irene Massey had her sights on bigger things than Middleton. She wanted to be a congresswoman or a senator. She didn’t see anything that should stop her. Not even the bodies cooling in a refrigerated truck because there wasn’t enough room in the coroner’s office.

First, she said, the shootings and the pipe bombs were all the work of Wade Wellman. One boy. One shooter. A lone gunman.

Mike tried to tell her that’s not what the investigation showed. He said there was evidence of a conspiracy. Adults who encouraged, maybe helped the Wellman kid —

The mayor stared at him until he stopped talking, and spoke in a flat, calm voice. “A lot of people saw your daughter out there, Mike. Several witnesses saw her with a gun. Right before the big explosion.”

“Carrie would never be involved. She would never hurt anyone — ” Mike started to say.