‘I don’t know. My doctor was already at the estate when we arrived. Dr Smeltz. He said it was pneumonia, that it was lucky we got there when we did. I think my fever was like 104. Deacon was freaked out about the car, so he wasn’t any help. I remember Caprice putting me to bed and kissing my head. She was very sweet. I woke up two days later, I think, or that’s how it felt. Lyle was there when I did.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Nothing. I said I was sorry about being sick, I was sorry about the car, but he didn’t say anything. I felt horrible, like I’d caused all the problems. I mean, I was twelve, I didn’t know any better … except …’

‘Except what?’ Justin asked.

‘I don’t know. Something had changed.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I’m not sure I do, either. Everyone was different. It’s like I went to sleep that Saturday night, and when I woke up, nobody was the same. Lyle hardly talked to anyone. I’m not sure he ever slept. Ms Fairmont, I didn’t see her at all. She was practically invisible. Birch drank all the time. There was this weird blackness hanging over everyone in the house. It felt like … it felt like something was going to happen. And then it did. I know that sounds crazy, but when the policewoman woke me up that night, it’s like I already knew. I was expecting it.’

‘You couldn’t have been expecting anything like that,’ Justin said.

‘You wouldn’t think so, would you? But she didn’t have to say a word. I had this premonition. I think I even said it out loud before she did.’

‘Said what?’

Peach frowned. ‘I said, “They’re dead, aren’t they?”’

Finally, she drove into Lake Wales. Its deserted downtown streets felt like echoes of a ghost town. She saw no one. She drove past the Walesbilt Hotel, painted sea-foam green. It had once been a glamorous destination, but it was abandoned now, a fenced-off ruin with broken and boarded-up windows and deep cracks riddling the stucco. She and Justin had thought about breaking in at night, like urban explorers. Instead, they’d sat outside, eating fried chicken in her car and studying the destruction wrought by marauders and storms.

She’d thought she would always remember that weekend with Justin as one of the great moments of her life. It had felt like the beginning of something, but instead, it was the end. A few weeks later, he was gone. Now she wondered whether their romantic getaway had been nothing but a cover for whatever he was hiding from her.

Days later, he went back to Lake Wales.

Days later, he started digging into the past of a killer named Frank Macy.