On the way home I wondered if Brandon killed himself on purpose. Of course I’d wondered the same thing about my mom. I used to get so scared each time she went off her meds. Not of the violence, or the way she suffered through withdrawal, though that was horrible enough. The longer she stayed off meds, the higher the risk of overdose once she started again. I stayed vigilant, waking her from naps once an hour or so, to make sure she wasn’t comatose. I called 911 more than once. The first time I was thirteen.

I called the last time one month after my eighteenth birthday. I didn’t think she meant to do it, but I had to consider the timing. The social workers came around once, and I assured them I was fine. I was a legal adult. They couldn’t send me to a foster home or some other horrific place. I finished out the school year, graduated with honors. Accident or not, I knew my mother loved me, because she waited until I turned eighteen. Sometimes, out of nowhere, I missed her like crazy.

At home I went upstairs and opened a beer. The phone rang.

“Charlotte, where are you?” Ash said. He sounded pissed off.

“I’m at home,” I said.

“Are you all right? You just wandered off. I wasn’t finished with you.”

“Well,” I said. “You can come here, I guess.”

He said okay and hung up. A half hour later he knocked on my door.

“Listen, Charlotte. It’s over. It was him.”

“What was him?”

“Brandon Young. If he were alive, we would be charging him right now with Danielle’s murder.”

“I don’t believe it,” I said.

“You don’t have to believe it for it to be true.”

“Jesus,” I said.

I sat down on the couch and Ash took a chair.

“Was it suicide?” I said.

Ash shrugged. “We didn’t find a note. Could be.”

I played with the label on my beer bottle, peeling it up at one corner.

“Do you have another one of those?” he asked me.

“Yeah, in the fridge.”

“Thanks.”

He got it and came and sat back down.

“Guess you’re off duty?” I said.

“More or less. I’ll finish up the paperwork over the next few days.”

“It was true, what you said, wasn’t it?”

“What?”

“Danielle’s murder. It did have to do with me. You said I was the thing that was different in her life. The anomaly.”

“Yeah?”

“If I hadn’t told Danielle about the inheritance, she and Brandon would never have got in a fight about it, and they’d both still be alive.”

“Charlotte, you can’t think that way.”

“Why not? It’s true.”

“You could just as easily blame Sally, or Danielle’s great-aunt for dying of old age. The only person responsible for her death is Brandon Young. He killed her. Not anybody else. Not you.”

I didn’t say anything.

“What were you doing there, anyway? You could have been hurt.”

“Audrey took me there,” I said. “We were going to try and cheer him up.” I hadn’t mentioned her earlier, but what did it matter now? The investigation was over. The cops would leave her alone. “She just wanted me along for company,” I said. “Because he was so depressed.”