I lost my grip on the flower, and it tumbled into the mud by my soaked boots. I stared at her, wondering whether those were tears or raindrops on her face.

“He never loved you,” she whispered in my ear. “And with good reason. He told me everything you did to him. You don’t need to be here. So just go.”

I didn’t pick up the flower. I pulled away and walked back to Javier’s car. She couldn’t be right. He did love me. He had loved me. If there hadn’t been a Luisa, he’d still be alive. She was the one who’d ruined it all.

Back in Javier’s SUV, he and Nina tried to talk to me, about what a lovely ceremony it had been, but I wasn’t listening.

“He loved me. And I’ll prove it, if it’s the last thing I do,” I said to no one in particular as I stared out the rain-streaked window. “She’ll see.”

Tuesday, July 9

That morning, bright and early, I get into my Jeep, with Kane at my side.

We have someplace to be.

We need to set this to rest. And once this is done, we can finally move on.

I’m carrying my backpack with the evidence. A night of sleep only made me surer that Luisa needs to suffer. She doesn’t deserve to go off to college and live her life after she ended Declan’s. After she ended mine.

Kane looks unnaturally pale. He says to me, his voice soft, “Hailey.”

I look at him as I rev the engine. Yes, he’s nervous. He’s worried about what will happen to him when they find out he covered up Declan’s murder. “What?”

“What about the box of his things?” he says softly. “Don’t you need that?”

He’s stalling. But I’ll give him that. Part of me hopes he’s starting to understand my viewpoint and is on my side with this. She may be his girlfriend, but right is right. I don’t think anything in that box is more damning than the statue, but I suppose it makes sense to bring it with us, to give the police a full picture of what was happening before Declan died. I open the door. “If you think so.”

I jog out into the warm summer air and into the house. I’d thought about tossing the box a thousand times, but it’s still under my bed, where I stashed it after that day during the winter when I’d gone through it. I pull it out and hurry downstairs.

But when I get to the car, my skin prickles.

The car is still running, and the passenger seat is empty.

I look toward the Weeks house, hoping that maybe Kane simply went home to get something, but when I peer inside the Jeep, my backpack is missing.