We’re turning into the driveway now, with its familiar crunching gravel. Carrie doesn’t so much park as stall the car, but I’m too busy looking at the Manse to comment. “Are you sure about coming back here? We could still go to the McCues’ place instead.”

“I’m sure.” The words sound clear, definitive. Believable, even. “Wait—are you okay being here?”

“I’m fine,” she says unequivocally. “I wasn’t the one forced to lie in bed with my father’s remains.”

“I bet Jean is having a field day with that bit of gossip.” But I’m talking to delay the inevitable. I climb out of the car carefully, my eyes fixed on the building. It knows I am here. I can sense the thrum that goes through it, just beyond the range of hearing.

Carrie grabs my bag for me and heads for the front door. “The boiler was replaced yesterday,” she says. “Bryn lit a rocket under the company.”

“Bryn? First-name terms?”

She shrugs. “He’s been really great. Fi thinks so too, which is saying something, given her past experiences with the police. Though we’re all starting to wonder how much of that was Jamie’s doing. It’s all coming out now; he was quite the master of spin. It was so easy for him to blame Fi, given she couldn’t defend herself.”

I don’t allow myself to hesitate at the front door. I step straight in, though I feel like I’m waiting for something, but what, I don’t know. There’s an odd smell in the corridor leading to the kitchen. Toast says it’s okay, I remind myself. Then I consider the lunacy of relying on a small boy who believes he understands what his dog is thinking.

“Ta-da!” says Carrie. The kitchen is not the kitchen, or not the kitchen I expect. The walls have been painted white, except for one, which is the purple of the swatch I selected. The linoleum on the floor has been completely replaced with some kind of faux tiling—not quite what I would have chosen but perfectly inoffensive, and absolutely preferable to what must have been left there after they moved Jamie’s body. I look at the spot where he lay, and there’s nothing there. I reach out a hand to one of the walls. “I wouldn’t touch,” warns Carrie hastily. “I’m not sure it’s dry yet. Ben and Ali worked all night after the forensics unit finished up. They couldn’t start the painting until the plaster was dry where the shotgun had blasted the ceiling . . .” She trails off, as if remembering, then turns to me. “Is it . . . is it okay? Do you like it?”

“I love it.” It’s hard to speak.