But I can tell by the trembling in her voice that she does believe me. “You’re right, she’s not anything like Martin.” I reach for her hand. Candace pulls it away. “She is not. Kat only meant to protect Belinda and the baby, I’m sure of it. She couldn’t have known what that fall would do to him.”

“How do I know it wasn’t you who killed him?”

“It was me who killed him,” I say, willing her to hear me. It matters what Kat thinks about how he died. And what others will think. “I am the one who left him in that house, unable to get out, unable to call for help. He was gravely injured when I left him, but it was I who left him! I couldn’t let Kat see him like that, can’t you see? I couldn’t have Kat thinking again that she was responsible for the death of a parent, even the likes of him. She had to leave the house thinking he was alive. And everyone else must think it, too, that the last time Martin Hocking was in that house, he was alive and well.”

“What was he going to do?” Candace says, not much more than a whisper. “What was he going to do to Belinda? To you?”

I shake my head at the thought of it and the echo of Martin’s cold words. “We knew too much. We were obstacles to his plans. He said as much.”

“And . . . Kat? What would he have done to her?” Candace’s face is awash in fresh tears.

“He wouldn’t have harmed her. She was financial security if and when the gold ran out. He wouldn’t have harmed her. I think he knew how to keep her intimidated into silence.”

“If everything you’re saying is true, why didn’t he just kill me?” Candace asks in a quiet but brusque voice.

“Because he didn’t have to. You were already dying. Killing someone is messy business. With you, he didn’t have to do anything.”

We are quiet for a span of seconds as the worst truths about Martin settle about us.

“You believe she was saving the life of that baby?” Candace says a moment or two later.

“I know she was.”

“Then . . . then it was a brave thing she did.” Awe now laces Candace’s words. “And selfless. She isn’t like him, but she’s not like me, either. It’s my fault she doesn’t speak.”

“I don’t think that’s entirely true. Kat was starting to talk more and more before Belinda came, before the earthquake. She was beginning to trust the world to hear her voice again. I think she was too young to lose you the way she did, and she found a way to live with that loss by holding in all her words. But I think Martin was glad of her silence. I think he used his coldness and his lies to keep her too despondent and heartbroken to speak. I think she’s gone quiet again now because she is bewildered and afraid. The earthquake and all those days afterward, they were days no child should have to see. I think she will find her voice again. Love brought it out before.”