“There must be a mistake.” Police Commissioner Thomas Edwards parts the crowd, holding out his badge to the sheriff’s deputies. Graham smiles and visibly loosens up like it’s the get-out-of-jail-free card he’s been waiting for. “Now, look, clearly there’s been some kind of miscommunication. These are the Walkers. This is his wedding day. These are good people.” He stands between Graham and the officers now, feet planted firmly on the floor like a man who always gets what he wants.

Doug joins him. A united front for getting away with murder. “Let’s all calm down and discuss this like adults.”

“The body of Bernadette Ward was found this morning in the yard of your housekeeper, Lorraine Sakara,” the shorter officer says to Doug. “She was strangled with what looks to be a chain or a necklace.”

A necklace.

“Lorraine? Okay. Why aren’t you talking to her? Why isn’t she—”

“—and your son just confessed in front of all these witnesses.”

Greg and the other officer take Graham by the shoulders and begin walking him to their convoy on the cobble road.

“What? He didn’t—”

“—I recorded it—” Sarah says.

“—you have no right—”

My necklace.

“—you are all going to be fired and sued—”

My necklace.

The entire crowd follows Graham and Doug and Cheryl. They can’t believe this is happening. They can’t believe they’re witnessing this. They just can’t believe it.

I, instead, snake out the other direction in my wedding gown and four-inch heels. I find my very familiar path in the forest, and begin to descend to the road the same way I did all those years ago. But now it’s over. It’s all over.

The bottom of Walker Mountain still has an 8,891-foot elevation. It’s still above everyone else. I can still see campus, a ball of light in the valley as the sun sets. The place where I met Ruthie. The place where this all started. The place I’ll never be able to forget.

As a blue Suburban begins to slow on the street beside me, I kneel next to the green pole holding up the Walker Mountain sign and, with my hands, dig through a thin layer of mulch before I find the envelope, exactly where I left it yesterday morning during my run. Beside it is a black marker.

I stick the envelope under my arm, the dark dirt staining the silk of my dress, I’m sure.

I uncap the marker, and just above the ground, where no one will be able to see it, I write Bernadette Ruth Ward.

Then, beside it, Alexandra Elizabeth Bennet.

The car comes to a stop and the passenger’s-side door opens, and I jump inside as we begin to hear the sirens wail their way down the mountain.

Molly, Jess, and I don’t speak.