I don’t know how long we sit there, me, Max, and Lena. Dad excuses himself and goes back up to Julia. Lena’s drumming her fingers on the table, Max just looks in shock. And I’m…I’m remembering every conversation I had with Greg Lewis. I flinch at the thought of sharing that with the police. But they won’t want to speak to me, will they? Jack and Sean, of course, even Max and Lena as friends of the family. My heart rate speeds up. But we, Dad and I, were pretty much his closest neighbors. And he and Dad were friends before Julia…

“I think they’re wrong,” Max says into the heavy silence. “How can they know this quickly?”

“They took DNA samples. Back then, when he went missing.” It’s Jack. I gasp—I didn’t hear him come back.

There’s a creak on the stairs and Sean comes in to join us, closing the kitchen door behind him.

“They asked so many questions about Dad—when he went missing, had anyone heard from him in the time he’d been gone.” He pauses and looks at Jack. “I thought they were asking about him as a suspect, because it was his property the body was found on.”

Jack is pacing around the room, red spots high on his cheeks, no sign of his fake smile.

“Jack…Sean…I’m so sorry,” I say, reaching out a hand toward Jack. I move back as Jack whirls around, looking like he wants to punch somebody.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Max is right—they’ve got it wrong. It can’t be Dad.”

Sean gets up and puts a hand on his brother’s shoulder but Jack shakes him off.

“Jesus,” Jack says, looking ill. “Did it happen right away? Did he ever go to Europe or were we all here for that fucking wedding, dressed up and getting drunk while our dad was rotting in the garden?”

“Maybe he came back,” Lena says. She’s white-faced, her arms wrapped around herself. “They can’t know yet when he…he could have come back anytime.”

“Did he?” Jack’s looking at me. “You were the only one still here after the wedding. Did he come back?”

I shake my head. “I never saw him, I swear.”

“Christ, I don’t even have those fucking texts he sent anymore. I lost that phone years ago.” Jack runs his hands through his hair and sinks into a chair.

“The police will be able to tell us when it happened, won’t they?” Sean says, sitting next to his brother. “Not exactly, but roughly? When and how…”

“Could it have been an accident?” Max says, and Jack and Sean both stare at him.

“An accident?” Jack says. “He buried himself in the fucking woods by accident?”

Max shakes his head. “Right. Yeah. Sorry, I’m not thinking straight.”