There’s that look again—half pity, half wariness. They might send someone out, but what are they going to find? Footprints in the dust that could all belong to me.

My head is pounding, my eyes are gritty. I shouldn’t have come. I’m not helping. All I’m doing is convincing the police I’m unhinged.

Maybe I am. I see my dead sister, don’t I? It’s more vivid than dreams. How long before the questions are about me, how long before my doctor is asked and he tells them I’m hallucinating? Max has already told them I caused the car accident by grabbing the wheel. It’s possible none of this has anything to do with Bella, it’s possible it’s my own guilt over walking away from Greg and our secret garden. I want him to be guilty to justify it.

I remember…I do remember Bella putting on the shoes. She changed in the afternoon, swapping satin bridesmaid shoes for the comfort of sneakers. But can I really say one hundred percent that she was still wearing them when she went into the woods?

I close my eyes, remembering my obsession with finding them after she died. My dad was so worried, following me around the house as I tore through cupboards and drawers, insisting we find them, insisting they were evidence. But evidence of what? What the bloody hell did I think those shoes were going to tell me?

Detective Levinson’s hand is on the bag, but he doesn’t open it. He isn’t interested in a pair of shoes no one ever believed she was wearing. He thinks I’m doing what they all thought I was doing back then—making stuff up, trying to throw doubt on the accident verdict. The difference between now and then is that, for the first time, I’m starting to wonder the same thing.

When I get back to the house, Jack is sitting in the garden, a lit cigarette balanced on a saucer next to him on the old wooden table. He’s wearing sunglasses and I can’t tell if he’s looking at me as I walk up the driveway.

“Been for a nice trip out?” he says, and there’s amusement in his voice. He’s laughing at me. If I still had the shoes, I’d throw them at him. Was it you? I want to yell to his smug, grinning face.

“What are you doing here?” I mutter, and he shrugs. “Don’t you spend any time at home? Shouldn’t you be trying to sort out your marriage?”

He smiles a twisted smile. “Dani understands I need to sort things out. She, at least, is sympathetic to the fact that my mother is dying and my father’s body has just been found.”