“About what you said in the hospital. After they found you and Bella in the woods. I knew it wasn’t true. Couldn’t be true. If what you’re telling me about Max and Lena is what happened…It’s awful but I’m so relieved.” He drops his head and I feel his tears drip onto my hand.

The waves in my stomach have frozen to ice.

I close my eyes after he leaves but I can’t sleep. The night passes with every second lasting an hour in my quiet hospital room, my brain replaying everything that’s happened. I hear footsteps and open my eyes to find Detective Levinson standing next to my bed.

“We’ve found Max and Helena Rees,” he says.

I sit up. I look at the door and realize I can’t see the shadow of my police guard outside.

“Helena is still insisting it was you, but Max has said enough to corroborate your story.” He pauses. “After a lot of questioning.”

Why? After all their elaborate plans, why did Max confess?

“We looked again at the evidence. They couldn’t explain why they left Dean House last night. Your fingerprints weren’t on Greg Lewis’s phone. But Max Rees’s were. There were calls and texts from his phone that corroborate your story. He broke down.” He pauses and sighs. “I’m sorry, Tess, but he’s saying it was Bella. That all he and his sister did was help cover it up. That his sister sent the texts after Mr. Lewis’s death to help Bella. He was able to quote the messages.”

“Then…”

“You’re free to go once the doctor has been in. But we still need you to come in and answer some more questions. As a witness, not a suspect. Your father is waiting outside.”

“And Bella? Did they say what happened to Bella?”

He shakes his head. “Both of them deny any involvement in your sister’s death. There’s still no evidence to suggest that Bella’s death was anything but an accident.”

“But…” But what? Do I tell him that Bella is still here, still insisting it wasn’t an accident?

“What about the murdered girls? Was it Greg Lewis?” I say this as the detective turns to leave.

“It’s something we’re investigating.” He glances back at me. “We’re gathering evidence that…if it was him, then by killing him, your sister and her friends may well have saved you. If you’d continued visiting him…”

I go cold. It could have been my body out there in the woods, not Greg’s.

I sink my head back against the pillow after he leaves. That’s it, then. All the ghosts laid to rest. I look to the corner of the room where Bella still hovers.

All except one.