I slow when I hear voices coming from the clearing and as I step into sight, I immediately wish I’d turned tail as soon as I heard them. It’s Bella, but she’s with Jack and Sean and Lena. I almost do turn around, but then Max steps into view from behind a tree and hunches down next to them. He’s the one who looks up and sees me, calling my name with that delicious smile on his face.

I didn’t know they were here. Bella never mentioned a word.

“Well, great,” Lena says, “the gang’s all here. Come join us, Tess. We’re going all Scooby-Doo, trying to solve a mystery.”

I go over and try not to look all disapproving when I see that Lena’s holding a cigarette and that Jack has a bottle of something that’s definitely not Coke balanced between his knees.

“Mystery?” I say, hovering self-consciously, not wanting to commit to staying by sitting down.

“You know that girl who went missing?” Lena offers me the cigarette packet as she speaks and I shake my head. Bella takes one though.

I do, vaguely. Some girl, Annie something, a couple of years older than us, from a town not far from here, had been reported missing a few days ago. “She ran away, didn’t she?”

“Well,” said Lena, “that’s what everyone thought.”

“So I take it you have another theory?”

“It’s not a theory,” Jack drawls, a funny smile on his face. “They found a body.”

“Her body?”

He shrugs. “It hasn’t been confirmed yet, but it wasn’t far from where she lived, so…”

I shiver and plonk myself down on a log next to Bella. “God. That’s…horrible. What happened? Was it an accident?”

Jack leans in toward me. “She was strangled—it was murder.”

I jerk away from him and Bella sighs. “Stop it, Jack, you’re scaring her.”

“No, he’s not,” I snap. “God, Bella, I’m fifteen, not five.”

“Ooh, meow. Cat-fight alert,” Jack says, laughing.

“We thought we could do our own investigation,” Lena says, flicking her cigarette into the stream. “Go to the town where she lived, see if we can find out who might have done it.”

I notice Sean hasn’t said a word since I got here. He stands up, kicking at the dead leaves on the ground.

“That’s the stupidest idea ever,” I say. “It’s dangerous and…stupid.”

“Ah, poor Tessie is scared,” Jack says. “You were right to leave her out of this, Bella. Why don’t you go home to Daddy?”

I grit my teeth and stand and walk away. I hear someone following but don’t stop until I hear Bella call my name.

“Wait up, Tess,” she says.

“I hate him.” I shout it without meaning to. “Him and his brother. Did you hear him?”

“He was just trying to wind you up.”