“I think I was in shock,” I said. “And then Elyse was there. She said she called you.”

He looked at my cell, which had been placed on the table, from wherever he’d found it during his organization spree. “Did you call Jonah?” There was a cutting tone in his voice.

“No, I didn’t.” I hated that Bennett still brought him up, but the truth was, I had texted Jonah last night after the bar.

“Well, he’s been calling you.”

I sighed, leaning back. “He drunk-texted me a couple of nights ago. I may have texted him back last night in a bad moment. When you were all . . .” I moved my hands around uselessly. “He wanted to see if we could make it work, but I don’t want that, and I told him that.” Or at least I thought I did. I couldn’t remember. He had called when Detective Rigby and I were in the house, and I’d been too shocked to see his name; to realize he wasn’t dead in my yard.

“I see,” he said. Short, to the point. Bennett flipped the channel from the local news to a baseball game, and I could almost pretend this was normal. Like we were drinking beers and watching a game, instead.

“Your ex is very pretty,” I said.

“She is,” he said, staring at the television.

“Sorry it didn’t work out.”

He shook his head. “I’m not. The whole time we were together, I got the feeling she was always looking around for something else. That I was a way to pass the time until something better came along. I called her on it, and she balked.” He shifted so he was facing me. “But sure looks like it was true, that she found what she was looking for pretty damn quick after that. Then of course it became a chicken-or-egg argument—that I had pushed her away with my lack of confidence in our relationship and not the other way around.”

I sighed, head resting on the back of the couch. “Jonah didn’t want anyone to know about us until I broke it off.” I raised my glass of orange juice toward him in a mock toast to our own relationship shortcomings.

“If it makes you feel any better, it was obvious anyway. I knew the second I met you. To watch the two of you together, well. You don’t have the best poker face, kid.”

“It’s embarrassing, in hindsight.” I’d fallen for Jonah because he took an interest in me, because he didn’t know anything about me other than what he’d learned in his classroom. It was a thrill when he smiled at a comment I’d made, his face lighting up, surprised. It was a thrill when he’d sent me a text that night, telling me, I’ve been thinking about what you said in class all day. It was thrilling to imagine myself as that person.

“Well, we learn, I guess. I learned I don’t want to get involved with anyone hung up on anyone else, even if it’s just the idea of someone,” Bennett said. “Also made me think twice about ever dating a colleague again.”

He was holding his breath, and I knew he was saying something more.

“To be perfectly honest, I thought you weren’t interested in women, maybe.”

He laughed, surprisingly loud. “Do you think anyone who doesn’t hit on you is gay?”

“Yes,” I said, and he laughed again. “That’s the medicine talking.” It wasn’t just anyone. It was someone who spent as much time with me as he did. But who still kept his distance, kept a part of him closed off. Or maybe we were just too alike.

“Am I a colleague?” I asked, because the rules on this were fuzzy.

“Ish,” he said, grinning. “To be clear, I have not been waiting around for you to get over yourself. I like this.” He gestured to the space between us on the couch. The distance. Or the comfort.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be having this conversation when there’s a crime scene outside my house and I’m hopped up on painkillers.”

“No, this is exactly the right time to do it, so that if it turns out I’ve read the whole thing wrong, we can both chalk it up to a medicine haze, and you’ll forget about it in the chaos of everything else happening.”

Even now, I was comfortable, and I didn’t know whether it was the buzz of the pills or him. I wasn’t good at this, at knowing how to build a long-term connection. But he leaned closer, like he was going to tell me a secret, and then he did: “I was fucking terrified,” he said, his hand shaking in the space between us. I grabbed it, just to get it to stop—because it scared me, the intensity of the reaction. But I understood how a trauma could alter your frame of reference. How, when tragedy was averted, the reaction might swing to the other extreme.

“I’m okay,” I said.

He squeezed my hand once, let it drop between us. “I’m really glad.”

My phone chimed again.

Bennett pulled away, rolled his eyes. “You better get back to him so we don’t have to listen to this all day.”

I picked the phone up, scrolled through Jonah’s string of messages, feeling nothing. Bennett stood, and I caught him staring out the window. I wrote back to Jonah: This is a really bad time. Please stop calling.

“What do you think happened out there?” I asked. Elyse had provided a safe theory, but I knew Bennett’s would cut closer to the truth.

“I think we’re about to find out,” he said.

I craned my neck, even though of course I knew. Detective Rigby was on her way.

TRANSCRIPT—WPBC CHANNEL 9

OCTOBER 19, 2000, 7:17 P.M.

We interrupt the scheduled programming with some breaking news. Arden Maynor, the little girl who was swept away during a storm in Widow Hills, Kentucky, has been found. We repeat, Arden Maynor has been located.

Early reports indicate that she is alive but trapped. After nearly three days of searching, a cheer erupted outside the volunteer headquarters.

We’re trying to get to the scene, and as soon as we do, we will bring you right there. Until then, stay tuned.

CHAPTER 11

Saturday, 4:30 p.m.

BENNETT LET DETECTIVE RIGBY inside. He introduced himself, shaking her hand.

Her gaze slid from Bennett to me, sitting on the couch, leg elevated on the coffee table. “I’m glad you’ve got people checking in on you, Olivia,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” I said, and it was true. It was a terrible thing that had happened, but terrible things happened everywhere—I saw them come in every day at work.

My friends had come to help. It didn’t have to be how it was in the past.

She sat in the armchair beside the couch, and Bennett took our empty glasses to the kitchen, giving us the illusion of privacy.

“Did you take my advice and write down your memories of yesterday evening? I’d like to revisit a few points.”

I shook my head. “No, sorry, the medicine made me fall asleep pretty much as soon as we got back. I just got up.” I gestured to my wet hair as evidence.

“May I, then?” she asked, motioning to the notebook on her lap, the folder underneath.

“Sure.”

“I want to start here. I was wondering, did you run to Mr. Aimes’s house because you saw him awake in the house somehow?”

I blinked twice, trying to find my bearings. This was a trait I generally liked in people, when they were no-nonsense, straight to the point—telling me what they wanted of me, so there was no confusion. But I felt caught on my heels, and I was careful not to say something before I’d had a second to think things through.