IT WAS AFTER eleven by the time Aerin and Thomas pulled up to the house on the vineyard, and the place was swarming with police cars, K-9 vehicles, paramedics, a fire truck, the bomb squad, and news vans from several local affiliates. Aerin gasped. Forty minutes ago, Seneca had sent her quite a few frantic texts, saying they were checking out the vineyard and that the shack might be a trap. Aerin hadn’t noticed them because she’d left her phone on silent while checking out the shack. When she’d gotten back into the car she’d reached out to Seneca, but she hadn’t been able to get through to her. What if something was wrong?

Thomas had barely thrown the car into park when Aerin spied Seneca, Maddox, and Madison standing under the carport. Her heart lifted with relief, and she bolted out of the car toward them. “What’s going on?” she cried, gesturing at the police vehicles.

Seneca just stared at her emptily. Maddox stepped forward. “We found Chelsea.” He sounded proud but also shaky. “She was in the house. Locked in a bedroom.”

A mix of happiness and disbelief shot through Aerin. “You’re kidding!”

“But not Brett,” Seneca interrupted, her voice wooden. “He’s gone.”

Aerin stared at her, the words not quite making sense. Swirling lights from the bar atop a police car flashed against Seneca’s face. “A-are you sure?” she asked.

Seneca lowered her head. “I looked everywhere. He’s not in the house. I mean, I’m not surprised, really. Of course he’s gone. I just thought…I just hoped…”

Aerin felt her heartbeat thudding powerfully at her temples. “Where’s Chelsea now? Is she…alive?”

“She’s fine,” Maddox said. “The cops are questioning her inside.”

“That’s good!” Aerin cried, feeling a flare of optimism. She looked around at the others. “That means they’ll get information about Brett and where he went, right?”

Madison smiled weakly. “A group of cops already started through the vineyards in hopes that Brett took off in that direction.”

“This is all really good!” Aerin said, staring at Seneca, praying for her spirits to lift. But Seneca just shrugged. She seemed so disheartened.

Then Aerin remembered. She rooted around in her pockets until she found the origami, which she’d folded into a crane shape again. “This was at the shack.”

Seneca opened her eyes and stared. Aerin turned it over for her. “Jackson,” Seneca read aloud, sounding baffled. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. But maybe it’s got his fingerprints on it. The cops could check.”

Seneca sniffed. “I’m sure Brett wasn’t stupid enough to leave a fingerprint.” But she still inspected the weathered crane carefully, holding it gently under its wings as though it might shatter.

A group of police officers broke through the vines, empty-handed. One noticed Aerin and the others and trudged over. It was Grieg, the same freckle-faced man they’d spoken to after Jeff’s death. “This is going to take a while,” he said in a gentle enough voice. “We’re going to need statements from Seneca, Maddox, and Madison at least, though maybe from Aerin and Thomas as well. How about we take you over to the station?”

“I’d rather wait here,” Seneca said firmly. She was staring at something indeterminate out in the vines, her eyes glassy.

By the way Grieg shifted, it was clear he would rather they leave. The last thing Aerin wanted to do was make waves with the cops, so she trudged over to the police SUV. After a moment, Seneca followed. No one spoke as they buckled their seat belts. The only sound was the staccato raindrops as they pelted the roof.

Aerin stared at the house. Shadows shifted behind the windows—tons of cops were inside, canvassing the place for evidence. What would they find in there? What did Brett leave behind?

The SUV rolled out of the gravel drive. The air conditioner began to blast chilly air into the backseat, and the car soon smelled vaguely of mildew and wet upholstery. Aerin pressed her head to the door, feeling sick. Suddenly, her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. Maddox had group-texted them.

What are we going to SAY?

Madison wrote first: We should come clean. Tell them everything.

Agreed, Maddox pinged next. It’s the only way they’ll be able to find Brett. We’ve done all we can.

Aerin watched as Seneca frowned at her phone’s screen and started to type. On Aerin’s own phone, three little dots kept appearing and disappearing as Seneca struggled with what to write. Aerin could guess at what was going on in Seneca’s mind. Her friend wanted Brett, and she wanted to do it on her own—without the cops.

Except now they’d been pushed into a corner. There was nowhere left for them to turn. They needed the police to help. This was bigger than all of them.

Seneca stared at the screen for a long time, as though in a trance. Finally, she lowered her eyes and sighed deeply, as if letting something go. The three dots appeared on Aerin’s screen again, and then came Seneca’s reply. Okay. I guess we have no choice.

SEVERAL HOURS AND three bad cups of police-station coffee later, Aerin sat in the waiting room, cupping the paper crane in one hand and flipping through a year-old Time with the other. The others were strewn about the small, cramped space, perusing their phones (Maddox and Madison), glowering at the closed interior door to the offices (Seneca), and, in Thomas’s case, stroking Aerin’s hair, which made Aerin oscillate between feeling pleasantly sleepy and feeling guilty for feeling pleasantly sleepy. Despite a few clipped they’ll be right with yous from the officer at the front desk, it seemed as though the cops had forgotten about them. Which was maddening. Didn’t they realize they were wasting valuable time?

Finally, Grieg appeared in the doorway. “Let’s go, guys.”

Everyone shot up and followed him down the hall. Aerin mentally rehearsed how they were going to tell their story…and what it would mean. Would the cops be able to find Brett with the details they provided?

Grieg opened a door to a small room not unlike the one they sat in after Jeff Cohen was murdered. He shut the door behind him, slapped the same notebook he always seemed to carry around on the table, and said in a distracted, unenthusiastic voice, “Sorry to keep you waiting. It’s been a busy day. So yeah, if you want to sum up what you know, we can probably get you out of here soon.”

“Excuse me?” Seneca said sharply. She scoffed. “We have no interest in skimming over what happened. We want to tell you everything.”

Grieg’s eyebrow arched, and the look on his face was a mix of exhaustion and irritation. “Okaaaay.” He turned on a recorder. “Please state your names and ages.”

They did so, and when Grieg asked his next question—describe how you found Chelsea today—Seneca blurted, “Because her kidnapper sent us to her.”

Grieg’s face clouded. He sat back and laced his hands across his waist. “Explain.”

There was a long, awkward silence. Aerin glanced around. Seneca raised an eyebrow at her, and Aerin took a breath.

She walked Grieg through how she’d met Brett, the search for Helena’s killer, and how they’d realized after the fact that Brett had fed them every clue that indicted Marissa Ingram. Maddox jumped in next, telling about receiving Brett’s letter. Seneca, Madison, and Thomas filled in the gaps of what the letter actually meant. Grieg’s pen hovered over the notebook, but he refrained from writing anything down. After about five minutes, he held up a hand. “I’m sorry, what does this have to do with Chelsea Dawson?”

Seneca looked like she was going to explode. “That’s what we’re getting to.”

She explained about Brett luring them to Avignon, how he broke into the B&B, how he fed them clues, and how he pushed Jeff to his death because Jeff had figured out his identity. “Then he fed us more clues that led to finding Chelsea at the vineyard. He knew when we were going to show up, so he cleaned up beforehand and got the hell out. But look, he’s killed others. If you don’t go after him now, he’s going to do it again.”

Then she sat back with a grave look on her face. Oddly, though, Grieg seemed completely emotionless. At one point, his gaze had even slipped to his phone. It was baffling. Maybe cops all had to develop a strong sense of stoicism, but Aerin had expected some reaction—shock, certainly, and then gratitude. After all, they’d basically done Grieg’s job for him, hadn’t they?

There was commotion in the hallway, and Aerin peered out the little square window. A K-9 dog sauntered by, its tongue wagging. A woman cop passed, her ear pressed to a cell phone. Finally, Grieg shut his notebook with a slap. He hadn’t written down a single word. “That’s all very interesting. But I don’t think you’re on the right track.”

Aerin blinked rapidly, her mouth suddenly tacky and dry. “Excuse me?”

“You think someone else did it?” Seneca blurted. “You have another suspect?” She laughed incredulously. “Whoever you think it is, you’re wrong.”

Grieg licked his thin lips, busying himself with stuffing the notebook in his briefcase. “I’m afraid I can’t release too many details at the moment.”

Seneca edged forward in her seat. “Seriously? You’re going to tell us nothing?”

“Seneca,” Maddox said softly, taking her arm.

She wrenched it away. “We’ve been sitting here for hours,” she said, her eyes hard on Grieg. “And we were the ones who found Chelsea—you owe us an explanation. Or else…” Her nostrils flared. “Or we’re going to the press with our story. And we’ll say you aren’t listening, and that the town is in danger.”

Grieg held up a warning hand. “There will be no going to the press. The last thing we need is to make this worse.” He gritted his teeth. “Look, I commend you guys for bringing Miss Dawson home safe. But so far, our findings on the crime scene at the vineyard are…inconclusive. There’s no sign of forced entry to the house. And no signs on Miss Dawson that she’s been tortured or even mistreated—we had our best medics look at her. There’s her mental state, of course, though that seems a little…melodramatic.”

Seneca looked appalled. “Meaning?”

Grieg seemed to think something through, then said, his voice condescending, “Miss Dawson had on fresh clothes, she’d showered, and she was watching TV when you found her. That’s not exactly common for abduction cases. Moreover, the stories Miss Dawson told about her captor don’t exactly match up to what we’ve found.”

“How so?” Maddox sputtered.

“Miss Dawson said her captor seemed to be talking through the wall, with a microphone system. And that he seemed to know what she was doing at all times—like he had cameras. But there were no signs of any of those devices in the room she was in or in any other rooms that we’ve searched. There were no wires that they might have been disconnected from, either. We’re still looking, but we have experts on this. They would have found something by now.”

Aerin shifted forward. “Maybe all his stuff was wireless. Seneca had a wireless surveillance camera in her room at the B and B.”

Grieg gave Seneca a strange look as if to say, What kind of girl carries around a portable wireless surveillance camera? “I suppose that’s a possibility,” he said evenly. “But even if we do find evidence of a wireless camera, who’s not to say Miss Dawson installed it herself? As another way to film herself?”

Seneca gawked at him. Aerin felt her stomach swoop. Was this really, truly happening?

“But when we got to her, her room was locked,” Seneca said. “We had to unlock it for her with a credit card. How do you explain that?”

Grieg’s brow wrinkled. “That, too, could have been staged. We found a key in the master bathroom. It was in a drawer, but it wasn’t exactly hidden. Miss Dawson could have unlocked that door whenever she wanted, and we think she did. We don’t have official data back yet, but there are a lot of fingerprints all over the kitchen. A few long blond hairs, too. Preliminary searches also found those same prints on the doorknob that led to the garage, where we found a trash bag full of garbage—mostly food. We don’t have a fingerprint match yet, and we don’t have DNA evidence that Chelsea ate the food, but that’s what we think happened.”

Seneca shook her head. “No. That’s impossible.”

Grieg crossed his arms over his chest. “Miss Dawson also said she wasn’t allowed access to her phone, though she saw it a few times. We found it just outside her room—that second phone, the one she used to speak to Gabriel. Her fingerprints are on that, too. When we accessed her photos, we found a lot of recent shots of Miss Dawson in the bedroom. She’s smiling in every one of them. In fact, they seem…posed.”

“Like for an Instagram shot, you’re thinking?” Thomas murmured cynically.

Aerin stared at him. Slowly, her mind folded around the theory. Was Grieg saying what she thought he was saying? “But couldn’t the kidnapper have arranged those photos so they look like selfies? Forced her to smile?” she asked. That sounded exactly like something Brett would do.

Grieg jangled loose change in his pocket. “Look. Miss Dawson has gotten thousands of new social media followers since this happened. She’s on every news channel in the country. I should also add that we found a laptop in that bedroom, in a drawer. The first item on the Google search was her own name—it’s almost like she wanted us to find it.” He rubbed his eyes. “We don’t think there was a kidnapper. End of story.”

“There was!” Aerin cried. “There had to be! Gabriel Wilton!”

“There’s no real evidence Gabriel Wilton was involved,” Grieg explained. “Yes, they were friends—good friends. And yes, Gabriel was the last person she spoke to before she was ‘kidnapped,’ and it seemed she rejected him.” He put kidnapped in air quotes. “And yes, he wasn’t at his condo the day we went to question him, and someone tipped us off about him. But anonymous tips can be misleading. Sometimes people give false information to incriminate someone else—an enemy, perhaps. It’s even possible Chelsea left that tip to throw suspicion off what she was really up to. Gabriel could be a victim here.”

Aerin felt sick.

“In fact…” Grieg glanced into the hall as if mulling something over, then looked back at them. “In fact, I just got word that Gabriel Wilton’s body has been found.”

Aerin just blinked. Seneca clapped a hand over her mouth. “What? Where?” Madison cried.

“There was a car accident. A Toyota Prius smashed through a guardrail at a scenic overlook on one of the winding roads about a half hour away. The vehicle caught fire before anyone found it, but it’s registered in Gabriel’s name. There was one body inside—a male. And we were able to recover a license—Gabriel’s.”

Aerin’s mouth was suddenly dry. “So he’s…dead?”

Grieg nodded. His eyes were narrowed, but the corners of his mouth turned up slightly, almost as if to say, See? You kids are so, so wrong.

Seneca pounded a fist on the table. “Are you people that stupid? It’s not Gabriel’s body in that car. It’s just someone who looks like him. Gabriel—Brett—is alive and well.”

Grieg raised an eyebrow. “That’s a pretty serious accusation to make, Miss Frazier.”

“Let me identify the body, and I’ll apologize,” Seneca growled. Her face had gone completely red.

Grieg stood and curled his hands over the top of the chair. “Look, let’s reconvene after we collect more facts. Which, I assure you, we will get.” He scooped up his notebook and started toward the door.

“We’re giving you the facts, and you’re not listening!” Seneca’s voice cracked. “If Chelsea faked all this, then who sent us that letter?”

Hand on the doorknob, Grieg turned. “The one about how your guy is a serial killer? Does the letter actually say that? Does it state, in bold facts, that he murdered those two women?”

“It…” Aerin started, but then her thoughts came to a screeching halt. Jesus. The reality seemed to drip over her, droplet by droplet. “It doesn’t,” she said finally, in a small voice. “Not really.”

“Because he’s very, very careful,” Seneca jumped in. “But we knew what he meant. Okay, so even without the letter, why would someone send me clues? Why would someone attack me in the B and B?”

Grieg gave her a leveling glance. “I wish you’d reported that at the time, Miss Frazier.”

Seneca looked blindsided, her lips parted slightly.

“We couldn’t,” Aerin managed to say. “The kidnapper told us he would kill Chelsea if we got the police involved.”

“I’m afraid there isn’t much I can do about it now,” Grieg said. There was a whisper of a smile on his face again, and Aerin could almost visualize what was going through his mind. Because they’d reported nothing, and because they could prove nothing, their story was as flimsy as Chelsea’s. What did they have to show for Brett’s wrath? Some takeout menus and flyers with numbers circled? A weird poem left on Seneca’s windowsill and another shoved into a cup of coffee? A bent necklace that could have just as easily been damaged some other way? A few exchanges on an amateur crime-solving site?

It was possible, Aerin realized, that Grieg thought they’d been working with Chelsea, four kids desperate to make a name for themselves as expert crime solvers, eager for the attention. Her throat felt dry. She was filled with hot, liquid rage, but she had no idea what to do with it.

Everyone filed out in a daze. Aerin gazed around at her friends, not knowing what to say. It was like they were trapped in a nightmare, where truth didn’t matter.

Groaning, she stomped out the double doors and stood on the pavement. It was late afternoon, and though the humidity had lifted a little, the sky was still gray. It matched her mood. A single refrain thudded in her mind: Brett had tricked them—again. Brett had gotten away, again.

I’m sorry, Helena, she thought wearily, feeling acid rise in her throat.

“Hey.”

Aerin turned. Thomas had stepped onto the pavement next to her and was squinting in the cloudy glare. “Hi,” she said flatly, her eyes burning with tears.

He slung an arm around her and pulled her tight. “That cop is a disaster. We’re going to find Brett. If he’s still out there—if he’s not dead—I’ll do everything I can to find him.”

Aerin shrugged. “I feel like it’s a lost cause.”

“It’s not. When I get back up to Dexby, I’ll reenroll with the police if I have to in order to get someone to look seriously into this case. This is a huge deal, Aerin. That letter Brett wrote? We’re going to figure out a way to nail him. Maybe the answer is in that paper crane, you know?”

“Or maybe it’s meaningless,” Aerin grumbled. But she met his gaze anyway. His eyes seemed to anchor her into place, steadying her dizzy head. Slowly, she reached out and touched his hand. “Thank you,” she said, and then hugged him tightly, feeling the disappointed tears run down her cheeks.

Only when his phone beeped did Thomas pull away. Aerin watched as he glanced at the screen, his expression slowly changing into something grim. “What is it?” Aerin said nervously. “Brett?”

Thomas shook his head. “It’s from my grandma’s doctor.” He sounded dazed. “Sh-she’s in the hospital. It sounds…serious.” When he looked up, his eyes searched the sky as if trying to lock on to something familiar. “I—I have to get back to Dexby. Now.”

“I’ll go with you.”

Thomas ran his hand over his hair. “Okay. Great.” He glanced at her then, as if only now hearing what she’d said. “Wait. You’ll really come?”

“Of course,” Aerin said, clasping his hand. Thomas had been there for her, after all. It was the least she could do.

And it wasn’t like there was anything left for her here.