He reached into his pocket and pulled out his lighter, flicking the flame on and off.

“All of it,” he repeated, staring at the small fire.

Wyatt and I did not drive back to his apartment.

He pulled his truck over two blocks away, parking under the heavy branches of a dying maple tree.

The engine died, and the dashboard lights faded into black.

The silence in the cabin was heavy.

I stared out the passenger window, my eyes fixed on the distant roofline of my family’s house.

“Are you cold?” Wyatt asked.

He reached over and rubbed my shoulder.

“A little,” I said.

My hands were shaking.

I held the small black receiver Detective Harper had handed me before we left the station.

The static hissed, a soft, rhythmic buzz in the quiet truck.

“We shouldn’t be here, Sadie,” Wyatt whispered.

“I can’t leave yet,” I said.

“I need to know what they do next.”

The receiver crackled loudly, and then my mother’s voice came through the speaker.

She sounded high-pitched and breathless.

“Richard, please,” she said.

“The neighbors will see.”