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I left a well-rehearsed message on Superintendent Thatcher Bell’s voicemail.

“Hello, this is Isla Joyson. I’m from ōhope, and wondered if I could talk to you about a girl’s death from twenty years ago. Her name was Janey Saunders, and I was one of her best friends. I’ve discovered something puzzling about the day before she died, when you were working the front desk.”

He rang back immediately. “Don’t call me here again or leave any more messages.” His voice was cold with controlled fury, freezing a line through my blood. “We can meet at the top of The Mount in two hours. I’ll recognize you from your press photo. I’m sure you can do the same.”

Mum and Dad were still watching golf with Fred. With a forced jaunty wave, I called over my shoulder that I was off to do my Christmas shopping.

“Oh, we’ll have to get something for Declan this year.” Mum smiled at Dad. She gave me a more pensive look. “Are you going to—” The obvious Christmas shopping place was The Mount.

“Okay, see ya, bye,” I called, pretending not to hear.

On the drive over, I checked each car that went by for Declan’s profile, my stomach tight.

I parked around the corner from the trailhead that led to the summit of The Mount, an eight-hundred-foot lava dome.

Seagulls hovered above and the air honked and grated with tankers in the port.

During the hour-long hike, the constant roiling in my gut reminded me of the risk I was taking.

Before I reached the top, I pressed “Record” on my phone.

Thatcher Bell was the only person standing at the windblown lookout point, towering and muscled in workout gear, a black cap pulled low over his forehead.

Despite his angry call, he might have seemed approachable, say if we’d met at one of his three kids’ outrigger races, which Mum and I had read about in the newspaper clippings.

But this was not a casual interaction. This was a meeting that could change his life.

“Tell me why you’re here.” He crossed his arms.

“I have hard evidence that Janey engaged with the police the day before she died,” I said. “You were on the front desk that day, but you didn’t record anything—date, name, or incident.”

He glared at me. “The daily log sheet was an exact record of everything that happened that day.”

“That was twenty years ago. Would you remember one specific day?”

“Obviously, yes, because of what happened the next day.”

I waved a clutch of paper.

“I have the log for that day. Your handwriting is on the first part of the day. But for the second half, it’s Sarge’s handwriting and initials. Maybe he was the one who failed to record the incident, but both of you will get in trouble.”

He scoffed. “If you have any evidence Janey Saunders came into the station, show me now or we’re done here.”

Interesting. I never said she came into the station. And he didn’t use the obvious excuse—that he’d gone off sick that afternoon.

“Why did you get such an impressive promotion to The Mount right after she died?”

“Jesus.” He exhaled, like he was relieved. “That’s all you’ve got? The two events are unrelated. I got the promotion through hard work and talent.” His shoulders loosened. He turned and strode off down the mountain.

I had to do it. “I have proof she came into the station,” I yelled after him. “And that Sarge visited her at home because someone was abusing her.”

He swung back to me, his face murderously pale.

I jogged to him and showed him Janey’s diary from my backpack.

I held on to it tight as he read the first two pages. He looked up and scowled.

“You must feel good, hooking me back like this,” he spoke through gritted teeth. “This doesn’t say she came into the station.”

My chest yawned with emptiness. “I don’t feel good about any of this.”

He finished reading, and his head fell into his hands. “This is sickening.” He slowly looked up. “I feel terrible for her.” Something flashed across his face. He shook his head. “But it has nothing to do with me.”

Enraged, I shook the diary at him. “She was fourteen, Superintendent. Fourteen years old. She deserved to live and not to be terrified. She deserved to be protected.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” he bellowed, shaking his fists at me. I staggered back. His fists dropped to his side. “Nothing.” His voice was weaker.

“Some of your colleagues also worked that day.” I put the diary away and slapped my hands on my hips.

“I’m sure at least one other person saw her coming in.

I have no trouble knocking on many, many people’s doors in ōhope.

You see what I’m like.” I held out my arms, like, Am I tenacious or unhinged?

“I’m not going to stop. Tell me what happened. ”

He peered at me, rattled, dragging a hand down his face.

“Okay, okay,” he murmured through his fingers.

He took a deep breath. “Janey came in after school. She gave me her full name and address, and I noted it in the book. She wouldn’t tell me what her complaint was.

She kept on saying, ‘I have to speak to Sarge. I need the top guy.’ Sarge must have heard her because he appeared and took her back to his office.

“She left the office, Sarge behind her. He said, ‘Don’t note her visit.’ He said he was getting something to eat.

End of the day, I asked Sarge about her complaint.

Sarge said she was being dramatic. She’d wanted to emancipate from her parents because they wouldn’t let her go out with boys.

He’d pointed her toward child protection services but doubted she’d go.

She wanted to scare her parents. He said nothing would be gained from recording her visit, and he would take responsibility by writing the afternoon log sheets and signing his initials. ”

It seemed like he was being honest. Relief flooded me. It confirmed my theory.

“Do you think Sarge lied to you about what Janey said to him?” I asked. “The diary doesn’t match exactly what happened. It doesn’t say she reported this creeper guy, just the cops turned up to her house, like she hadn’t expected it.”

“It doesn’t quite jibe. Look, I have no idea whether Sarge was lying to me. I wanted to believe him because of what happened the next day.”

I nodded for him to go on.

“Sarge came back to the station to say Janey had killed herself. He said not to mention that she’d called in the day before—at morning conference or to anyone.

He said that the parents were good people, and suspicion would naturally fall on them, and that wasn’t fair.

A clear suicide, he said. I remembered the dad as eccentric, a brainy type, and the wife as highly strung, but decent people.

Now I know you can’t judge parents on how they seem, but we didn’t have the insight back then, and what Sarge said made sense.

And in the end, he’d written up that half of the day, so if anyone was going to get in trouble, it was him.

But still, I’d lost a lot of sleep over that previous day’s log sheets.

I said I couldn’t do it. Janey had come in, distraught. I couldn’t ignore that.”

I wanted to yell at him, “ Why didn’t you stick to your plan? Because now your life is over. ” Instead, I said nothing.

His demeanor changed. He rounded his shoulders and screwed up his face, defeated.

“Sarge said I’d always been a team player who thought about the whole game.

He said I had leadership qualities, and to prove he was a good guy, he’d make sure I got the upcoming promotion.

I knew what he was saying. It was Sarge’s way or the highway, even if I thought he was doing the right thing by protecting the parents.

We had three tiny kids, and I wanted everything for them.

The promotion meant we could make a down payment on a house.

I could always tell myself we’d protected a blameless couple, that we hadn’t added to their grief. ”

“What was Sarge hiding?” I asked. “What had Janey spoken to him about? And who… who was the creeper?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything.” He held his head in his hands. “God. What a mess he dragged me into. What a horrific fucking mess.”

His foot slipped. He shored up his stance .

A shadow flicked across his face. Icy doubt slithered through me.

We were close to the edge of the cliff.

No one was around.

It was raw and naked on his face—the possibility. His eyes narrowed, and the hinge to his jaw spasmed. He had everything to lose. And he was much bigger and stronger than me. He could easily overpower me and push me over the edge.

I sprinted toward a bench in the middle. I grabbed at it, like a buoy in rough seas. I reached into my backpack and thrust my phone at him.

“Come any closer, and I call 911,” I yelled.

A group of students appeared from around the corner, complaining to their teacher in loud voices. He waited for them to gather around the map on the other side. He edged toward me.

“I wouldn’t have done it.” He shoved up his arms in surrender, as if I were the one threatening him. “Look, please. I didn’t do anything wrong, not really, so why should my family suffer for this? My wife, my three grown kids. Please keep this quiet. For them.”

I shook my head. “I can’t promise you anything.”

“Who’s to gain from this now?” His tone was wheedling, and his hands pleaded. “The poor girl is gone.”

Anger flamed through me. “But the father isn’t . And as a father, wouldn’t you want justice for your daughter? Wouldn’t you want to know the truth?”

Wild-eyed, he opened his mouth to say something. One of the students peered around the map at us. Thatcher Bell turned and flung himself down the mountain path.

Looks like I made an enemy.

*

I drove home along the coast, past bee farms and country schools, bucolic charm compared to the ugliness surrounding Sarge. What was he hiding? What had Janey spoken to him about? And who… who was the creeper?

Sarge had essentially paid to get Thatcher Bell out of ōhope by promoting him.

Thatcher Bell was the lowest-ranking guy in the office.

He worked the front desk and transferred to a job that doubled his pay, putting him in charge of a team.

It propelled him into the position he had now.

Did he sleep at night? Hadn’t he ever wondered over the past twenty years, and I bet he knew the anniversary, whether something terrible had been done?

That he’d taken the hush money and made a good life for himself?

I veered into the gravel on the edge of a cliff, skidded, then yanked the car back onto the road.

Now that I knew this, didn’t that mean I was in danger?

I had this all taped, not that he knew it.

My stomach rolled over. Would Thatcher Bell call Sarge and tell him what he had told me?

Surely not, because Sarge would be furious at him for talking to me.

Thatcher Bell had a reason to kill me. Today, he decided he couldn’t.

But what would keep him from doing it later?

Despite everything, I knew he wanted to think of himself as a decent family man.

I clutched the wheel tighter. God, was that the only thread I was holding on to?