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Jet bit down on her lip. ‘That’s … my ex-boyfriend. JJ. I changed his name in my contacts after we broke up.’ They were all looking at her, eyes narrowed, Jack’s going farther than that, more like troubled. ‘Look, it’s a thing, OK? People do it. Young people. Never mind, not a big deal.’

Jet pressed the notification and their message thread jumped up.

Weeks of silence. Then, on Halloween, just one word from JJ:

Sorry.

‘What time did he send that?’ Ecker asked, voice picking up speed.

Jet swiped the message to see.

‘10:58 p.m.’

‘After you were attacked.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘Why is he apologizing to you?’

Jet shrugged.

‘You can’t think of any reason?’ Ecker sidestepped to face her, to study her eyes.

‘No. Not really,’ Jet said, meeting his gaze. ‘We’ve been broken up a while, since July. He didn’t want to, but it’s fine. It’s been fine. I bumped into him at the fair –’

‘– Did you speak? What did he say to you? What time?’

‘Nothing. I think it was around ten. He asked to talk to me, about something important , which I knew meant he wanted to talk about us, so I blew him off.’

‘Are you sure that’s all?’

Now Jet’s eyes were troubled. ‘I have no reason to withhold anything from you. I want to solve this more than you do. I didn’t give JJ a chance to talk to me at the fair – I don’t know what he wanted. And I don’t know why he sent Sorry to me. Or why he’s left town, not answering his phone.’

‘I can think of a reason,’ Jack said quietly.

‘Sergeant,’ Ecker snapped in his direction, sharpening the consonants to a point.

‘You think he tried to kill me, then texted me Sorry twelve minutes later?’ Jet asked, not to any of them in particular: collective cop. ‘The timing is weird; I give you that. But the killer took my phone. Why would JJ text the phone he knew he had?’

‘Well, it came up on your watch, didn’t it?’ Ecker said.

‘Could have been symbolic,’ added the chief.

‘But if the killer has my phone … wait,’ Jet stalled, her heart picking up on it the same time as her head.

‘The killer has my phone, I’m so stupid.

’ But she wasn’t; the cops were. Why had they wasted time looking at heart-rate data and messages?

‘Find My Phone,’ Jet explained, turning back to the watch, scrolling through the home screen until she found the little green app. Pressed it.

Three devices were listed.

Jet’s Apple Watch. Battery half full. With you now, it said.

Jet’s MacBook Air. Low battery. At home. Upstairs in her room.

Jet’s iPhone 14.

Jet clicked the final option and it expanded.

Jet’s iPhone 14. Woodstock, VT. Last connected Friday, 10:56 p.m.

A map appeared on the little screen. Small white roads, gray background, and a blue flashing dot. The location of her phone.

Ecker pointed at the screen. ‘Where is that?’

Jet zoomed in until the road names appeared, and the bend in the Ottauquechee River.

‘River Street,’ she said. ‘Near the corner of North Street. Just beyond Elm Street Bridge. That’s less than five minutes away.’

Most of Woodstock was less than five minutes away.

The blue dot didn’t look like it was sitting in any of the houses, out there in the middle of the road.

‘Last connected Friday at 10:56 p.m.,’ Jet read out. ‘So that’s when they turned it off, hasn’t been on since. But it was there, right there, when they turned it off.’

‘River Street,’ Ecker sounded it out. ‘Does that mean anything to you? Know anyone who lives there?’

Jet searched her mind, memories intact, even if not all her words were. ‘Nope, I don’t know anyone who lives there.’

The detective swapped a look with the other two, then up at the darkening evening sky. ‘All right. I’ll go speak to the people in these houses. See if they saw anything that night. Chief, you coming?’

‘Coming,’ Lou said, screwing on his cap.

The detective held out his hand, gesturing for Jet’s watch.

Jet looked down at it: 6:49 p.m., it told her, still trying to be useful. She placed it in his open palm but didn’t quite let go.

‘You’ll tell me? When you learn anything more?’

‘I’ll let you know what you need to know,’ he said, closing his hand around the watch.

Cop speak for: Maybe.

Ecker got back into his car, the chief climbing into the passenger seat. Jet and Jack backed away as he started the engine, driving off with a wave, fingers tapping the glass.

‘Can I borrow your pen, please, Mr Finney?’

She smiled up at him. He offered it over without a word.

‘And maybe a couple of pages from your notebook?’

A bigger ask. But he still did it, without a word, ripping out two fresh sheets.

‘Thanks.’ Jet grabbed them, leaning against the roof of Jack’s squad car.

10:46 – Time of murder, she wrote, before she forgot any of it. Didn’t know how much she could trust her condemned brain.

10:56 – Phone turned off. Last known location: River Street, near corner of North Street. Is that where killer lives? Or they turned it off on their way home? Didn’t throw it in the river?

10:58 – ‘Sorry’ text from JJ.

‘I’ll just go say goodbye to your parents,’ Jack said when she finally looked up from her scribbles. ‘The cleaners should be finished soon, then you can get back in, get back to –’ He stopped abruptly.

‘Normal?’ Jet guessed. They both knew it was the wrong choice, sorry written all over his creased eyes.

Then he blinked and they softened, the flicker of a smile. ‘Someone’s here to see you,’ he said, pointing, then turning away toward the backyard.

Jet spun around.

The crime scene tape lay trampled across the drive now, forgotten in the wind, pinned down by a pair of boots. And four paws.

‘Reggie!’ Jet yelled, stuffing the paper in her pocket, darting forward.

Billy smiled, letting go of the leash.

Reggie launched toward Jet, his back half almost leaving his front half behind, legs a tangled blur, yipping as he collided with her.

Jet dropped to her knees, screwed her face as he jumped up to lick it.

‘Hello handsome boy,’ she said, rubbing his belly. ‘Hello. Hello. I’m here. I’m here. Careful of that bandage. No, you can’t have it, silly. I’m sorry you had to see that, boy. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’d kill them if they touched you.’

She tried to hold him, but he wouldn’t stay still, lurching in manic circles around her.

‘Dad said you were back from the hospital,’ Billy said, his turn to approach. ‘Knew Reggie was staying with Luke and Sophia. Picked him up on my way. Thought you’d want to see him.’

‘He’s clever, isn’t he? Our friend Billy,’ Jet said to the dog, straightening up, knees clicking.

Billy glanced at the vans behind her, the plastic people.

‘Crime scene cleaners,’ Jet explained. ‘They’ll be done soon.’

‘I can’t believe you’re out of the hospital already.’

‘Why would I waste any more time in there?’

Billy didn’t answer. He did something else: stepped forward and buried her in a hug, Jet’s nose pressed up against his chest.

The first person to actually hug her.

It almost brought her blockades down, the ones made of screws and wire mesh in her head. But if they came down now, how would Jet ever bring them back up? She coughed into the fabric of Billy’s shirt.

‘I’m so glad you’re OK,’ he said, his breath warm against her hair, against the bandages.

‘Don’t be too glad.’ She pulled back out of the hug, Reggie settling by her leg, dusting the drive with his tail.

‘I can’t believe it.’ He sniffed, catching a tear that fell to the groove of his chin.

Jet shrugged. ‘I’m only a few hours ahead of you there.’

Billy’s eyes settled on his dad’s squad car. ‘They don’t know who …?’

‘Not yet,’ Jet replied. ‘I’m going to work out who did it.

I guess you’re the only person I can trust not to be the killer, right?

I mean, who would come back a few minutes later to discover their own crime, on camera, and leave their DNA all over the scene, call the cops and the ambulance?

And we grew up together, and I know you can’t even kill a bug, so it’s a pretty safe bet that it wasn’t you, Billy Finney.

I did want to ask, though. Why were you here? You live in the center of town.’

‘Dad’s wallet,’ he said. ‘Someone found it on The Green, handed it to me as I was leaving the fair. Think he must have dropped it during the scuffle with Andrew Smith. I walked here to bring it back, put it through the mail slot. Didn’t even get to his front door before I heard Reggie screaming, knew something was wrong over here. ’

They both looked down at the dog. Jet might not have survived at all if Billy hadn’t found her when he did. Did she owe these final seven days to this man and this dog?

‘I’m going to do it, Billy. Always told you I’d do something big, didn’t I? OK, I thought I was going to be president or an astronaut back then, but this is just as big: solving my own murder.’

Billy dipped his head, eyes darkening. ‘Why do you keep saying it like that?’

Jet shrugged. ‘If you’ve gotta die, might as well be funny about it.’

No one else seemed quite ready for it.

Another tear: Billy didn’t catch this one in time, soaking into his checked collar.

‘I was so scared when I found you. I thought you were dead. I really thought you were dead. I don’t know what I’d do if … but you’re alive, you’re OK, you survived. It’s all going to be OK.’

‘Not that OK,’ Jet said, confused by the sincerity in his face, the hope in his eyes alongside the blue, where hope absolutely did not belong. Wait a minute. ‘Billy … has no one told you?’

He sniffed.

‘Told me what?’

Ah, fuck. This wasn’t going to be fun.

Jet pulled her coat tighter, night settling in, claiming her exposed skin. ‘Billy. It’s … the thing is … I’m … well …’ Just rip off the Band-Aid, it would hurt him the same whether it was fast or slow. ‘I’ll be dead in a week.’

His face changed, one second to the next. Mouth cracked open, eyes faraway and spinning, a quake in his knees that made him stumble back.

Poor, sweet Billy.