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V

an Christie stood in Jo Gehlinger’s living room, listening to the sound of Miller getting sick outside on the front porch.

Miller always gets sick at murder scenes.

The day before, Christie would have said there were hardly ever murder scenes in Smiths Hollow, and that was why Miller had so much trouble dealing with them. But last night he’d remembered.

He’d remembered all the bodies. He’d remembered all the girls.

And he’d remembered that he had covered it up, pretended it didn’t happen, taken their families’ sorrow and stuffed it in a file in the basement, never to be seen again.

It didn’t matter that it wasn’t his fault. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t the only one who’d forgotten those girls. He’d been responsi