I adopted the 16-year-old girl involved in my only daughter’s death — five years later, she whispered through tears, “Everything you know about that night is a lie.”

I washed the dishes.

Ava dried them.

We didn’t speak.

We didn’t need to.

At nine-thirty, I said I was tired and went upstairs.

Daniel said goodnight without looking away from the screen.

I sat on the edge of the bed and took out Chloe’s note.

*I’m scared.

I love you.*

She had been scared.

She had tried to call me.

And I had been sitting at my sister’s table with a glass of wine, and I had not picked up the phone.

I folded the note carefully and placed it inside the lining of my own coat, hanging on the back of the bedroom door.

Then I heard it.

Low voices downstairs.

Daniel’s, and then Ava’s.

I moved to the top of the stairs without turning on the light.

“—just checking in,” Daniel was saying.

His voice was light.

Casual.

The voice he used when he was not being casual at all.