97

The names carved into the stone were Rebecca and Amber. One was thirty years old, the other only eight. It felt like a lifetime ago that they’d been taken from him, but still Logan couldn’t figure out how to live without them. Somehow, it still felt like only yesterday.

With the police wrapping up the scene behind him, Logan fell to his knees. The love and loss he felt whenever these two crossed his mind was something extraordinary. Having hidden it for so long, all that pain and suffering had been bottled up inside him, growing fiercer until it was ready to pop, all those emotions spilling out like an erupting volcano.

Then there was the killer, who had emptied his bladder onto the soil beside him. Logan felt a swell of emotions as he hugged their graves, leaning between the two and using them to support himself. This was how it had been in life: he was useless without them to prop him up.

Now, while both of them lay in the ground, there was nothing he could do but mourn.

For as long as he could, Logan stayed like that. The rain was easing off, but the graveyard was still a boggy marsh. The police probably wanted him around for more questioning, but for now, he was right where he needed to be. Broken or not – no matter how much he wanted his pitiful life to end – this was where he belonged.

If not in the ground beside them.