‘What happened, Adam?’ the woman detective, Moen, asks gently.

I blubber out my story. ‘I knew he was meeting her that night out at the Sharpes’ cabin. I overheard him talking to her on his phone. I wanted to see who she was, that’s all. I didn’t plan to kill her.’

It’s the truth, and I look at all three of them to see if they believe me, but I can’t tell what they’re thinking. ‘I took my mom’s car. I don’t have my licence yet, but I’ve been learning to drive in her car, and I’d been out to the cabin lots of times with my parents so I knew the way. Dad told us he’d be home that night by around nine. I wanted to get there after my dad left and see her, find out who she was and tell her to fuck off. Tell her that I was going to tell my mother about her.’ I pause for a minute, gathering courage for the next part.

‘What time was this, Adam?’ Webb asks.

‘It was around eight forty-five I think, maybe nine. I’m not sure exactly.’ I take a deep breath. ‘I left the car in the road and walked up to the cabin and looked in the front window. I recognized her. I knew who she was. I’d seen her around the neighbourhood. I thought about leaving then. I wish I had. But – instead I opened the door. She was standing at the back of the kitchen looking out the windows at the lake. She whirled around—’

I close my eyes for a moment, remembering. I’m shaking again; my eyes fly open. ‘She was smiling, probably expecting my dad. But then she saw it was me. I don’t think she even knew who I was. There was a hammer on the counter. I saw it and I picked it up without even thinking about it. I was so mad – at her, at my dad. It just came over me. This – rage. I just – I lunged at her and hit her on the head with the hammer.’

I stop talking and they all stare at me, as if they can’t look away. I can feel tears running down my face now and I don’t care, I’m sobbing as I talk. ‘I just hit her and hit her and I didn’t even care that I was killing her—’

‘How many times did you hit her?’ Detective Webb asks after a minute.

‘I don’t remember.’ I wipe the snot from my face with my sleeve. ‘I just kept hitting her until she was dead.’ I stop talking again. I have no energy left to tell them the rest. I want to go home and sleep. But I know I won’t be able to go home. The silence seems to go on for a long time.

Detective Moen asks, ‘What did you do then, Adam?’

I look up at her in fear. ‘I sat there on the floor for a while. Once the shock wore off I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I was covered in blood. I didn’t know what to do.’ I swallow. ‘So I called my mother.’

Detective Moen looks back at me sympathetically. I decide to look only at her. She seems kind and I’m so scared, but I have to go on. I look only in her eyes, no one else’s, as I tell the rest of my story. ‘I told my mom what I’d done. I asked her to help me.’ I start to sob again. ‘She drove up to the cabin in my dad’s car. When she got there and saw me – I thought she’d hug me, and tell me it was going to be all right, and call 911. But she didn’t.’ I’m crying so hard now, I have to stop for a minute. After a while I keep going. ‘She didn’t hug me but she said, “I love you, Adam, no matter what. I’ll help you, but you must do exactly as I say.” She was wearing gloves and she handed me some gloves, too. She gave me a big black garbage bag and told me to put it over my head and poke my head through, so I wouldn’t get any fibres on the body, and then she told me to pick Amanda up and put her in the boot of her car. She’d brought me a change of clothes and a lot of plastic bags. Once I had Amanda in the car, she told me to go down to the lake and strip off all my clothes and put them in the bags and wash myself in the lake. The water was freezing.’ My voice has become monotonous now. ‘I put on the clothes she brought me. She scrubbed the whole place down until it looked like it did before. While she was cleaning I went out in the rowing boat. It was really dark. I dropped the hammer in the middle of the lake and weighed down the bag of my clothes with heavy rocks and knotted it up tight and dropped it in a different part of the lake, just like she told me. Once everything was cleaned up, Mom got in Amanda’s car and drove it and I followed in her car. She stopped at a bend in the road. By then it was very late, past midnight. I left her car a little distance away and then I joined her. She lowered all the windows and the two of us pushed the car into the water.

‘It sank right away. She told me no one would ever find it. That as long as I kept my nerve and never said anything, no one ever had to know. And then we drove back to the cabin to check everything and to get my dad’s car. Then we drove home. I drove her car and she followed me in my dad’s car.

‘When we got home, Dad had gone to bed. Mom had told him that she was going to her friend Diane’s and that I was at a party. He didn’t seem to question it, but I don’t really know. I don’t know if he noticed that both the cars were gone that night. I know he must have gone back to the cabin the next day like he planned. I stayed in my room all day, sick and terrified. He came home and acted as though nothing was wrong, but I could tell he was tense. We all acted as though nothing was wrong. But I’d killed her, and my mom knew, and I think – I think my dad might have guessed.’

I look up at Moen and say, ‘My mom didn’t kill her. She just helped clean up my mess. It was my fault. And hers – Amanda’s. My parents were perfectly happy until she came along.’

‘Your mother is an accessory to murder,’ Detective Webb says.

‘No,’ I protest. ‘She didn’t have anything to do with it.’ I slump in my chair, exhausted. I look at Detective Moen. I’m too scared to look at Webb, or the lawyer. ‘What’s going to happen to me?’ I ask.

She frowns at me, but there’s a grim sort of kindness in her frown, and sadness in her eyes. ‘I don’t know.’ She glances at my lawyer. ‘But you’re only sixteen. It’ll get sorted out.’

Webb sits back in his chair and watches quietly as Moen consoles Adam, his attorney beside him.

‘Do you know Carmine Torres?’ he asks.

Adam’s face is puffy and blotchy. He looks surprised at the question. Webb is certain Adam has no idea that his mother has killed her.

He sniffs. ‘Yeah, I know who she is.’

‘How do you know her?’ Moen asks.

‘She came to the house, talking about the break-ins. And I’ve seen her around.’

‘She’s dead,’ Webb says bluntly.

Adam looks startled. ‘I saw the police at her house—’

‘She’s been murdered.’

Adam glances at his attorney, obviously confused.

Webb has to tell him. ‘Your mother killed her. To protect you.’

Glenda raises her eyes as the door opens and Webb and Moen walk back into the interview room. She has been sitting here for hours. She now has a lawyer, who has been summoned and is sitting beside her.

Webb and Moen sit down across from her, and she can tell from their demeanour that something has happened. She steels herself for what’s coming. Webb takes his time telling her.

‘Adam has confessed.’