Without a word, I opened the door and climbed out. He didn't follow.

I sat on my bed, hugging my knees, still dressed, watching the hours flip past. I didn't dare lie down for fear I'd sleep. With sleep would come the nightmares.

I'd woken Jack with them twice last fall and wouldn't risk it again. I considered sneaking downstairs for a roll of duct tape. I'd done that once, when I'd been desperate, but the off-chance that Jack might catch me made me stop. Sleeping with duct tape over your mouth? Crazy woman behavior.

The nightmares were always the same. I was running through an endless forest, trying in vain to get home, get my dad, save Amy. I hear Drew Aldrich right behind me, getting closer as the forest's edge stretched ever farther away.

That part never happened – he didn't chase me; he'd been too busy raping Amy in the cabin. I'd peered around the corner, seen him on her, heard her muffled screams, and I'd run. Left her there and run away. Left her to die. Saved myself.

A parade of therapists have tried to tell me otherwise. I'd been going for help, as I'd been taught, and that was the right thing to do. Everyone told me I'd done the smart thing – my father, Amy's father, even my mother had snapped, "Of course, you should have run. Don't be stupid."

I'd done what my father and every cop in our family had taught me from the time I was old enough to set foot outside alone. If anything happens, try to get away. Don't fight unless you absolutely have to. Run for help. Let us look after the rest.

I'd gotten help, but not in time. In the aftermath of Amy's death, I'd clung to that promise: let us look after the rest. Justice would be done, one way or another. Only it wasn't. Aldrich went free and all those cops who'd made me that promise let him walk away.

And justice for none.

Even as I considered ways to anonymously alert someone to Sammi's body, I heard the whispers of the past.

Is anyone really surprised?

Oh, I don't mean Amy brought this on herself, but…

Did you see the way she dressed? Only fourteen, flirting with everything in pants. And a cop's daughter no less. A Stafford. If they couldn't teach her better, no one could.

Some girls…

I'm not saying she brought it on herself…

I don't think Drew ever meant to hurt her. Things just got out of hand.

Now if it had been Nadia…

Yes, if it had been Nadia… There's a good girl. So polite. So helpful. A Stafford through and through. But he never touched her. That says something right there, doesn't it? Amy, with her tight skirts and her makeup…

Some girls…

Made to be broken.

I could drag Don Riley to Sammi's grave, show him her body, and it wouldn't change what he – and all of White Rock – thought of her. If there was any investigation, it would be quick, halfhearted at best.

As for Destiny, they'd claim she was somewhere in those woods. No one in White Rock was going to waste investigative efforts finding another Ernst brat. Right now, the only person who cared who killed her was the one who'd discovered her body.

Finding justice for Sammi wouldn't change what I'd done to Amy. But I could try.

At six, as my exhausted mind skated the border between reality and dreamland, the answer hit me and I jolted awake, certain I knew what had happened to Destiny.

The identity of Destiny's father was no mystery in White Rock. Sammi had been far from the perfect teen, but she could be counted on never to repeat her mother's mistakes, which meant she didn't screw every boy who looked her way. She had one boyfriend the year she got pregnant: Trent Drayton, whose parents owned the best land in the White Rock area.

When Destiny was born, it didn't take a genius to count back nine months and realize she'd been conceived when Trent had been spending Christmas holidays at the cottage. Even Mr. and Mrs. Drayton knew who Destiny's daddy was, though they'd spent all year threatening to sic their lawyer on anyone who said so. The family never paid a cent in support, and I suppose Sammi was too proud to claim Destiny's birthright. As for Trent, he'd been shipped off to UBC last fall after his father had found him a summer job in Vancouver.

The story sounds terribly romantic: rich boy, poor girl, star-crossed lovers… Not Sammi. She'd been raised to survive, not fantasize. When she met Trent, I'm pretty sure what she saw wasn't a prep-school Romeo, but her meal ticket out of White Rock. It's equally likely that Destiny's conception was no accident.

I'm not speaking ill of the dead. I could imagine being in Sammi's shoes, living in that house, a lifetime of Janie and her abuse, trapped in a nowhere town where everyone expects you to end up a drunken whore like your mother and her mother before her. God gave Sammi one asset: beauty. She'd be a fool not to use it, and Sammi was no fool – just a screwed-up kid with dreams of escaping the future everyone predicted for her.

So who would want Destiny? Trent Drayton's parents. After all, she was their granddaughter, white-trash mommy or not. How many times had they been to town since last fall and accidentally bumped into Sammi and their granddaughter? Seen her in worn hand-me-downs and a rusty stroller? Seen her going in and out of that hovel Sammi called home? With Sammi, Destiny had the most loving and attentive mother a child could want, but people like Frank and Lauren Drayton wouldn't see that. They'd see their flesh and blood growing up in poverty.

Sure, they could give Sammi some money and set her up in Peterborough, where they lived. But that would mean dealing with Sammi herself, treating her like a real person.

Taking Destiny legally was tricky. They'd need to prove Sammi was an unfit mother, which she wasn't. In the end, the Draytons would probably blow a huge wad of cash on legal fees only to be court-ordered to follow option one: providing for Sammi and her baby.

Why not spend that money on a more permanent solution? Get rid of Sammi for good, make it look like she'd run away, then tell the authorities that she'd handed Destiny to them on her way to a new life. Get some legal documents quietly drawn up, pay Janie to sign over her rights, and, boom, Frank and Lauren Drayton have adopted a beautiful baby girl.

I'd like to think no one would ever do such a thing. But I know better. There are people out there right now trying to find out how they can hire a hitman for jobs just like this. Got a problem? Put a bullet through it.

By seven, I was pulling out of the driveway heading to Peterborough.

Finding the Drayton home required nothing more than locating an area phone book. At a population of 130,000, Peterborough was still the kind of city where its wealthiest residents didn't fear putting their full names and addresses in the White Pages.

Locally, the Draytons were a big name. They owned Drayton Windows and Doors – a manufacturing plant that was one of the city's leading employers. By leading, I mean in terms of number of residents employed, not in wages or working conditions. I had a regular guest who worked at Drayton's factory and, for him and his wife, a weekend at the Red Oak was their only vacation. The nonunionized plant paid ten bucks an hour, a mere two dollars over the provincial minimum wage. Benefits included a discount on factory seconds and not much else.

Given the working conditions, one could assume that business was struggling and their only choice was to pay these low wages or shut down and put everyone out of work. But, having seen the Draytons' cottage, I strongly suspected their year-round residence wasn't going to be a modest bungalow.