I'd insisted on being alone when Mom had taken her last breath, even though Aunt Beth had begged me to let her be there, to help me through the process. But I needed those final seconds with Mom, just me and her, like it had always been. I closed my eyes and forced the memory away, tried to rid my mind of the uninterrupted beep of the heart monitor as it flatlined, the signal that Mom was gone. I heard that noise in my dreams.
"They think she was murdered," Abby mumbled as she pulled away from me.
"I know," I whispered.
"I overheard Mom talking to someone on the phone earlier, and she said something about Rachel's body being left at the bottom of Roaring Brook Falls."