Mom laughed a beat too fast. “Teenagers are dramatic.”

I looked at her and said nothing at all. That rattled her more than any amount of crying would have.

An officer named Brooks asked whether I wanted to talk in private. Mom lurched forward. “She’s a minor. I’m her mother.”

Brooks didn’t so much as blink. “And right now, you’re part of the investigation.”

They moved me to another room. For the first time in years, a door shut with Thomas on the other side of it.