Devil's Way 2 - The End (Pages 84 - end)

 RATING: VERY GOOD

SPOILERS!!!

As Kate keeps investigating, she is intrigued by the social worker Anna Treadwell, who was murdered shortly after Charlie's disappearance. Her investigation leads her to the short story club who Anna belonged to, and its leader, Maureen Cook, who was the one to sent flowers in her funeral. At the same time Kate and Tristan read in the police report that there is a farm near where Charlie disappeared and the police checked it. So they visit the farm. The people who live there now are new tenants, and the previous tenants left shortly after the disappearance of the boy. When Tristan and Kate are shown around the farm, the farmer's son shows them a place from where they can see the part of the forest where the child went missing. It is a place with different boulders and a tree with a strange shape.

Then Kate comes across a collection of stories that the writing club publishised for charity, and she is surprised to read a short story written by Maureen in which the plot centres on a woman who killed her son accidentally and buried him under a tree. Kate recognises the part in the farm which they were shown, and she thinks this is too much of a coincidence. So at the point they contact the police, who bring in Maureen for questioning. Maureen admits to having used the story from Anna. She took some of her things for safeguarding, and it was there. 

Kate and Tristan go through Anna's things, and they discover that there is a blue notebook, which contains the story as well as some notes of a case she was following. It was Libby Hartley's case, a woman suffering from bipolar disorder, and she and her husband were the former tenants of the farm. The police want to question the Hartleys, but in their current address, another farm, they are told that they have gone away on holiday. The neighbour says that it was something sudden, and they are supposed to go to Spain. The police catch up with them, and Libby and her husband are arrested. Under the old tree on the farm remains of a child have been found, but the forensic test shows that the child is not Charlie's. THe Hartleys have two children: David and Daisy. When DNA tests are carried out, the police discover that David is actually Charlie. 

The Hartleys are charged, but there is no evidence that Libby killed Anna. Joel and Jean are shocked and pleased to discover that Charlie has been found after all these years. Joel and Jean agree that the children will go with them, even Daisy. In the epilogue things are not easy because Charlie/David has grown up thinking that his family was Libby and Steve Hartley, and he doesn't remember anything prior to his wandering off the tent. Yet, it seems that things are progressing.

I really loved the book. It was a clever and intriguing plot.