Her One Mistake

Charlotte was watching the children at the school fair. Her own three are fine. Alice, the daughter of her best friend Harriet, is gone.

Charlotte has to tell Harriet what has happened and accept that it happened on her watch. Harriet, whose only child this is, stops speaking to her. Her marriage, already fragile, starts coming apart, and she reaches the point of not being able to believe anything anyone tells her.

Heidi Perks alternates between the two women as the police work the case, and the more of each household that gets turned over, the clearer it becomes that neither of these friends has been telling the other the whole truth. What Harriet eventually has to weigh is whether trusting Charlotte again is the only route back to her daughter.