“What are you doing here?” I asked, walking closer. I had to see what was in her hand. What she was hiding.

“Just walking. For my car.” She stepped back as I approached, as if I were something to fear.

And then a voice from deeper in the alley. “What’s going on?”

I saw it then—a phone held out in her other hand. Like I might do when walking in an unfamiliar place, the light guiding the way. A man jogged the rest of the way through the alley, calling, “Erica? You okay?”

He slid an arm around her. She looked shaken, confused by my presence here. Like she was remembering the stories her aunt must have told her. The things I had done and therefore was still capable of doing. “You guys scared me,” I said. “Someone’s been messing with the properties around here.”

She blinked twice, slowly, as if unsure about what had just happened. Whether to trust her own instincts. She gave me a small smile, her eyes drifting to the side. “I was just cutting through. From Nick’s.”

“Nick’s?” The guy she was with, maybe. But he didn’t react.

“The bar behind Breaker Beach,” she said. “Straight shot from here.” She extended her arm like an arrow down the dark alley. “We were just . . . going to get my car.” She cleared her throat. She was drunk, I realized.

“Oh. Oh.”

The break-in the other night could’ve been a crime of opportunity, then. A house on the way back from the bars. Unlocked.

The man beside her watched me carefully. He had sandy blond hair, the shadow of a beard that matched; taller than Erica but not by much—I didn’t recognize him. I was thinking of the image of the person on the bluffs with the flashlight. The fact that I’d seen the power go out, and now Erica was here with a strange man, slipping beside this house where someone had been the night before, lighting candles.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I was visiting a friend. Heading home now.”

She nodded once and shifted her weight, leaning in to the man beside her. She kept looking down, and I realized it wasn’t nerves—she was embarrassed that I had seen this other side of her.

I wanted to tell them not to drive. But Erica was maybe a year younger than I was, and there were a lot of dangers in Littleport. You learned them by living them.

Still. “I can give you a ride,” I said.

“No, no . . .” she said, waving me off.

“She’s fine,” the guy answered. “Well,” he corrected, “I’m fine. And I’ve got it.”

* * *

I WAITED UNTIL THEY were out of sight, the sound of their laughter drifting farther away, before letting myself in to the Sea Rose. The place was just as I’d left it—dark but warm. I wasted no time in emptying my purse, opening the Ziploc bag, pulling out the box, and removing the flash drive.

When I held it to the light, I saw a small circle engraved on the front with the logo for Loman Properties. I’d seen a collection of these at the Lomans’ house in the desk drawer of the office upstairs.

My God, this was hers. This was definitely hers.

My hands shook as I inserted it into the USB port of my laptop, waiting for the folder to pop up. There was only one file inside, a JPEG, and I leaned closer as I opened it.

It was a screenshot, a long horizontal bar with two rows in a spreadsheet, slightly out of focus, all blown up on my screen.

Sadie had majored in finance, interned with her father in the process. Before she died, she’d been working with the cash flow of his company.

There were three columns, each containing a string of numbers, but only one made sense: the one with a dollar amount—$100,000.

The other two I recognized as bank account and routing numbers. I pulled out my checkbook from my purse to confirm. And yes, it all made sense.

Account numbers. Payments. Something she’d felt the need to hide away, outside the reach of all of Littleport. But there wasn’t enough information. No names, no dates. It all meant nothing in a vacuum.

Maybe this was where the stolen cash was going? Maybe what I’d uncovered last summer was just a small part of it all—

My phone rang, jarring me. A name I’d never thought I’d see again lighting up the display.

“Hey,” I answered.

“Hi. Sorry I was a little impatient.” In all the years that had passed, I’d never deleted Connor’s name from my phone. And Sadie had found him here. In the things I had lost but held on to.

“It’s hers, Connor. It’s bank stuff. Two payments. I don’t know what any of it means or why she hid it.” The words coming without a second thought, a habit of trust. He’d covered for me once before, he claimed. Like a promise that he was on my side. But I wanted to take the words back as soon as I said them, no longer sure of his intentions—of anyone’s. Things were moving too fast, and I kept making mistakes.

The sound of laughter from the window over the sink made me bolt upright and freeze. But the footsteps continued past. Another group cutting through from the bar after being out near Breaker Beach.

“Avery? You there?”

I kept my eyes on the dark window. “I’m here. Maybe I can track it, see why this was important?”

A pause. “I think you should stop,” he said.

“What?” She had hidden this on an island, paid Connor to bring her there, and now she was dead. And Connor thought this was the place to stop?

“Payments? Avery, come on. Every family has secrets. And that’s one family I don’t want to touch. She’s dead, and we can’t change that.”

But it wasn’t just that she was dead. If she had fallen, yes. If she had jumped, even, yes. But there was a third option, and it was the only one I could believe anymore. “Someone killed her, Connor. And I think the police suspect one of us. Are you just going to sit there and hope for the best?” Silence, but he didn’t object. “That person is still here. That person was at the party with us.” My breath caught—couldn’t he see? We were living with evil. Someone who was still out there.

Even tonight, just outside our reach. The flashlight on the bluffs. Shutting down the electricity at night. He was a shadow behind the window. Watching me to see what I’d do. Or maybe: to see what I knew.

I double-checked the locks around the house, the phone pressed to my ear, glad I’d parked a few blocks away.

“Where are you?” he asked, voice flat.

I paused. It didn’t seem like he wanted to help. It seemed like he wanted to talk me out of something. “I’ll call you when I know more.”

I saved the file to my laptop, then rifled through my purse for the closest piece of paper—the list with all of our names and the times we arrived at the party. And then I flipped it over and copied the account details down. I spent the next several hours staring at those numbers. Willing them to mean something. I knew only that the information must’ve come from somewhere in the Loman house, and Sadie did not feel safe leaving it there.

I fell asleep on the couch, the sound of footsteps periodically passing through the night. A side of Littleport I’d never known. A side of Sadie, too.

Something new I’d just uncovered, even after all this time.

CHAPTER 20

I woke to the sound of gravel footsteps outside again, and it took a moment to remember where I was. To place the furniture with the room, the window with the light slanting in through the curtains.

The footsteps receded—someone walking to the beach, maybe. Heading in the opposite direction from last night.

I had fallen asleep on the couch, the open laptop, already low on charge, draining while I slept. I fumbled my way through the dim room, finding my bag with the cable to recharge it. While it was charging on the kitchen table, I cracked open the window so I could smell the ocean on a gust of wind. The phone buzzed from somewhere in the couch cushions, and I took my time finding it, expecting Connor again.

But it was Grant’s name on the display. Like he could sense me opening that file last night.

“Grant, hi,” I said as a greeting.

“Good morning, Avery,” he said, his voice the same monotone as always, businesslike and unreadable. So that I was constantly trying to please him, to see my worth reflected in his expression. “Not too early for a call, then?”

“No, not at all,” I said, my eyes focusing on the nearest clock. There, over the kitchen sink—frozen in time at noon.

“Tell me what’s been happening.”

“Well,” I began, “like my email said, there’ve been some petty break-ins, not anything major. A television that needs to be replaced at Trail’s End, and a new window at Blue Robin. But there was a gas leak at Sunset Retreat, and I’m worried it’s all related.”

He didn’t respond, and I cleared my throat, waiting.

“Have you called the police?” he asked.

“Well, I had to. I called 911 when I smelled the gas, and the fire crew came straight up.” A pause. “It wasn’t safe.”

“I see. And what did they say?”

“A loose connection behind the oven. We should replace that, obviously.”