“Have you been back since you got here?”

The Shark Shack had been our favorite place to eat, and, of course, I had purposely avoided it since coming home. The bar and grill was a local hole-in-the-wall. The owner, Jack, was a retired marine biologist who never missed a chance to promote the importance of sharks in the ocean ecology. I was a convert, although I was careful not to frolic in the water at sunset.

“I haven’t been,” I admitted. “We had good times there.”

“And that’s why you didn’t go back?”

“I had visions of running into you.” I paused. “Buying a grouper po’boy for some other lucky woman.”

“Jack sold the place, but the new owner honors all his traditions and recipes. And I don’t think I’ve ever bought another woman one of their po’boys.”

I was sure Teo hadn’t been alone for all the years we’d been apart. Neither had I, but apparently neither of us had been completely free, either. “It’s like a piece of our past. A lot of time’s gone by since then.”

“And here we are, thrown up on the same shore together. You, me and Bismarck. And to top it all off, one of us may be involved in something she shouldn’t be. Ah, the memories.”

Road signs appear in our lives. We’re walking along, minding our business, and suddenly a sign appears. Sometimes they simply point out the best direction to turn, something we might have known all along. And sometimes they point us in new and scarier directions. I was looking at one of those right now. I could lie or at least cover up the truth. Or I could tell Teo what was going on.

I looked toward the sign that read Goodbye Forever, and I knew that this time, I wasn’t going to make that turn.

“I don’t know if I’m involved in something I shouldn’t be.” Even I could tell I was spacing my words carefully, in case I changed my mind between one and the next. “But Teo, I am involved in something.”

He didn’t look surprised. “I know.”

“But do you know what?”

“No clue. Except your sister seems to be somewhere else and suddenly here you are.”

I filled the teakettle and set it on the stove. Then I took down the canister of tea bags. “How connected are you to the sheriff’s office these days?” I leaned against the counter while the water heated. “I have to know before I tell you what’s going on.”

“I saw a picnic area over by the swimming pool. It’s a pretty day. Want to eat outside?”

I made the tea and rummaged for travel mugs so I could take it with us. I added snack packs of chips and some of the vegan chocolate chip cookies I’d frozen. It might be December, but outside, they’d defrost quickly.

We chatted but said nothing of note until we were sitting among a grove of crape myrtle trees at a round table to one side of Tropicana’s pool. The food was spread in front of us, and Teo and I were sitting close together on the shadiest side. No one else was around.