She returned the photo, and I set it on the table. “Jeff?”

“Jeff Fishler.”

The name was familiar, and I mentally paged back through the yearbook. “Was he homecoming king in high school?”

“A shoo-in. He was also voted the most likely to make a hole in one. He’s a pro golfer now.”

“That’s why the name sounds familiar.” I didn’t follow golf, but my father did, and once he’d mentioned that a guy playing in a tournament in Naples had graduated with my sister.

Diana continued. “In eighth grade Jeff started hanging out with Greta, and they got about as serious as anybody does in middle school. Wendy tried everything to get his attention, but when he made it clear he preferred Greta, Wendy told her she was disloyal. Greta didn’t buy it.”

“I went to a girls’ school. I think I’m grateful.”

“Lucky you. It was a big deal between Wendy and Greta. In middle school, of course, everything is a big deal, but Wendy wouldn’t give up. She flirted with Jeff, belittled Greta. Finally Greta just stayed as far away from her as she could.”

I lifted the photo again. “I noticed the necklace Greta’s wearing here. I wondered if it’s a friendship necklace of some kind. I thought maybe Wendy had the other half and just wasn’t wearing it in this photo.”

Diana didn’t have to look. “No, Jeff wore the other half.”

“The photo’s not clear. I can’t read the writing.” Nor could I read it on the half in my pocket.

“It’s what they call a mizpah necklace. A silver one, very pretty. Jeff was Jewish, and the words are a quote from the Old Testament. When the two parts come together, the quote says something like ‘The Lord watch over us while we are apart.’ That’s not exact, but it’s something like that. Jeff wore one half, and Greta the other. I remember because, at the time, all I wanted in the whole world was for some boy to like me that much.”

I hadn’t taken a bite of my bagel, and now I shoved the plate away, my appetite gone. “Were Jeff and Greta a couple the summer she died? Was she still wearing his necklace?”

“Yes, and he was, too.”

I struggled to find a way to ask the next question, but I didn’t have to. Diana went on.

“After she died, Jeff wore his half all the way through high school. He said it was a tribute to Greta, that her half was lying somewhere on the bottom of the gulf. When they found Greta’s body—” she took a deep breath “—hers was missing. Either it came off when she was trying to get to shore, or it washed away in the waves that swept her down the beach.”

I sat very still, trying to find a way to explain the half in my pocket. I finally met her gaze. “Diana, is there any chance that Jeff might have given his half to somebody else after he graduated? As a keepsake? Maybe even to my sister because she and Greta had once been so close?”