“No, we swore him to secrecy. He knew the risk of jail time. There’s no way he would have said anything to anyone.”

“Are you sure? I could see him telling Marin…and with how close she was to Vera, something could have easily slipped out.”

Oliver leaned back against the faux black leather chair, folded his arms. “I would have known, Felicity. She would have said something to me about it first.”

My eyebrow darted up. “And why’s that? Because from where I’m sitting it looks like you’re protecting Marin.”

“Are you listening to yourself? If you drag Marin into this whole thing with Vera’s disappearance, what do you think the cops will dig up about that night? How long do you think it will take to put the pieces together of what we did? We’ll go to jail, Felicity. Or do you keep forgetting that?”

Of course I hadn’t forgotten. I remembered it every day. It was the only reason I kept silent. But as desperation slithered into my veins, the vow of silence slithered out. Just one shot of courage was all I needed to come clean…one sip of faith.

“Maybe I need to take that risk if it could lead us to finding Vera.”

“Absolutely not. Stop acting reckless and stupid. What we did back then has nothing to do with Vera’s disappearance now. Or Marin.”

And yet a specter living deep inside me told me there was a connection. Maybe only a loose one. But it was there. Marin had something to do with Vera’s disappearance, but I had no way to prove it. She’s the key to bringing Vera home, the specter hissed.

Oliver’s phone beeped with a text. His eyes darted down at the table, where a green bubble popped up on the screen. He turned the phone over, face down.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“No one.”

“Then why did you flip your phone over?”

“Because it’s not important. This”—he gestured to me, then himself—“is more important right now than a text.”

I noticed the way he glanced aside, then stared out the window at the now black sky. His fingers drummed on the table. He was lying.

“Can you be honest with me about one thing?” I prepared my bait.

He blinked slowly, then looked at me with a dead gaze. I took it as a yes. I needed to know his secrets, because I knew him well after twenty years. He was hiding something. And everything pointed to Marin.

“Was I right—was there something going on between you and Marin that you never told me about?”

Oliver shoved his seat back and rose to his feet as the chair tipped over behind him, the leather back hitting the floor with a thud. “I’m done.”

“Wha—”