Lacey shook her head. “I already told you I kissed plenty of boys that summer, too.”

There was a smug tilt to the corners of her mouth, which smoothed out as she took a rather large swallow of the wine. She slid Izzy a glance while doing so, her head tipped back, her eyes hooded, her throat exposed. Seductive, but also clearly performative.

Izzy looked away. “So what kind of artist was Peter?”

“Sculptor,” Lacey said easily.

“What did you think about him?”

Lacey’s eyes narrowed, her gaze suddenly intent on Izzy’s face. “You’re interested in him. You and Mia, both.”

Izzy lifted a shoulder, feigning her nonchalance. When someone kept popping up in an investigation, there was usually a reason for it. Before Ellen’s interview, Izzy had been on the fence about whether he’d been important. That had sealed it, though.

“When we work these cases, sometimes it’s easier to eliminate options,” she said. These people weren’t the only ones who could lie. “Helps narrow the field.”

“Is everyone on the island a suspect, then?” Lacey asked, batting her heavy lashes, playing at coquettish. “Even me?”

Your boyfriend is, at least. Izzy just smiled, though, keeping it relaxed. “It’s good to start with a broader net and winnow it down.”

Lacey laughed, throaty and unconcerned despite the act she’d just put on. “You’ll do fine here, Detective. No one can give a straight answer on St. Lucy’s, either.”

“You moved back here, though,” Izzy commented, careful to keep any accusation from her voice.

But the subject alone was enough to shut Lacey down. Her fidgeting ceased, and she angled her body away from Izzy, her foot sliding down to the lower rung of the barstool, ready to flee. “Yes.”

“That must have been . . . hard.”

Lacey shifted even farther away. “Not everything here is tainted, you know.”

It seemed like it would be, though. Mia hadn’t come back since that night. Even if she wasn’t showing it, being back was difficult for her. If Izzy knew anything, she knew that much. But maybe living on the island numbed some of the pain, layered new memories over the ones that were so ragged.

Before Izzy could say anything else, a door slammed in the back, a loud crack ripping through the buzz of low conversation.

If Izzy hadn’t been watching closely, she’d have missed Lacey flinch. But Izzy had been, and she saw it. She saw it, and she saw Lacey’s fingers tremble against the stem of her glass. And when Lacey looked over, she was blinking too fast, her pupils eating up the color in her eyes.

Izzy held up her palms, because in her experience frightened people like to see what you are doing with your hands. “It was only the door, Lacey.”