Mia stepped closer, wanting to lift the notes so she could see what lay beneath. What Earl had thought was the most important thing before keys, wallet, glasses had taken over. But one off to the side caught her eye. It was on top of three or four others, and the shakiness of the lines in the writing seemed to date it as recently.

Call Jimmy.

Jimmy Roarke. He had been Earl Bishop’s right-hand man, his lifelong drinking buddy, and Cash’s godfather. He’d also caught the reporter out by the lighthouse.

“Has Jimmy been round lately?” Mia asked, without turning back to the others.

Cash cursed. “I have to tell him.”

“Before this, though,” she pressed. “Since we got to the island. Has Jimmy come round?”

“No.” Cash sounded uncertain. Mia glanced over her shoulder, and his jaw went taut. “No.”

The second denial was firmer. But . . . “Why the hesitation?”

“I’m not home the entire day.” Cash shrugged. “But I don’t think Dad had him over.”

“Was Earl upset? That we were here?”

Cash’s face flushed, the pink of it crawling up his neck first before slipping into his cheeks. “He was talking about Asher.”

Mia turned fully toward him. “What?”

“You just . . . you set him off, Mia.” Cash threw up his hands. “Why did you have to come back?”

You think I wanted this? Mia didn’t let herself get dragged into that particular fight, though. “Was he talking about that summer?”

“He got confused easily.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Sometimes she thought Cash forgot whom he was talking to.

Cash sighed. “He always liked Asher. Thought he was a good kid. But we’d gotten in a fight. That’s why I wasn’t allowed out that . . . that night you all went to the lighthouse.”

“You and Asher? Got in a fight?” Mia clarified.

“Yeah.”

“It was physical?” It was hard to believe she’d missed something so big. But she hadn’t realized Asher was planning on killing himself, either.

Cash was considering lying even when asked point-blank; it was so easy to read him.

“Don’t,” Mia said. She didn’t need to elaborate. Don’t lie.

He glanced up, his eyes sliding over her face. “Yes. I punched him.”

The room was still, and Mia almost forgot Sammy and Izzy were there, listening.

Mia licked her lips, and she thought back to that picture in the hallway. The three of them, their bodies like puzzle pieces, so at home with each other. Mia staring up at him like he was the stars and the sun and every happy and sad thought in the universe, a constellation of perfection. But it was the girls beyond the edges of the frame that had held both Cash’s and Asher’s attention. She’d thought Cash was looking at the camera.

“Monroe?” she finally asked, because, of course, why else?