It also meant that the killer had wanted Mia there, too. It would have been so much easier to turn Asher and Monroe into Romeo and Juliet. Mia ruined that pretty little story, casting doubt on the whole setup. So why risk it? And why just the three of them? If someone wanted to go after their little gang, why not wait until Cash was there, too?

There were too many questions left. Usually by this point in a case she could see parts of the image, what she thought it was going to be, at least. Right now, though, all she had were dots, and a lot of people trying to tell her what picture they should form.

However, she did notice that Jimmy hadn’t actually answered. “Who called you out there? Earl?”

“Yup.” Jimmy nodded, still tugging at his beard. “Woke me up. Time I got there, it was swarming.”

“With who? Who beat you there?” She would have guessed he would have been one of the first ones called.

That’s when she noticed the tapping again. It was fast, too fast. “The Bells were there, weren’t they,” he said, but it wasn’t a question.

The Bells. Of course, they’d been there first. But why did Jimmy care? Why had he and Cash been talking about them recently?

“The doc,” he continued, and his foot had slowed again. Which meant he had been flustered by the mention of the Bells. Charles and Bix. Why?

“Henry Jackson?” Izzy clarified. “The doc. That was Henry Jackson, right?”

“Ayup,” Jimmy said in a clipped affirmative, looking at Izzy for the first time since they’d started talking.

“He’d have access to drugs, though, wouldn’t he?” Izzy asked, overly casual.

“Course.”

“Is he still on the island?” Izzy asked, glancing between them.

“Moved to Florida, lucky bastard.” Jimmy chuckled, the tightness almost completely gone from his shoulders. This was not how Mia had thought the interrogation would go. It was throwing her.

“Have you heard from the Bells since they left the island?” Mia asked, going for surprise.

His fingers dropped out of his beard and curled around his mug, bringing it up to his mouth, which did wonders to help cover most of his face.

Thwap, thwap, thwap. Too fast, too agitated. What the hell had happened with the Bells?

“Nope.”

That was it, a quiet, definitive denial.

“Heard you might have been trying to find them,” she tried. “That Cash was asking you about them.”

“Who said that?”

“Does it matter?”

He’d leaned forward until his forearms were braced on the table, and for a second Mia thought he was going to argue the point. But then he glanced away, toward the window overlooking the backyard. His house was on the opposite side of town from Mama’s but was up against the woods, just like Edie’s. The snow in his was untouched.