Who are you afraid of?

“You have more questions, Detective?” Lacey asked, most of her attention back on the album. It was funny how they all referred to her that way, always putting distance there.

“Just a few,” Izzy said, trying to decide where to start that wasn’t Did your father kill your mother? And did your sister die because she knew it had happened? It sounded absurd even in the safety of her own mind.

“When you went to get your parents that night, did they both come back to the lighthouse with you?”

Lacey’s hand paused mid–page flip. “You’ve been talking to Martha Lowe.”

It was a conversation that had simmered, back-burnered but not forgotten, throughout the investigation. “She has some theories.”

Rolling her eyes, Lacey snorted. It was somehow elegant, just a puff of air, a scrape of sound against the back of her throat. “That’s one way to put it.”

“So they were both there?” Izzy pressed. No one ever seemed to want to answer questions around here, no matter how easy it would be to give a simple yes or no.

“Yes,” Lacey said. “My mother came to the lighthouse, but once she saw . . .”

Lacey’s voice wobbled, but she tried to cover it with a cough.

“Once she saw Monroe and Asher, she broke down,” Lacey continued as if nothing had happened. “My father sent her back to the mansion. That’s why I ended up at Edie Hart’s place. With Mia.”

“Bix went back by herself?”

“No,” Lacey said slowly, but it was thoughtful. Like she was trying to make sure she remembered right. “I don’t think so.”

“Who took her back?”

“Jimmy. I think.” Lacey shook her head, her eyes slipping shut. “I don’t . . . It’s not all the clearest, you know?”

Jimmy. I loved her.

“And she was still there the next morning? She didn’t leave early?” She was still alive? is what Izzy really wanted to ask.

“We all left the island together a few days later,” Lacey said. “Martha Lowe needs help.”

Grief did strange things to a person. Turned coincidences into conspiracy theories, stitched together snippets of different events to create wild scenarios. And all of this must have been festering in Martha’s mind for the past decade and a half.

That didn’t mean Lacey was telling the truth, though.

Izzy hummed, not in agreement or dissent.

“Was Monroe pregnant?” Izzy asked, watching her closely.

“God, what?” Lacey was either surprised or good at faking it.

“Cash said he got into a fight with Asher that day because Monroe told Cash she was pregnant.”

Lacey’s tongue darted out over her lipstick, and her fingers came up to toy with her dangly earrings. “Cash said that?”

“Said he went after Asher, yeah.” Izzy nodded. “Do you remember that?”

“I didn’t see any of them that day,” Lacey said. “Except, well . . .”

“Well?”