They were quiet for a beat. Then he broke. “She’s had a couple nightmares. ’Bout Monroe, mostly,” Cash said, the words drawn out like he was reluctant. This time the pause was longer. He straightened and paced to the other side of the pier, his back to her. She almost thought he’d given up talking, but then he sighed. “And her father.”

Her hand twitched in her pocket. Charles Bell. “Does she talk about him at all?”

“Mostly about her mother,” Cash said, rolling his shoulders into himself. “Lacey adored her.”

“Adored?” Past tense.

Cash seemed to realize. He swung around. “She just . . . she doesn’t talk to them anymore. Cut off contact,” he said.

“But she’s living in their house.” Mia tilted her head to make it a question.

“No.” Cash shook his head. “It’s hers. Her grandmother deeded it to Lacey in her will. The grandmother bought it for Charles and Bix in the first place.”

“So, legally, she could keep them away from it,” Mia said, and that made more sense as to what Lacey was doing back on the island. Perhaps it was the only safe haven available to her. Especially if she’d cut off her parents’ financial help.

“Do you ever think about it?” Mia asked, because it was cold and she was tired and this was the first time since she’d been back that she felt like she was seeing Cash. The boy she remembered and not the violent hothead, not the man lying with every breath. “That summer.”

“Mia.”

The way her name caught in his throat almost made her wave off her question. But she just waited instead.

“No,” he sighed. “I try not to. It was . . . I lost everyone, you know?”

Her, Asher. Monroe, even, though she hadn’t thought they’d been close.

“Did Earl tell you that night?” she asked, because she was also still a cop, down to her core.

“Didn’t wake me up till he got home. It was early.”

Had Earl been cleaning up the crime scene?

“You were gone before I even—” Cash cut himself off, swallowing hard.

They’d never said goodbye, that was true. But of all the things she’d worried about in the past fifteen years, it had been pretty low on her list. They had been high school sweethearts, built to fall apart.

But they’d been best friends before that. Maybe not like her and Asher. Still. He’d run through the woods beside her, just like Asher had. Cleaned up cuts and made up adventures and patted her hand when she cried.