“Think I’ll drive up there,” she said despite the hour. If she left now she could find a hotel along the way. That would put her in Cooperstown early in the morning. Maybe she could get an address from the local station up there.

“You need company?” Murdoch asked.

Backup. That was the underlying question. Did Izzy need backup? Her eyes slipped back to the obit. “Nah, I’ll be okay. More worried about Mia to be honest. That whole island gave me a creepy vibe.”

“Creepy vibe?” Murdoch laughed.

“Hey, don’t mock the gut,” Izzy said. They both knew that lesson too well.

“Touché.” Murdoch sobered. “Well, call me if you need rescuing.”

“Doubt I’ll even find anything,” Izzy said, already talking to Murdoch’s back. She shut down her computer, grabbed her duffel, and headed for the door, restless to do something, anything, now that she wasn’t stuck on a square mile of land in the middle of the ocean.

Her car was a Honda Civic from the previous decade, which often took no less than three tries to start. This was one of those times. When the engine finally turned over, she plugged coordinates into her GPS, thankful that she was back in the world of reliable technology.

The storm was projected to slip up the coast, mostly missing Rockport, pummeling the islands instead. But it still must have scared a few people inside here. The roads were mostly empty, and when she hit the highway, her eyes became unfocused, the hum from the radio interrupted only by the rhythmic slap of rubber against road.

That itch, it was still there, burrowing deeper with each passing mile, and part of the problem was they’d let the teenagers’ deaths and Robert Twist’s become so entangled that Izzy couldn’t stop trying to solve the old murders along with the new one. And they just kept going in circles.

The GPS cut into her thoughts, a calm British voice informing her to take a right soon. She shifted lanes, only half her mind on the road.

Was there any truth to Martha’s suspicions? Had Asher seen something? If he had, it would have had to be damning enough for Charles Bell to consider the death of his own daughter worth the price of covering it up. That seemed implausible.

The simple act wasn’t hard to imagine. Izzy had enough experience with rage that she had no doubt that it could blind a man, could lift his control to the extent that he murdered a supposed loved one. But in those cases the killings were close, personal—intimate almost. Usually it involved hands around throats, or weapons that required proximity to the victim. A knife, most likely.

This, though. This was razor blades slashed across the wrists in neat wounds. Izzy had looked at Mia’s. There wasn’t even a hesitation notch at either end of hers.