The skin beneath Cash’s eyes was puffy, and he simply blinked at Mia after he opened the door, as if trying to make sense of her presence.

She shoved the extra cup of coffee she’d brought into his hands and then brushed past him into the house. “Drink up.”

There were still discarded paper plates on the foyer table from the service the day before, and she fought the urge to start cleaning. It would send the wrong message.

“Earl’s things?” Mia reminded Cash because the caffeine definitely hadn’t hit his bloodstream yet. He scrubbed a hand over his face, then cleared his throat, gesturing to the stairs.

“Yeah, bedroom, attic,” he said, his voice thick. It was clear he hadn’t quite woken up yet or talked to anyone else, and she wondered if Lacey had gone back to the mansion. “Take your pick. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

He wouldn’t meet her eyes, and before she could react, he’d stepped around her toward the hallway.

The behavior was dismissive at best, shifty at worst, the tone change from the pier the day before enough to cause whiplash. This again was the man who had grown into a stranger, no longer the boy she’d known so well and thought she’d caught a glimpse of yesterday.

Had grief been enough to strip the years away? Had it really happened? The world tilted, just a bit, and left her wondering just how fragile her grasp of the truth was.

Mia shook off the heaviness that had settled into her shoulders. This wasn’t the time for doubt. That could come later.

When she was sure Cash was puttering around in the kitchen, Mia started for the stairs. The bedroom was daunting, the thought of the number of Post-its she’d have to comb through enough to direct her steps toward the doorway of the attic. There was sure to be more clutter, but there was a better chance that it would be comprehensible.

Not that she was even sure what she was looking for.

A souvenir from the night? The razor blades that had been drawn across their wrists? A pregnancy test from Monroe? Each option seemed more ludicrous than the last. But this was what she had to work with.

Mia checked her phone when she got to the top of the stairs of the dusty room. No service, no data, no nothing. It had been like that since the first flake had fallen last evening. The storm was mild for Maine, heavy and steady rather than wild and raw. Yet, still, it had been enough to knock out the already-precarious communication none of them could rely on. Most people on the island didn’t care. They carried walkie-talkies with them all through the winter months, anyone they needed probably in a one-hundred-yard radius.