But Mia hadn’t even received a text that Izzy had landed in Rockport, and she knew Quinn, at least, hadn’t returned. She wasn’t worried, per se. There was an awareness, though, at the base of her spine, that she was effectively alone on the island, cut off from backup.

She shoved the cell into her jeans pocket and then shrugged out of her damp jacket as she crossed the well-trodden floorboards. The dust that settled like a light film over most surfaces had been disturbed in some places, as if someone had been up here recently. Cash? Or Earl?

Light spilled in through the window at the far end, sliding over duct-taped boxes and sheet-shrouded lumps that Mia assumed were furniture.

It was only when she found the box labeled PICTURES that she stopped. With her nails, she ripped at the fraying tape holding the cardboard together until it finally gave beneath her fingers. Inside were stacks of albums—leather, fabric, cheap, plain, designed. If Mia had to guess, she’d say they were the work of Tess Bishop, Cash’s mother. She’d seemed the type to hoard moments, tucking them away into plastic sleeves, protecting them and hiding them at the same time.

Mia sat down so that her back was against a couch that smelled vaguely of cat urine despite the fact that Mia knew the Bishops had never owned a pet.

Her fingertips traced the gold stamp on the deep mahogany leather of the first album in the bunch. The B in Bishop curved and coiled so that it was more art than letter.

The pictures inside were of Tess and Earl’s wedding. She’d worn a high-collared gown, he a cherry-red suit. The former seemed to match the memory of the woman who had been more background noise than anything else during Mia’s childhood. But Earl was a surprise. So were the flushed, happy cheeks, the wide grin, the way he was dipping Tess in the middle of the dance floor. Earl had always come across as stern, unbending, allergic to lightness and gaiety. Had he changed so much? Or had she known him only through the prism of a teenager’s viewpoint, unwilling and uninterested to recognize that there was a person behind the authoritative mask?

Not for the first time did she wish they’d talked to him when they’d landed on the island.

She placed the album aside and reached for the next one. Soon she realized they were in chronological order, and sped through the ones of young Cash, with a reluctant smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

When she finally got to his teenage years, she slowed down. There she and Cash were, their smiles wide and carefree.

It was strange seeing the moments caught in time when she knew the real life that had been lived in the seconds, the minutes, the days on either side of the careless candids.