“Cash, would you say you were close with Monroe?”

The sound of boots shuffling against hardwood was her only warning, before he was in front of her, too close. She couldn’t back up because the couch was behind her.

“What? No? Not really?” Cash said, all questions instead of statements, coming at a rapid-fire pace. “Why? What are you thinking?”

His gaze was locked on her face, searching. She took a deliberate step around him, so that she had a clear path to the exit.

She ignored the last bit and focused on the denials. “But she came to you. With the pregnancy thing?”

“She didn’t come to me.”

What?

Mia paused where she’d been slowly inching toward the stairs. No fast movements, no obvious tells, and put voice to the startled thought. “What?”

“It wasn’t Monroe who told me about the baby.”

Everything stopped, the background noise, her heart, her breathing. Her eyes closed as she inhaled. The wisp of that idea solidifying into something she could finally grab a hold of, finally wrap her arms around.

The spaces between the lies.

“Shit,” she said on the exhale, then opened her eyes to find Cash watching her closely. “I need you to try to get in touch with Izzy. Try the Rockport police department. My cell is out.”

Mia was already running down the stairs, her boots heavy against the protesting wood. She hadn’t given him any instructions on what to tell Izzy, but her mind was tangled in the web of lies that had been woven since they’d landed on the island. Her finger ran along the sticky edge of each thread, sliding closer toward the knot in the middle, where she poked, where she dug a nail in and tried to pull it all apart.

She was out the front door before she stopped. Panting, she bent a little to catch her breath and her balance.

They’re all lying. Get the hell out of there, Hart.

Did Izzy know enough to put it together?

It wasn’t Monroe who told me about the baby.

The last dot slipped into place, the image complete, just as the blow struck the back of her head and the world faded into black.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

IZZY

Izzy studied her reflection’s red-rimmed eyes and the dark circles beneath them in the bathroom’s mirror as the morning sun finally spilled into the hotel room.

She hadn’t been able to sleep, hadn’t been able to turn off her brain, so she’d just paced all night, left with nothing to do but hope Mia had gotten one of her dozens of texts. Best-case scenario: Mia wasn’t responding because of the storm. Worst-case? Izzy didn’t want to think about that.