So what had it accomplished?

Lacey had said Mia showed up at the Bell mansion that day, upset about Cash, about Asher. Then she’d gotten quiet and left.

It hit Izzy then. Lacey was going to pin it all on Mia.

That was the missing long-term plan, the one Izzy couldn’t figure out. Mia was going to take the fall for whatever had happened that night. Perhaps there was even a record of her traveling to the island in the last couple of months, one that Izzy would conveniently find at the right time.

A sharp buzzing threatened at the corner of Izzy’s brain, and she forced herself to ignore it.

Had this been Lacey’s strategy all along? For decades?

Lacey said she didn’t know how Earl had gotten there so fast.

That had been Edie’s retelling of that night. That’s what Lacey had kept saying, even then, even at fifteen. Earl must have been her first attempt at setting up a fall guy.

A sociopath in training.

That Bell girl. The voice of Cash’s secretary, Dot, rang bitter and haunting in Izzy’s mind. That Bell girl had been cruel to Dot, had goaded her into humiliating herself in front of her peers, had laughed, had laughed along with Mia.

And what had Lacey said about that night? That she was meeting Sammy Bowdoin. When she’d said it, she’d been defiant, all teenage pride and hurt ego that she’d been single in a group of coupled-up friends. It was so well played. Distract, deflect. A master manipulator at work, at ease knowing just how to work the strings.

Izzy licked her dry lips and dug her phone out of her pocket. Nothing from Mia. Had she even gotten any of Izzy’s previous messages?

A horn honked in the distance, and Izzy recoiled, her body clearly braced for an attack that wasn’t coming while she was still in the safety of her car.

The tangled nerves that sat heavy in her windpipe escaped on a breathy laugh that had nothing to do with humor, then got lost among the radio hosts’ inane chatter. Izzy slapped at the controls, her fingers fumbling with the buttons until there was nothing but silence and her ragged inhales that sounded far too close to hyperventilation.

Izzy had to get back to St. Lucy’s.

She pulled out onto the road, clearing her mind so that she didn’t lose control of the car. The miles ticked by, and she barely acknowledged them. The only thing that sank in was a sign letting her know she was twenty miles outside Rockport.

When she passed that, she reached over blindly, her hand groping for her purse. Without taking her eyes off the road, Izzy dug for the business card she knew she’d shoved in there.

Quinn picked up on the second ring. “Island Hops, how can I help you?”