“Unbelievably so.” Mia laughed weakly, and Izzy was proud of herself until it triggered a coughing fit, Mia’s small body curling into itself as it heaved and bucked. Izzy was helpless to do much other than watch Mia’s oxygen levels drop. She was just about to call a nurse when Mia settled back against the pillows. “How long have I been out?”

Izzy pressed her lips together. “A couple days.”

Mia blinked but didn’t seem surprised. “Tell me what happened.”

Izzy leaned forward, her arms braced on her thighs.

“Did you get any of my texts?”

“One.” Mia nodded. “The body in the bay was Peter, not Robert.”

“Yeah, you were right about Peter being important to the case.”

Mia shrugged. “Not how I expected.” She shifted on the bed, her eyes on her wrists. “I met Robert when I was being held.”

“We picked him up. He didn’t put up a fight.”

“No, he wouldn’t have,” Mia agreed, and when she looked up, the neutral mask was back. “Did he tell you anything?”

Izzy chewed on her bottom lip, debating how much to tell Mia in her weakened state. If she were in that bed, though, she’d want to know everything.

“All right, so this is what we’ve been able to piece together. Peter Hughes applied for the Bell artist residency over the summer. Just like we thought, he found Lacey’s”—Izzy didn’t want to say souvenirs, the memory of Mia’s hunched-over form still clear, so she couched it, knowing Mia would follow along—“collection of things that pointed to her penchant for . . .”

“Killing people,” Mia supplied. “Or sort of killing people.”

“Yeah.” They grimaced at each other. For a minute, it felt normal, like they were talking about any other case. “Anyway, he, understandably, flipped the hell out, booked it out of there. This part gets a little foggy, but it seems like he was going to try to report it to you? He must have heard stories about the suicide pact, and your name was in the little notebook Lacey kept with all the items.”

“She cataloged them?”

“Yeah.” Izzy sighed. It hadn’t been the most pleasant thing to go through that list. “Not a lot of detail besides name and cause of death.”

Mia shivered beneath her thin hospital blanket, and Izzy knew it wasn’t from the cold. It was going to take them both a long time to forget those haunting eyes, the playful voice.

“Anyway, Robert says Peter chickened out, thinking he didn’t have enough evidence.” At Mia’s eyebrow raise, an implicit question about what Izzy wasn’t saying, Izzy laughed. “Yeah, I think he’s full of bullshit. Robert probably just wanted to break a serial killer story himself. Probably saw a book deal in it or something.”

“Why did Peter go back to the island?”