When Izzy returned to the high top, she slid a twenty across the table beneath the glass tumbler. By the next blink, it had disappeared.

“Twist was asking about Mia?” Izzy asked once again. Maybe she sounded like a broken record, but now that she was paying for the answer, she was going to push until she got it.

One sharp, pink nail tapped against the glass in an uneven staccato as Patty studied Izzy’s face. “If you know about the lighthouse, then you know about the rumors.”

“People say Mia had something to do with it.” It wasn’t exactly a stab in the dark. Izzy could see how the leap could be made.

“Police ruled it a suicide.” Patty lifted one shoulder, a casual shrug. But her eyes were sharp. “Case closed.”

They called it a suicide pact. “Then no need to ask questions about Mia, right?”

Patty rocked the glass onto its edge. “You should hear the conspiracies about that night, sugar.”

“Like what?”

“Some think it was an artist who went nuts,” Patty said, deftly dodging ones about Mia that Izzy knew must exist. “Was obsessed with the Bell girl. Ended up killing the boyfriend, then her. Started on Mia but chickened out or something.”

Wait. Izzy leaned forward. That was a hell of a lot different from people thinking Mia talked them into it. That’s where Izzy had thought that was heading.

“People say it was murder, not suicide? That’s what you’re saying?”

“You can’t blame ’em for talking, Detective,” Patty dodged. “There’s not much else to do out here.”

“Did you tell this to Twist?”

Patty’s shoulders went taut as she straightened. Insulted. “Didn’t have to. He already knew it.”

“He thought an artist killed them?”

“Nah,” Patty drawled out. “He realized quickly only the kooks believe that one. There weren’t any artists that fit the bill at the time it all went down.”

“So . . . ?”

“He was trying to be slick about it.” Patty’s eyes narrowed, and Izzy swallowed her frustration. The woman could answer the questions like a professional, giving just enough to seem like she was telling Izzy something but not nearly enough to make sense.

Irritation must have flashed on Izzy’s face, because a smirk teased at the corners of Patty’s lips. “All right, Detective, calm down. You’ll get your money’s worth.”

Izzy remained impassive, not even hinting at the fact that she already had. Now they had a better idea what Twist had been looking into on the island.

Mia.

Patty swallowed the last of her drink before setting it aside and leaning forward on her crossed arms. “All right, look. He was asking everyone about suicide, okay—that’s not unusual for us. We get someone out here every once in a while, looking to do some book or school assignment on isolation and depression and all that jazz.