“It is.” Tedious with short bursts of excitement is how she could best describe it. But there was something deeply satisfying there as well, something that, if she were forced to admit it, had nothing to do with helping victims’ families find peace. The crimes were puzzles, the hard kind, the field of wheat or a bluebird sky that others tended to give up on.

The brain always saw the small differences, the curves and divots, the corner pieces, the slight change in shade. It’s just that most people have grown so used to tossing those details out that even when they try to look, even when they know what to look for, they can’t find them.

She didn’t know what it said about her that she’d never learned how not to see them.

Like the phone call Brandon overheard. Or when Cash’s expression had flickered into anxiety, instead of surprise or anger. Or the way the figure in the woods had paused, just slightly, when Mia had said Asher’s name.

Each piece of the puzzle she collected, ran her fingers along their uneven edges, tried to figure out where they’d fit even though all of them looked the same right now.

Cash was watching her closely, quiet, until he realized she wasn’t going to continue further. “The reporter’s not exactly a cold case.”

There was something too casual in his voice, the disinterest too practiced to be real.

“Like anyone here would talk to a mainland cop,” she said. “My chief isn’t stupid.”

Cash laughed, and here was that boy again, young and carefree. His entire body relaxed into the amusement. “That’s fair.”

Mia chewed on the inside of her cheek to suppress a smile. There were times she missed being ornery for no other reason than because she lived on a tiny island in the middle of a bay in Maine.

“The strategy is the same, you know?” Mia said, not sure why she wanted to make the point. But part of her wanted Cash a little on edge, a little sloppy, a little nervous. “People.”

She made a show of glancing around the bar. Here on this island where everyone knew each other’s secrets, all she would need to do was ask the right questions.

A muscle twitched in Cash’s jaw. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said, something like a warning sitting behind the friendly words.

Before he could say anything else, the jukebox switched over. Their eyes met, and they were back in that summer, two stupid kids who thought there was just enough irony in “Love Is a Battlefield” to make it their song.

Mia smoothed her thumb along the scar at her wrist. “Where were you that night?”

Cash blinked, sat back. “When the reporter disappeared?”