As he stood, she thought of something. “Oh, Cash.”

He paused, his long, lanky body still slightly crouched from his inelegant slide out of the booth. “Yeah?”

“Did you ever chat with him?” she asked. It was unofficial, how she was doing this, but she had him here, slightly off guard. She’d take it. “The reporter. Did he try to interview you?”

Cash blinked, a long, slow sweep of lashes against his cheeks. “Can’t say I ever talked to the man.”

She nodded and shrugged, the gesture conveying a nonchalant thought I’d ask. But she was watching his hands.

They had curled into fists at his sides.

Izzy was quiet on the walk home, and Mia would have been happy to leave her to her thoughts, but the woman also kept stealing sidelong glances, her eyes darting back to the snow when caught.

“Spill,” Mia finally prodded. Patty must have told her about the rumors.

“Did you ever consider . . . ?” Her voice was so hesitant, so unlike Izzy. Mia huddled further into the warmth of her jacket, braced. Izzy paused, huffed out a breath as if gearing up for something, then really and fully looked over at Mia. “Did you ever consider it wasn’t suicide?”

Mia’s boot caught against the snow, but Izzy’s quick hand at her elbow kept her from falling. “What?”

“Something Patty said . . .”

Right. The rumors. Mia kept walking, and Izzy’s hand fell away. “That crazy artist conspiracy theory.”

“Yeah, Patty said it didn’t hold water,” Izzy said. “But. Okay, let me ask you something. You didn’t leave a suicide note, right?”

Mia nodded, though she knew Izzy didn’t need it confirmed. She wouldn’t have forgotten that detail.

“Did you ever think about . . . ?”

Killing yourself. That was the unspoken question everyone asked. It was the one that played in her head as she’d searched for a suicide note. Had something changed so drastically from the night before? When she’d kissed Cash while lain out beneath the stars on the cool pebbles of the beach?

“Killing myself?” Mia filled in when Izzy broke off. “No, not that I can remember.”

“What about Asher, Monroe?”

“No.” Her voice came out a hoarse whisper. None of them had.

“Have you . . . ?” Izzy cleared her throat. “Have you ever wondered if there’s a grain of truth in those theories?” Her tone was soothing. “Maybe not a crazy artist. But someone else. Have you ever thought through motives?”

“I don’t . . .” The fog. That’s what Mia remembered so well. That deep, deep fog. “I don’t know.”

“If you don’t remember any of it, could someone else have been there that night?” Izzy prompted. “Cash maybe?”

No.

Mia traced her gloved hand along the edge of her coat, slipping a finger under the fabric. Even though she couldn’t feel the scar, it helped. “I don’t . . . I don’t know. I remember . . .”