BooksBarbecue
Back Black Rock Bay
Chapters (42)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT
  3. DEDICATION
  4. CONTENTS
  5. PROLOGUE
  6. CHAPTER ONE
  7. CHAPTER TWO
  8. CHAPTER THREE
  9. CHAPTER FOUR
  10. CHAPTER FIVE
  11. CHAPTER SIX
  12. CHAPTER SEVEN
  13. CHAPTER EIGHT
  14. CHAPTER NINE
  15. CHAPTER TEN
  16. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  17. CHAPTER TWELVE
  18. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  19. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  20. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  21. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  22. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  23. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  24. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  41. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  42. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Suicide or murder? Suicide or murder? Why did that question keep coming up? For the reporter. For Asher, Monroe. The idea that the teenagers’ deaths were anything but suicide was too fresh, too shaky in her mind. So she focused on Twist instead.

“If the reporter’s death was a homicide, the killer’s probably someone you know,” Mia said.

Mama just sighed. “They probably accomplished what they needed to accomplish, though. Not really worried about it, to be honest.”

Straightening, Mia nudged at Mama’s arm. “You don’t care?”

“More worried about you,” Mama said, and took both their mugs to the sink.

If Patty Masterson’s information was to be believed, then there was probably good reason for that concern. She wouldn’t tell Mama that, though.

“Tell me something no one else will tell me,” Mia said, pushing her palms against the counter and jumping up slightly until her butt hit laminate.

“You’re too thin.”

Rolling her eyes, Mia let her heels rest against the cabinets below her. “About the reporter.”

Mama turned back to her from where she’d been spending too much time scrubbing at mugs that were barely dirty. Her mouth tugged down in a deep frown, but Mia knew that was just her expression when she was thinking.

“The day before he disappeared, he talked to Earl Bishop,” Mama finally said.

“Cash’s dad?” Surprise turned it into a question.

“Yep,” Mama answered, though she hadn’t actually needed to. Mia knew Earl Bishop well. Knew the way he’d thought she wasn’t good enough for Cash back then. “Not saying it’s anything. Just saying it’s something no one else will tell you.”

It was true. The islanders were protective in general. But when it came to the Bishops, they closed ranks completely. Even she would be left on the outside.

She thought about Cash’s fists, balled at his sides. Cash. Who hadn’t been at the lighthouse that night.

Mia rested her chin against her shoulder, her eye catching on the shiver of the swing’s chain. The house groaned with the wind, then settled. “It keeps coming back to that summer, doesn’t it?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHT

IZZY

They were being watched.

Izzy had been a cop long enough to recognize the sensation of eyes on her back. And, exposed as they were in the forest, it was only more pronounced.

“Feel it?” Izzy asked Mia, keeping her voice low. The trees blocked the wind and the snow soaked up any residual sound, the hush ruptured only by the way their boots broke through the crust.

“Yeah.”

Neither of them glanced over their shoulders. It wouldn’t do any good—the shadows were deep, the sun still low in the sky.