“Tell me about them,” Izzy prompted, even though half her attention was on the woods. Whoever the person was, they weren’t making any sudden moves. “The Bells. The parents, that is.”

The land started to slope down, and Izzy had to concentrate on redistributing her weight into her thighs. She was ready to be done with snow.

“Charles and Bix Bell,” Mia said.

“Bix Bell, really?” Izzy said as the cabin finally came into view. Rudimentary was the first description that came to mind. “That’s a great name.”

Mia’s laugh was muffled by her scarf.

“The mother,” she said. “She was an artist, hence the residencies. Married Charles Bell of the Boston Bells. Old money there.”

“Was she amazingly glamorous?” Izzy asked, and now she wouldn’t be able to stop picturing Gatsbyesque decadence—flapper dresses and champagne fountains and untenable love—despite the fact that the Bells would have been decades late to that particular party.

“In a flower child kind of way,” Mia said. “All the Bell girls were beautiful. The boys on the island were immediately gaga over them.”

Izzy smiled, endeared by the phrase. “Gaga?”

“You know teenagers and their hormones.” Mia waved her hand around a little vaguely in the air. “But, yes, Bix was glamorous and gorgeous. Charles was this straitlaced New England Harvard-educated psychiatrist, but he adored Bix—it was so obvious.”

“That’s cute,” Izzy said. “If they didn’t come back here, where are they now?”

Mia shook her head. “I assume the mainland. Boston, probably.”

Izzy wasn’t sure where they fit in, if they did at all. Their daughter was part of the apparent suicide pact, but that was fifteen years ago, and the only thing they had linking that to the reporter’s death was Patty Masterson’s gossip. If the Bells had never returned to the island, it was unlikely they had a role in the current case. But she repeated the names to herself to cement them in her memory anyway as Mia fumbled with the lock.

The door opened with a protest, a metallic scream that sent a blackbird on a nearby branch into flight. Izzy’s eyes snagged on the sleek, dark creature as its wings beat steadily against the thick gray sky. A shiver slithered across her skin, the fine hair on her forearms standing on end, and she couldn’t help the quick glance she threw to the woods behind them.

Just as expected, there was no one there.

She hurried to follow Mia into the cabin.

The heavy, black curtains were drawn, but the sun pouring in through the door was enough to partially illuminate the room. Something silver shimmered on the desk, and Izzy crossed the room in two long strides.

“Laptop,” she told Mia, who had moved toward the unmade bed that took up the majority of the floor space. A small stand next to it held a lamp but was clear of any other clutter.