The ding had been a calendar notification. They could see the banner bright against the default lock screen.

Quinn Thomas. 4 Baker Street. 12:00 p.m.

“Wasn’t that . . . ?”

“The seaplane pilot, yes,” Mia finished for Izzy.

“Twist was planning on leaving today.”

Mia nodded absently, chewing on her thumbnail as she kept reading over the notification like it would tell her something new. “Probably.”

“Or it was an interview,” Izzy suggested. “And whatever he was researching had to do with her.”

The Bell mansion. The lighthouse. A figure under a busted streetlight. Mia doubted any of this had to do with Quinn.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she idly tapped the home button, not expecting anything. But the lock screen disappeared and she was in.

“What . . . ?” Izzy’s exhale behind her was just as surprised. “He didn’t have it locked? Who doesn’t keep their phone locked?”

Everything on the phone was neat, tidy. Barren, almost. There was nothing personalized about it—the background the default photo everyone got out of the box, the apps the ones that came with the phone. Mia’s eyes touched on each of the little squares, lingered as if the simple images would offer a clue that she knew they wouldn’t.

The absence of social media apps didn’t surprise her given Twist’s lack of a digital footprint, but what did was that his camera roll was empty. As were his email and text messages.

Scrubbed. The whole thing had been scrubbed.

In frustration, Mia swiped to the second panel, expecting the screen to bounce back as it did when there was nothing else on the phone. Instead, it slid over, then settled, a seemingly empty screen on first glance. Except, there, tucked against the bottom-right corner, subtle enough to be missed unless someone was looking for it, was an image of an old-fashioned voice recorder.

The reporter’s notes. Her pulse ticked up as she thumbed into the app.

Like with the rest of the phone, there was little there. Just one recording.

“This was under the bed?” Mia asked Izzy without looking up.

“Yeah, mostly,” Izzy said. “Pushed out of sight.”

Mia could picture a desperate hand hiding the phone so it would be found later, just as Izzy had suggested back in the cabin. If Twist’s death had been suicide and he was trying to communicate with them, would he have really taken the chance that it could be overlooked?

Murder or suicide? Put one more mark in the former’s column. It was a tally that was getting harder to ignore. She was beginning to think that eventually it would just be denial to call this anything other than homicide.

“Who doesn’t keep their phone locked?” Mia repeated Izzy’s question slowly, looking up from the screen. “Someone who wants their notes to be found.”

Her thumb was steady as she pressed play.