“For us then,” Mia said. “Maybe it was worth chancing someone else finding it. Worth it to get his message to us, I mean.”

They both stared at the phone as it did absolutely nothing in Mia’s hand. Then Izzy cleared her throat. “So. Was he talking about Asher and Monroe?”

Mia gripped the counter to keep from touching her wrist, where she knew she would find her rapid pulse. They were barreling toward something she wasn’t even sure her brain was ready to process. Would the inevitable conclusion be more darkness?

“I’ll poke around in the phone,” Mia said, instead of answering, because she was worried it would come out yes. “You take the journals.”

There was a pause, and Mia didn’t look over. Her knuckles ached, and she slowly unpeeled her fingers from the slightly sticky corner, conscious of every small movement.

“Sure, will do,” Izzy finally said, easily, though Mia could tell she wanted to talk more.

Mia lifted her gaze to the window overlooking the tiny backyard that bled into the forest beyond. Mama’s home was at the top of the small incline that sloped gradually back down into the port. There were no more houses behind theirs, just woods and snow. Silence where in the summer there would be birdsong.

The soles of her feet could still feel the press of knobby roots and misplaced stones as she and Asher and Cash played cowboys and robbers in the warmer months. In the winter, they’d had epic wars: their ammo of choice, ice-glazed snowballs; their enemies, the handful of kids home on college break.

The memories were tinted sepia and softened at the corners, like old photographs of someone else’s life. She didn’t look at these often, but when she did, she was careful, reverent, pulling them out, caressing the smiles, the laughs, the flushed cheeks and giddy glances. Her thoughts always lingered on Asher for a beat longer, searching for an emptiness in his eyes that she may have missed when she was younger.

But then the memory would blink, shiver, move on to the next. And once again, she would have missed any signs.

The pain beneath her breastbone screamed, and she pressed the heel of her palm to the spot, though it wouldn’t help. She hadn’t eaten almost anything since she’d stepped off the ferry, and yet she was on her fourth cup of coffee for the day.

She tucked her fingertips into the pocket of her jeans for the chalky tablet she’d stashed there, popping it between her teeth with her back to Izzy.

Her eyes were on the trees as she snapped the tablet in two between her teeth as quietly as possible.

Although the phone had been mostly wiped clean, whoever had deleted the emails and text messages had missed something. The call history was still there.