Most of calls were just random strings of numbers, not used enough to warrant a contact name. There were a few who had earned one—Peter. Bram. Marlie.

Peter’s showed up the most frequently. In fact, the last outgoing call had been to him on the day after Robert Twist had arrived on St. Lucy’s. But they all seemed to be missed calls or only a few seconds in length that could have been a voice mail.

Mia wasn’t sure if it meant anything, but she made a mental note to have a trace done on the number.

She kept scrolling as she asked Izzy, “Did you find anything useful?”

Izzy looked up from where she was working on the notebooks. The journals were small, holding only a few interviews each, and Izzy was combing through them to create a rough timeline of whom Twist had talked to and when.

“Initials.” Izzy held up a scrap of paper. “You can probably help with those.”

Wordlessly, Mia held out her hand for Izzy’s notes. She scanned the combinations of letters and could pick out CB and EB—Cash and his father, Earl—and JR right next to them.

Jimmy Roarke. Likely.

Sammy had mentioned Jimmy chasing the reporter off from the lighthouse.

“These initials—they were all close to each other?” Mia asked, tapping the grouping.

Izzy flipped through the notebook she’d been working through, humming softly when she stopped on a page. “Yup. A couple pages’ worth of gibberish for all of them.”

Can’t say I ever talked to the man.

That’s what Cash had said when she’d asked about the reporter. Why lie? When, with a little digging, Mia was sure she could have proven otherwise through gossip alone.

Why lie? She shook her head even as the question burrowed in, latched on.

Lying was a way of life more than anything else for people on St. Lucy’s. Unlike the mainland, where kids were taught not to fib, island children learned a different lesson. Truth wasn’t a moral high ground; there were no brownie points awarded for honesty. Rather, they were taught to hoard secrets tight, earning pats on the head for any time they were tempted to tell stories but kept them locked up instead.

Once, when she’d been little, Asher and she had built a fort in his parents’ living room beneath sheets that smelled of smoke and lilacs. They’d cuddled as children did, their whispers tangling together way past their bedtime, and Mia had told him about her parents fighting, the terrible words they’d flung at each other when she was supposed to be asleep.

Asher had listened with big eyes. The next day everyone on the island knew about the Harts’ problems. Mia hadn’t been able to sit down for a week from the smacks Mama had landed on her behind.