Izzy wanted to ask, but just as she was deciding if she could interrupt without causing too much disturbance, Mia tilted her head toward her. “An island about ten miles north of here.” Then she refocused on Quinn. “Was it one-way?”

“Yep.”

So he’d been leaving. Island-hopping maybe? Chasing his story across the small juts of land that dotted Black Rock Bay. Did that mean he wasn’t focused only on the suicide-pact story?

“When did he book it? The ticket,” Izzy asked.

Mia hummed, a quiet approval of the question.

Quinn’s eye squinted as if trying to remember, but then she shook her head and pulled out a big journal. Her finger ran along one of the open pages, before stopping and tapping in place. “Looks like Friday. The one before he disappeared.”

So he’d booked a one-way plane ticket two days before his death.

They all sat with that for a beat.

“Can you just . . . ?” Mia paused. “What was your impression of him?”

“The reporter?” Quinn’s eyes darted over to Izzy, then back to Mia. “I don’t know, he was kind of squirrelly, wasn’t he?”

Izzy laughed, an uncontrolled bark. “So we’ve been told.”

The interruption actually earned her a small smile from Quinn. “He was just going around getting in people’s business.”

“Was he asking about anything in particular?” Mia pressed.

“He talked to Joe—my boyfriend—about the winters a lot,” Quinn said. “Like if Joe was feeling sad or depressed and stuff like that. Isolated. The reporter kept using that word—‘isolated.’”

That rang true with what Patty had said. But was it a cover, like she’d insisted? Or were they linking the cases prematurely?

“Do you know anyone else who talked to him?” Mia asked. “Were they asked similar questions?”

“Ellen—Ellen Baxter, she’s a waitress at the Silver Spoon—had coffee with him,” Quinn said. “He paid for it and everything. Said he would expense it.”

Izzy couldn’t tell if the emphasis was derision or if Quinn was impressed.

“She said it was more of the same, though.” Quinn leaned forward, her forearms braced against the desk. “That he just kept talking about ‘isolation’ and death and winter.”

“Did he mention anything to you about what he was going to be doing on San Sebastian?” Mia asked. “Even offhand?”

Quinn’s eyes went distant, like she was combing through conversations, looking for information. “He was real creepy like. I think he mentioned . . . Do you remember that family?”

“I’m sorry?”

“On San Sebastian, maybe thirty years ago? It was a couple with a toddler. They killed the baby and then themselves,” Quinn said, an eagerness in the tilt of her words, the kind that coated the voice when discussing something particularly sensational and morbid. It happened with most people. Izzy was used to it by now, but it still left an unsettling feeling in its wake. “The guy was psycho, absolutely terrible.”