I close my eyes. The boat rocks with a wave, then falls still again. Rise and drop. Kaycee had left the collar as a clue, or as a cry for help—but not to prove to me that she killed Chestnut. It was, I see now, a kind of insurance. If something bad happened, she could be sure I would wonder about the collar and why she’d left it for me. She hoped that I would spot the connection. The common factor—between Chestnut and her.

Both poisoned.

But that day in the hall, I unwittingly revealed to Misha that Kaycee had begun to suspect someone was trying to kill her the same way Chestnut had been killed—with poison. Misha must have been in a panic. If Kaycee had left a clue for me, some loser she hadn’t spoken to in years, who else had she told—and what, exactly, did she know?

“That night in the woods,” I choke out. “When you kissed me…”

“Couldn’t have you getting too close to the water,” he says matter-of-factly. “She made a lot of noise as she was going down. I could have sworn she was dead before we loaded her into the boat, but I guess I was kind of in a rush.”

She won’t stay down.

We have to make sure she’s not breathing.

I remember now. Why couldn’t I remember before? I’d convinced myself my own memories were suspect. I’d convinced myself to ignore the terrible suspicion that something was very wrong in the woods that night.

He moves toward me. When he leans down, I can smell the sourness of his breath. For a terrible second, I think he is going to kiss me again. And now it’s too late—too late to get free, too late to escape, to survive. “But I did always think you were cute. In a pathetic kind of way.”

He seizes my wrists and I shout—an instinct, a useless one.

Too late, I see he has a knife.

“I’ve always liked the broken ones, I guess.” He brings the knife to my wrists. With one clean sweep, he frees me.

Chapter Forty-Three

I aim a punch, but Brent swats my hand away easily, almost amused. He examines my wrists, keeping a grip on me so tight it brings tears to my eyes.

“Good,” he says. “No marks.”

He releases me again and stands, folding up the knife and returning it to his pocket. I haul myself up to sit but have no time to launch into the water. Almost immediately, he straddles me, leaning his full weight on my chest, catching my wrists again with one hand when I try and push him off.

“It’s important there are no marks.” He seems almost as if he’s reciting the words. His weight on my chest is crushing. I can hardly breathe. “It’s important that you drown.”

I spit directly in his face. He jerks back, just an inch, and then the wind shifts slightly in my favor and sends another ripple across the reservoir. The boat rocks and he rocks with it. To keep from toppling over, he releases me and steadies himself against the deck. Just for a second, he has to shift his weight forward, rising onto his knees, giving me space to move.