As the skies darken, we loop around the other end of the island—pausing to take pictures of gravestones—and when we’re halfway down the opposite coast, we stop to eat a late afternoon snack at something called the Stonehenge of New England. It’s a mysterious standing stone circle—rather, what was lauded as one in the 1920s, before the last hurricane wiped out several grand summer homes that had been built here by a few pioneering rich people who thought Beauty was too crowded. Those were the last people to live on Rapture Island: One of those survivors admitted later that he built the stone circle as a hoax.

“It’s a pretty good hoax, you have to admit. I would’ve been fooled,” Lucky says. He’s picking up the remainders of our picnic near one of the stones that’s less standing and more leaning while I finish snapping another roll of film. “I think the fact that he built it inside an actual stone wall that’s hundreds of years old added to its veracity. Sort of a fool-the-eye thing. He shouldn’t have told anyone and let the mystery stand.”

“I wonder if guilt finally ate away at him,” I murmur from behind my Nikon. I’m getting a lot of spooky shots out of this trip. It’s getting darker out here, though, with the line of storms veering closer. Not sure how this roll will turn out. I bump up the ISO as far as it’ll go and say, “Speaking of guilt … I broke into my grandmother’s closet.”

“Whoa. Really? You did?”

“I found something. My mom’s old yearbook. And I think I found an inscription from her mystery navy lover. It said, ‘It’s finally over. Only palm trees and white, sandy beaches on the horizon now. Our future is bright and sunny, and I can’t wait for the two of us start it together.’ ”

“Interesting …” He says this like someone who knows way more than he’s letting on, and that frustrates me to no end.

“Know anyone in town named Drew who was once in the navy?”

“Drew …” He scrunches up his face, and I can’t tell if he’s actually thinking about this or pretending to. That’s weird. He wouldn’t be lying to me … right? The one person in my life that I trust not to lie to me for any reason. Especially for no reason. And some random guy from my mom’s past definitely seems like a silly reason to lie.

So maybe it’s just my imagination.

Maybe I’m projecting all my mom’s lies onto him. It’s getting confusing.