I looked at him. It started in August. It was August, and you know August, how the smell of dead sea creatures is always in the air.

“Okay,” I said. “Why not?” I started slow. I told him about Baby B, about Lucas and the candles, I told him about the day Cole arrived, about Eddie’s advice, and how Cole waved to all the islanders as if he’d known them forever, how he’d been helping the Grendles clean their gutters. How he had a tab at Hiram’s Bounty, and at Jack’s, and at Island Pie.

“Holy shit,” Tuck said. “He’s weaseling his way into your life.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s so creepy.”

“But see, he’s also really charming. And...handsome. Everyone loves him.”

I opened my mouth to tell him about Cole and me, that night on the beach, but I couldn’t. My heart contracted unpleasantly. I shook my head. “I think he grew up in Lindenberg,” I said. “Just based on some things he’s said.”

“Way to sleuth.”

“And if I want to learn his name—I have to go there.”

“Or just get in touch with the right people in Vermont. Email them pictures. You can do these things remotely. I’m getting the sense it might be hard for you to, you know, go anywhere.”

But I wanted to go there. I wanted to see Emily’s Bridge. I wanted to stand on it and know that Cole had been a teenager there, in that very spot. That somewhere nearby he had had a house, and a bed, and a mother. He’d done homework at the kitchen counter and eaten peanut butter crackers. He’d been a child.

But Tuck was right—that would have to wait, and until I could leave the island without falling to pieces, there were other ways to investigate.

The closer it got to nine o’clock the better I felt. I could breathe deeply again. I could think again. I thought about Tuck leading me into the office and placing the little scratched mirror in my hands, and I felt layers of embarrassment at this display of vulnerability. I wondered what Lucas and Cole were doing. I closed my eyes and tried to feel what the house felt like without me. I felt a chill, even though I wasn’t cold.