‘Jeez, I thought I smelled smoke. I figured I better check it out, you know? Mom’s like the manager here. We’ve got snowbirds who are gone a lot, and she watches over things, so she’s got a master key.’

‘Bullshit,’ he said. ‘Tell me who you really are and what you’re looking for.’

‘Hey, I already said—’

‘I know what you said. You’re lying. How did you know Justin Kiel?’

‘I didn’t know him at all. I don’t know who owns this place.’

He stared at her in the dim, dusty space. ‘Show me your ID,’ he said.

Peach shrugged, but she wasn’t going to do that. ‘Yeah, well, show me yours,’ she said.

‘Excuse me?’

‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.’

The man took a menacing step toward her. She could smell him as he came closer; he smelled of menthol, like the goopy pain patches she wore when she pulled a muscle. He holstered his gun. He dug in his coat pocket and came out with handcuffs, which dangled from his fingers.

‘Maybe you’ll feel like talking after a few hours in jail,’ he said.

She didn’t know where he planned to take her, but it wasn’t jail.

Peach bolted. She dove into the bathroom and locked the door. The man chased after her, but he stumbled on the debris and fell with a loud curse. She yanked open the glass shower door. Inside the shower, a small window near the ceiling faced the beach. She reached as high as she could and was barely able to undo the lock and slide the window open. Noise and wet sea air rushed through the space.

The man’s shoulder crashed into the locked bathroom door. It splintered and came off its frame, tumbling inward.

Peach grabbed the window ledge and pulled herself up the wall, but her shoes slipped on the tile. Her feet pedaled helplessly. She jumped, propping both hands against the frame and squeezing her elbows into the tight open space of the window, which was barely wide enough for her body. Her head jutted outside, then her shoulders and torso, and she could see the green water and the people on the beach and the sand and grass two stories below her.

She also saw Annalie Martine on the beach, running from the shoreline, arms waving, black hair flying.

Curtis Clay grabbed her ankles inside the shower stall and dragged her backward. Like a mustang at a rodeo, she bucked wildly, trying to dislodge him as she clung to the window frame. His grip was as tight as a bear trap, but when he yanked on her foot, her shoe came off. He stumbled, hitting the shower wall hard. The water turned on, blasting the stall, and when he lurched for her again, his feet slipped under him on the wet tile. He crashed down.