Someone else was there that night.

Someone who murdered us both.

And there’s only one person that could be.

Brody Culver.

I remember what Val told me. How Brody has a reputation for being too friendly with his actresses. How he can go from nice to nasty in an instant. And it all falls into place.

Everyone is staring at me.

Willa lays a hand on my arm. “Avril, that was incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that. It was heartbreaking. Terrifying to watch. Just perfect.”

Cole stares at his mother. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Willa looks from me to Cole. “Why don’t you two take the rest of the night off?” she soothes. “I’ll work with some of the others.”

“Fuck you.” Cole spits the words at his mother. Willa looks stunned. But she covers well. Doesn’t even flinch.

Cole takes my hand and leads me off the stage. Toward the big double doors of the barn. Lex and Val are on their feet in the second row. Lex calls out to me.

“Avril!”

It reminds me of how my mother called my other name. Just before she vanished into thin air.

Over the edge of the cliff.

But I can’t answer Lex. Just like I couldn’t answer my mother. My mouth has stopped working.

“Let her be,” I hear Willa say. “It’s a hard thing, what she just did.”

“Fuck,” Val says, and I want to tell her I’m okay, but Cole is already pulling me out into the dark.

Somehow we end up around the corner. In the amphitheater. We’re at the top. All that empty space below us. So high. And it reminds me of his house. The cliff in the back.

How we threw that tiny boat in the water. And the water took it home.

The amphitheater is spinning.

My mother and I didn’t walk into the water at Whisper Cove. We were thrown into the sea from the cliff behind Brody Culver’s house. And then the current took me back to the beach.

Just like that little boat.

My whole body is shaking. My heart is racing. I can’t seem to get control of my breathing. It feels like being caught in a riptide. Pulled out to sea.

I’m getting farther and farther from shore. Nothing but black emptiness on the horizon.

“Avril.” Cole’s hand is on my cheek. His voice is in my ear. “What happened in there?”

And I can’t tell him. I can’t say that his father and my mother were having an affair. And that I think his father is a murderer. But that’s what my mind is screaming at me over and over.

And I need it to stop. Just for a second. I need to think. I need to breathe. I need something to hang on to. Something to stop me falling. I need—