“Please, Cole,” I beg. “I need you.”

He reaches for me then, but the edge of the cliff crumbles under his heels, and he pitches backward.

“Cole!” I grab his hand and jerk hard, and he topples toward me. We’re both lying in the damp grass at the edge of the drop-off. My heart is pounding so hard I’m sure my ribs must be breaking.

We lie there—tangled together—trying to catch our breath. And when we both stop shaking, I explain about the fight I remembered. How it happened at Glory’s little house. Not on the sea porch.

And about the sound of wind chimes. How something about them makes the hair on my neck stand up and my insides turn to ice.

How I think I heard them not long before I died.

“You really think it was Glory?” Cole asks. He’s pale. And I see his mind working behind those gray eyes. He’s trying to get it to make sense. Trying to decide if he really believes the nice lady with the peppermints and the cat-hair sweaters could be a murderer.

“I need to check out the notebook I stole from her place,” I tell him. “But yeah.”

“Notebook number one?”

“Yeah. She had it.” I feel sick all of a sudden. Glory’s been so good to me.

“Shit,” Cole mutters.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” I tell him. “Glory’s so—”

“That’s the thing.” He cuts me off. “It isn’t hard to believe. It should be. Maybe. I wish it were.” He sighs so long and deep. “But the things people are capable of. The secrets we all keep from each other.” He tilts his head back to look up at the inky sky. “We don’t know anybody. Not really.”

I reach for Cole’s hand, and I lace our fingers together. I squeeze tight. Because I will refuse to let his head slip under the water. Not tonight. I need him too much.

“I know you,” I tell him. “And you know me.”

Cole starts to say something, but I see him decide not to. And that’s when I know for sure that Cole Culver still has secrets. Parts of himself that I haven’t unlocked yet. Shuttered places deep inside. Rooms that there are no keys to. And suddenly all I want in the world is a chance to know him. Really know him. Even the dark, scary parts of him. I want it even more than I want to know what happened to my mother.

“What about that lease agreement with my father’s name on it?” he asks me. “The apartment in the city?”