“I’m fine, but I can’t find my phone.” Even I hear how ridiculous it sounds, to be whining about my phone when my car is crumpled against a tree, but it’s not the phone I’m worried about. It’s Chet. I need to talk to Chet. I need him to be a sounding board, to help me sort everything out. He’s the only one I can trust.

“Come on. You need to go to the hospital. I’ll take you.” Micah wraps a hand around my bicep to help me out, but I shake him off, a violent, physical no.

“I need my phone.” I unhook my seat belt and hurl myself over the console, reaching with both hands onto the floorboards. “I need to call Chet. He’s waiting for me in town.”

He slides his cell from a pocket, flips on the flashlight. “Here. Get out. I’ll find it for you.”

I stand in the pouring rain while Micah fishes around under the seats, finally locating the thing wedged between the back door and a box of tile samples I was supposed to return days ago. He hands it to me, and I check the screen. Other than a text from Paul—Home. Where are you?—there are no messages. No missed calls.

I dial Chet again, get his voice mail, again. I hang up and look around, eyes drilling into the rain and dark woods, trying to decide what to do. I could get Micah to take me to town, but there are a million places Chet could be by the time I get there, including back at the house. What if he’s there already, his phone charging on his nightstand downstairs while he’s busy in the kitchen? How do I call the house without talking to Paul?

And then something else occurs to me. “Did Paul send you to find me?”

“No. I was coming from town, headed home when I spotted you.” Water drips down his glasses, soaks his collar, splashes off his sleeve when he hitches a thumb over his shoulder. “Can we talk about this in the car?”

“What’s going on here, Micah? And tell me the truth, because I’ll know if you’re lying. I’m starting to piece things together.”

He squints at me behind his glasses. “What kind of things?”

“Nope, it doesn’t work that way. You tell me and I’ll know if I can trust you.”

“I understand that, but we’re in the middle of a police investigation. What I can tell you is that Jax has been a source of contention between me and Paul since the second he walked into the woods. Longer than that, actually. Paul was the reason Jax and I were friends. He was the glue.”

“Is Jax the reason Bobby was at the bottom of Pitts Cove?”