I scan the hill for him, but if he’s here, he’s well hidden—and honestly, I’m not 100 percent sure it was really him I saw, standing on Micah’s back deck. The flash of lightning was so unexpected, so bright and sudden, my mind could have been playing tricks on me. Jax at the trailer park. Jax on the other side of the glass. It’s possible he was just part of the memories I was trying to conjure up at the time.

“So how does this work?” I gesture to Micah’s dock, a light brown U floating on the glittering black lake. Thirty yards, maybe, but not more. “Do I jump? Do you push me in? And how are you going to explain me wearing your sweats and some random woman’s sweater?”

“It’s Katherine’s.” I glance over my shoulder, and he laughs at the expression on my face. “She was always slinging her stuff around, leaving it everywhere. But to answer your question, they’ll probably assume you got it from Paul.”

“But...won’t people be suspicious? When I wash up under Paul’s dock, I mean.” We both know that’s where I’ll end up.

“Yeah, of Paul. Drowning women is his tactic. Not mine.”

“Only it is yours. Because you pretty much admitted to killing Katherine that way, and I’m guessing Sienna, too, probably. It makes sense, especially now that I know you hid her stuff.”

Silence Sienna, bury her electronics and jewelry somewhere it will never be found, let the currents sweep her to Paul’s dock. Like Jax said, that’s two. Problem solved.

“No, Jax killed Sienna. And before you ask, I know it was him because Paul wouldn’t have had the stomach for it. I love the guy, but he’s always been kind of a pussy.”

At the sound of his name, the reality that I’ll never see him again rises hot and urgent in my chest, but I swallow it down and keep moving. The low-hanging clouds above my head. The hill drenched in shadows and a sweet, drifting perfume. It feels like a dream. A nightmare. I focus on the light trickling from Paul’s house farther up the cove. On the piece of plastic and steel against my skin. I straighten my arm, and the box cutter slides out of my sleeve and into my hand.

I whirl around, terror bubbling in my throat. “Micah, please. Please don’t do this. We can figure something out.”

“I like you, Charlotte. You’re a lot of fun, and I meant it when I said Paul’s been his old self since he met you. I hate what this is going to do to him.”

“Then don’t do it! I’ll go find Chet and we’ll leave town. I swear! I’ll never speak about this again.”