Early that evening, she put on her swimsuit and walked out to the beach. She waded into the water and floated on her back for a while, then swam laps, back and forth, parallel to the shore, until the muscles in her arms and legs burned with fatigue. Her legs wobbled as she trod the sand back to the cottage to shower and change.

Standing in the shower, she found herself humming, then singing at the top of her lungs. For the first time since returning to Sunset Beach, she felt whole. She felt alive and glad to be where she was. And she was ready to find the answers to the questions that had been plaguing her since the day Yvonne Howington walked into the reception room at her father’s law office.

Drue waited until nine o’clock to present herself at the front desk at the Silver Sands Motel. The place was a throwback to the 1950s, with a low-slung white stucco exterior topped with its exuberantly scripted neon-turquoise Silver Sands sign across the roof, and turquoise-striped awning overhanging the plate-glass doors to the lobby.

The clerk behind the front desk was dressed in a turquoise golf shirt with the hotel logo embroidered over the breast. He was the age Drue thought Jazmin Mayes’s boyfriend might be, early to late twenties, with neatly groomed dark hair and mocha-colored skin.

“Hi,” he said, looking up from a computer screen. “Welcome. How can I help you on this beautiful evening?”

“Jorge?” she asked.

His smile revealed deep dimples. No wonder Jazmin had fallen hard for this man.

“That’s me. Do we know each other?”

She extended her hand. “I’m Drue Campbell. Jazmin Mayes’s mother hired our law firm to find out the truth about what happened to Jazmin the night she was killed at the Gulf Vista Hotel and Resort.”

The smile faded fast. He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t really help you. I left Gulf Vista a couple months before that happened.”

“I know that,” Drue said. “I’ve spoken to Detective Hernandez, the investigator from the Treasure Island Police Department. And I’ve spoken to one of Jazmin’s friends who worked with her. They said you and Jazmin were dating pretty seriously.”

“We were,” he said. He looked around the lobby, which was deserted. “Look, there isn’t much I can tell you. And I’m working, so I can’t really talk right now.”

“When do you get to take a break?” Drue asked, not ready to give up now that she had Jorge Morales in her sights. “I can wait. Maybe you’d let me buy you a cup of coffee so we can talk?”

“I don’t know what I can tell you,” he repeated. “I was working here that night.”