The plank whines even under her birdlike weight, and her legs dangle in midair until she secures her hold. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, shit, shiiiiit,” Molly mutters, steadying herself on the wobbling rung. Marcos launches off his knees, like a track runner, toward the ladder and throws out his arms.

“I got you!” he hisses in a carrying whisper.

Yet Molly slams her foot against the shattered lower rung for momentum, alley-ooping herself onto the next one, which thankfully remains solid. The three of us breathe, and Marcos cautiously retreats back to Drew and me, leaving Molly to her remaining climb. While Marcos resumes his hunt through Drew’s back pockets, my attention returns to the Playbill. I flip each aging page carefully, like a paleontologist exhuming a brittle fossil. I need this memento to remain as intact as possible. Four pages later, across the cast bios for Joanna Gleason and Bernadette Peters, Ricky’s second message appears. Unlike his handwritten note from 1989, this message is written in black Sharpie and is enormous, jagged, and fresh:

THERE IS STILL TIME.

There is still time. The words bring me off my knees and into a panicked, shuffling circle around the body. I’m no longer sweltering from the island sun…I’m as cold as Drew. Just like me, the Reverend received a final message from Ricky in his will. Mine was HELP CONNOR. His was THERE IS STILL TIME.

This Playbill belonged to the Reverend—and recently—so what is Drew doing with it? The deluge of nagging thoughts circles back a third time, stronger and clearer than ever: Drew is freezing cold; his complexion is already blue; his neck is purple from bruising.

He was bringing this Playbill to show me, but something stopped him.

Someone.

“Marcos, let me see something,” I say, tapping him away. Without question, he scoots backward. I don’t hesitate—I touch Drew’s bruised neck, tracing the ring around his slim, elegant throat where the noose’s toughened bristles gripped him. A halo of peeling skin covers a row of long, dark purple splotches. But these bruises don’t appear anywhere else on his neck, except for these two spots. They extend upward to his jaw…in the shape of fingers.

Carefully, I grip Drew’s neck as if I were choking him…My fingers align perfectly with the bruises. “Oh my God,” Marcos whispers, witnessing the same horror I am.

“He didn’t kill himself,” I say, my hands still clasped around his neck. “He was already dead. Somebody strangled him and pushed him off the tower.” They would’ve had plenty of time. We only heard someone scream for Briggs, and then a body falling. Everyone was at lunch; it was the perfect time to have everyone witness it happen and swear the boy jumped.

Above us, Molly grunts as she ascends another rung closer to the bird’s nest.