“Jesus,” said his brother. “How long have you been with this girl?”

“We’re not together.”

“Okay, whatever, hooking up.”

“We’re not hooking up.”

“You’ve committed two felonies for a girl you’re not hooking up with?”

Was that what he’d done?

“You need to get out of that house,” said Mike. “Get out of there before somebody finds you.”

“I fucked up,” said Trevor, his voice breaking. It was all about to come loose.

“Listen to me, Trev. Leave now. Get off that island as fast as you can. If there isn’t surveillance of whatever happened with that kid you could get out of this. Unless she said something. You know you can’t trust someone you just met, right?”

“I think something bad happened to her.”

“I don’t know what kind of spell she’s got you under,” said Mike. “But you need to start thinking about yourself now. You are currently breaking and entering, little brother. You’re not fifteen anymore. The law is not on your side. Get the fuck out of there before the police come.”

He told his brother he would go but he didn’t. One more night. If she’s not here in the morning, I’ll go home. He found a wedge of cheese in the refrigerator and crackers in the pantry, and he ate them standing just inside the French doors, watching the sunset. There was an open bottle of white wine, too, and he finished it, allowing himself fantasies of her approach (a taxi?), the explanation (I just needed some time, she’d say), their reconciliation (I understand, she’d say. You were trying to protect me.). But when the night got dark his mind went back to the hotel room, to Lesley in her black dress, to the bag packed by the door. He didn’t really know her, and he had no idea where she might be. Maybe she had never planned to come here. Or maybe when she spoke the idea she’d thought she would, but later changed her mind and didn’t tell him. Did that make her selfish? Did it make her cruel? The Claudia he had spent the last two weeks with, he realized, was probably as new to herself as she was to him. What Chad and Jeremy did, what they threatened to continue doing, had to have changed her. It had changed him.

At some point Trevor fell asleep. He dreamed of police cars; red flashing lights, wheels on gravel. He dreamed he was standing in the Mews in the rain but instead of Jeremy coming around the corner it was Mike. I can’t do this, he thought in the dream. He hit the wooden door on the storybook house beside him with a bat. Bang bang. And then he was awake. And someone was at the back door.

TREVOR

The man in the police uniform was coming in through the kitchen.