‘Where’ve you been?’ I ask.

‘Could ask you the same question, sunshine.’

‘For real, Peyton.’

‘A few of us went swimming. I was gonna ask you to come, but you weren’t –’

‘No, it’s fine. Did you notice anything weird when you got back from work?’

She blinks. ‘Like weird how?’

‘Here? In the dorm? Anything taken or moved?’

‘Can you be more specific? You think I’d touch your shit?’

‘No. No, not at all, not you, I was just – wondering. And, uh, at work, was Sylvia there all day?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Was she, Peyton?’ I ask, exasperated.

She softens. ‘I don’t know, I mean, no – I think she left around lunch today. Was gone for a couple of hours.’ Peyton knits her brow. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Yeah, it’s fine. Sorry. I’m just being weird.’

‘What else is new,’ she breathes, then lowers herself on to my lap, facing me, and throws my hair over my shoulder – something curiously tender, even for her on a good day, and I feel myself tense. She must sense it, because she doubles back and asks, ‘Really. What’s the matter?’

I want to tell her. She’s so pretty there in the light of the desk lamp that I’m compelled to tell her everything. I do feel bad about our fight, and the loneliness. About Roxy, Ellis, the podcast, why I’m really here. Even about Celeste. Maybe then she’d understand. Maybe then she’d be able to spar with the heaviness in me that she can’t name. There’s its name. It’s Celeste Perry.

But instead I tell her nothing’s the matter and quietly get ready for bed, at moments unsettled by the sense of a third ghostly presence in the room.

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 23

TUESDAY 8 JUNE

I wrestle with the new information in my mind, trying to unpick the knot of it.

I’m paranoid out of my mind at work. I can’t let go of the thought that Sylvia is the only one with keys – her or, theoretically, Booker. I imagine it wouldn’t be too hard for him to finagle some.

I call Ellis during my lunch break, outside and a good few paces away from the back of the diner so Mary Anne can’t hear.

‘Hey, Ellis,’ I say. ‘Do you remember where your mom was yesterday? Around the afternoon?’

‘Um, I think at the B and B for most of the day? Until night-time at least. She might have left for a bit around then.’

‘Did she say what she was going to do?’

‘Seasonal stuff. Accommodation checks.’

My legs prick with goosebumps. If it was Sylvia, and she knew about the podcast, then she would have told Ellis by now, surely, to keep him away from me. And Ellis doesn’t seem to have a clue in the world. I decide not to test it.