I dart behind the counter to the stacked filing cabinets, scaling nearly two feet taller than me. They’re organized by year. I scan for 1986 and find it – there’s a ring of keys on top of the cabinet and I have to jump three times to snag it, my wrist banging against the top and sending a hollow drum-hit all the way through, echoing impossibly loudly in my ears. I frown and turn to look behind me, but no one is there.

Ten keys on the ring. All the locks look the same; I assume one key is able to open each year. First and second jam. The jingling is barbed and too loud, but I now can’t trade speed for stealth. The third I think is the right size and it fits but doesn’t turn, and now my fingers are grease-slick against the metal, but the fourth slides in like it’s meant to be and the cabinet opens with a click.

I swear I sense some flicker of an outline behind me, my line of sight dappled with vignettes, but I can’t be sure. Did I leave the door open?

The cabinet reels open when I pull and I misjudge how fast and heavily it’ll travel, so it slides out all the way with a deafening, echoic bang once it hits as far as it can go. I wince, but the place is still all silence apart from me, so I continue, thumb through the tabs – and Roxy’s here.

But when I grab for the folder and flip it open, there’s nothing inside.

That’s when I become aware of the second presence in the room.

‘What are you doing here?’ Ellis whispers, shrouded in shadow.

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 8

I nearly jump out of my skin.

Ellis doesn’t seem to have clocked quite what’s going on yet, his expression more a vague curiosity than suggestive of an impending confrontation – but I can’t be sure. Curiosity alone doesn’t will you to follow someone while they’re breaking and entering. I close the folder as casually as I can manage and let it rest by my side. ‘What are you doing here?’ I volley back. ‘You’re gonna get us both in trouble.’

‘What is that?’ he asks, eyeing the folder in my hands, not taking a step forward but flinching like he wants to.

Let’s do this, then. Maybe this is what the universe has dictated – that I wasn’t to come to him, but he was to come to me. ‘Ellis,’ I say softly. ‘Roxy Raines. You’re related. Right?’

‘I knew that’s what this was,’ he hisses, practically stomping as he does, like an agitated toddler. ‘You looked at me funny on the beach. That song. I –’