Ellis doesn’t text me all morning. When lunch is in full swing – meaning, three occupied tables and two stragglers at the bar – I can’t get to my phone again before the end of my shift without it being obvious I’m slacking. Meanwhile, on the radio station playing over the speakers, the DJ mentions something about a Hurricane Arthur building over the Atlantic.

Unusual for a storm to come so early in the year …

Visions of my dad storming off the next ferry in a mad dash to find me and right my wrongs soils my waking thoughts and I’m aware I’m running out of time – Ellis – we’re running out of time and I need to speak with him now. Saturday’s practically another epoch, and Ellis still hasn’t texted me when my shifts ends at three.

Dad will be here in two weeks, maybe less. This can’t wait.

The face of the Willowwood is sporting a mid-afternoon glow of buttery sunshine playing in the crannies, casting deep purple shadows. The flower patches shudder, like they’re waving me in. I open the front doors as if I live there.

It’s an assault from the familiar scent of lemon. Ellis is sitting at the heavy front desk, reading something, and is startled when he clocks it’s me. ‘Mona! Wh-what are you doing here?’

‘I finished up at the diner and I need to talk to you now. Did you see my text?’

‘Yeah, sorry, I was gonna reply after work. But you can’t come here now. What if my mom hears what we’re talking about?’

‘It’ll take two seconds.’

Ellis pulls me aside and speaks sharply under his breath. ‘OK, two seconds.’ Then, for the first time since I’ve arrived, properly looks at my face. ‘Hey, what’d you do to your chin?’

I lower my voice. ‘I spoke to Frank today.’

‘What?’

I tell him about the whole thing: the early morning run and the fall; Frank taking me into the ticket booth; him mentioning Lenore and Constance; getting really tense and strange. I leave Frank’s implied vitriol towards Ellis. ‘He said Roxy got in fights all the time; he mentioned Lenore specifically. I don’t love the implications of a catty girl-fight narrative, but if it’s true, then –’

‘Couldn’t he be lying, though?’

‘Well, yeah. Definitely. But I get the sense there’s more he’s not telling me and he certainly seems off enough to have done something himself. Do you know anyone called Lenore who would have known Roxy? Hopefully still on the island?’

‘It rings a bell; I’ll have to –’