Ismay could tell that Bastian was out to show Jack a good time. Instead of letting her spend time alone with her brother, he’d insisted they all go to an expensive restaurant neither she nor Jack would’ve chosen, made a big show of picking up the check, and then coerced them into going to a different restaurant to cap off the night with a final drink—or in Jack’s case, dessert. Ismay was glad Remy’s brother was on his best behavior and seemed to be welcoming Jack to the island, but she was anxious about Bastian discovering Jack was staying with Bo. She’d had her brother meet them at the first restaurant as though he’d just walked down the street from Hotel Mariners, so if Bastian found out, she’d look pretty ridiculous.
The possibility kept Ismay from enjoying herself. But it wasn’t just that. All afternoon, she’d been uneasy about the exchange between Bo and Honey at lunch. She wanted to talk to him about what it meant that the girl in the picture had died in a house fire. With Jack at Bo’s side almost every moment, however, she hadn’t had the opportunity. She hoped they could talk later tonight, that maybe he’d meet her on the beach again.
So she laughed and talked and went through the motions of enjoying herself while Bastian reveled in the attention. He loved having an audience, did most of the talking, and didn’t seem to realize that she and Jack were growing tired of listening. Afraid he might go on all night, regaling them with story after story, she yawned and stretched before he could order yet another drink. “I think I’m ready to call it a night, Bastian. Jack must still be jet-lagged, too.”
“We can drop him by his hotel on our way back to the cottage,” Bastian said.
“Actually, we’d like to call our parents and check in with them, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to hang out with him for a bit.”
He didn’t seem happy she wasn’t planning to go back with him. He liked to be the one in charge.
Somewhat reluctantly, Bastian drained his glass, tossed some cash on the table, and stood. But he was unsteady enough she decided it wouldn’t be safe to let him drive. “Why don’t you take an Uber, and I’ll bring the Jeep?”
“Why?” he countered.
She used the app on her phone to request a ride. “You’ve had much more to drink than I have.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted, wearing a skeptical expression. “I can drive.”
“There’s no need for you to.” She showed him her phone. “Look, I’ve already called for a ride.”
She guessed he would’ve given her more of an argument but having the Uber on its way put a decisive end to the question, and she was grateful he accepted it. She didn’t want him to get belligerent and cause a scene at the restaurant as she tried to fight him for the keys.
Fortunately, he handed them over without further dispute.
“You’ll be coming back soon?” he asked as they waited on the curb for his ride.
“Pretty soon,” she replied. She wasn’t going to let him hold her to anything.
“See you when you get home.”
With any luck he’d be asleep, but she nodded and smiled as she sent him off. Then she turned to her brother. “Thank God.”
“No kidding,” Jack grumbled. “That dude’s a pompous ass. Don’t tell me Remy is anything like him.”
“No, they’re very different.” At least in most regards. Remy wasn’t a braggart, but he could be selfish—not that she wanted to get that specific.
Jack jerked his head toward the Windsors’ vehicle. “Nice move on getting the Jeep.”
She pressed the fob that would unlock the doors. “I couldn’t let him drive like that.”
“Dude thinks he can do anything,” Jack said.
Ismay didn’t comment. She felt bad disparaging her future brother-in-law, but he was pretty darn insufferable.
“So where are we going now?” her brother asked. “We should probably wait a while before heading over to that side of the island.”
“Yeah. Just in case he doesn’t go in right away or walks over to Bo’s to check on the repairs. You never know.”
“Should we go ahead and check in with Mom and Dad?”
That had been an excuse, but Ismay thought it was a pretty good idea. While they sat in the Jeep, they called them on Bluetooth.
Their mother answered right away. “How are you enjoying the island?” she asked after they’d said their hellos.
“It’s beautiful here,” Jack said.
There wasn’t much enthusiasm behind her brother’s words, but Ismay had to respect that he was trying. “He’s lucky he got here after the storm.”
“What storm?” Betty asked.
“We had a bad one.”
“It felled a lot of trees and that sort of thing,” Jack explained. “I’ve been helping the Windsors’ caretaker fix his bungalow. There was a significant amount of water damage.”
“I’m glad you’re doing your part,” Betty said.
Jack moved the seat back to accommodate his long legs. “Can you get Dad on the phone, too?”
Ismay got the impression her brother was homesick and wasn’t surprised. Other than leaving for college, which was only a half hour away, or maybe driving down to Salt Lake or up to Boise to see friends, he’d never been away from Tremonton.
“What’s it like there?” Buzz asked when Betty used her speaker function to allow their father to participate in the conversation.
“It’s different. Feels almost like colonial New England to me,” Jack said with a laugh.
“I’d like to see it one day.”
That comment took Ismay by surprise. Her father wasn’t much for travel. “You two should come out,” she said.
“Can’t do it right now,” Buzz told her. “Too much work to be done here.”
Ismay had expected a refusal. It was harvest time. And her parents kept a tight budget. They still had a lot of children to support.
“I’ll send plenty of pictures,” Jack said.
Their parents asked about Remy and when he’d arrive, where Jack was staying and what he planned to do with his time. He said he’d try to find a job after the bungalow was finished and the fence surrounding the garden was mended. Then Jack asked what he’d probably wanted to ask from the very beginning.
“Any word from Ashleigh?”
There was a brief silence before his mother answered. “I saw her in the grocery store the other day. But she wouldn’t acknowledge me.”
He shoved a hand through his thick dark hair. “Was she alone?”
“No, Jessica and the kids were with her.”
“Did she seem happy?”
“I couldn’t tell, Jack,” Betty said. “As soon as she spotted me, she grabbed their cart and shot down a different aisle.”
He let his head fall back on the headrest. “Wow. They’re out grocery shopping together...”
Ismay knew he was still hoping Ashleigh would come back to him, that he wouldn’t really be stuck in the nightmare in which he found himself.
Reaching over, she squeezed his forearm. “Everything’s going to be okay,” she murmured, then spoke up for the sake of their parents. “We’d better go. Jack’s worked hard all day. He’s got to be tired.”
“We’re heading to bed, too,” Buzz said.
“Good night,” Ismay said, but her mother caught her before she could hang up.
“Ismay?”
“What?”
“Remy’s brother sure seems like a great guy. It’s a relief to know you’re in good hands.”
Ismay moved her purse from her lap to the floor of the passenger side. “What’d you say?”
“I said I like Bastian. It was considerate of him to call and assure us that he’s looking out for you.”
“Bastian called you? How? When?”
Her mother sounded confused when she responded. “It was just this morning. I—I thought you’d given him our number.”
“No, I... Why would he feel the need to call you?”
“I don’t know, but it was very thoughtful.”
“What’d he say, exactly?”
“Just that he could tell we raised you right, that you’re a very nice girl, and it must be hard having you so far from home. He wanted to assure us that he’s looking out for you while you’re there.”
“Why would I need someone to look out for me?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” her father responded. “Why would it hurt?”
Ismay began to rub her forehead. She couldn’t really fault Bastian for what he’d done. She supposed, on the face of it, his call was polite. And yet...like so many other things about him, it was odd.
“He’s...different,” she said.
“In what way?” Betty asked. “Because he seemed perfectly genuine to us. To be honest, we wish...”
“What?” Ismay prodded when her words fell off.
“We wish Remy would show a little interest in us. We’ve never even spoken to him, so imagine our surprise to hear from his twin brother!” her mother finished.
Ismay had made many excuses for the fact that Remy seemed so indifferent toward her family. She’d be grateful if she didn’t have to deal with his brother, so maybe she was just as bad. But at least she’d met Bastian before making that determination.
“Aren’t you glad he’s there?” her father asked.
She remembered her doorknob jiggling in the middle of the night and the fear that’d welled up. She wasn’t glad Bastian was there. She’d felt much safer before he arrived.
Bo never thought he’d have to sneak out of his own bungalow, but Ismay had texted him to see if he’d meet her on the beach, and he didn’t want Jack to know he was leaving the house. Jack probably wouldn’t care; he wasn’t intrusive like that. But it was late enough that Bo knew Ismay’s brother would wonder where he could be going. If he was careful, Jack wouldn’t even have to know he’d left.
The front door clicked as he shut it behind him, so he waited a few seconds to see if any of the lights went on. When they didn’t, he decided he was in the clear and hurried down the walkway before circling around the cottage to the beach.
Ismay was already there, sitting on the soft sand with the wind ruffling her hair as she stared out to sea. Hearing him approach, she looked over and scrambled to her feet.
“That girl in the picture died in a house fire?” she said.
“Apparently.” Finally able to show her the article Honey had given him, he pulled it from his pocket and turned on his phone’s flashlight.
“What do you think?” he asked when he could tell she was getting to the end. “Did you see the picture?”
She held it closer to her face before looking up. “Remy’s in the front row.”
“Along with his family.”
“So...maybe their families were friends?”
“I haven’t been able to determine that yet. I’m sorry if my asking Honey made you feel as though I didn’t keep my word.”
“It’s okay. You covered for it well. It just...took me by surprise.”
“She’s lived on the island for a long time. I didn’t know how else to go about finding out who was in that photograph.”
“It worked,” she said.
“It did. Now we just need to figure out why that photograph was in the duffel bag.”
With a sigh, she sat down again, and he sat beside her. “Coming here has been nothing like I anticipated,” she said. “I’m worried about Jack. And Bastian. And, most of all, that damn duffel bag.”
He could see her point. “It’s not turning out to be much of a vacation so far.”
“There’ve been a few highlights.”
The sound of the surf had always been comforting to Bo. That was part of what kept him on Mariners. “Such as?”
“You’re one of them,” she said.
He didn’t know how to respond. Meeting her had been a highlight for him, too—but it had also introduced some risk and uncertainty into his life right when he’d begun to feel he could quit looking over his shoulder. “I’m glad it hasn’t been all bad.” Making light of it would keep them from drifting too close, he hoped.
“I’ll have to figure out a way to ask Bastian, and maybe Remy, about Lyssa Helberg,” she said. “See how they react, what they have to say.”
“I can talk to the librarian, Ivy Hawthorne, in the morning. She knows a lot about what goes on here.”
Ismay hugged her knees to her chest. “How will you bring it up?”
“Just by following up on what Honey told her—that I found Lyssa’s picture in a library book.”
She heaved another sigh. “That’ll be good.”
“Shouldn’t raise too many alarms,” he added.
“Do you think we’re worried for no good reason?” she asked. “Sometimes it feels ridiculous that I’m even trying to figure this stuff out. Maybe I should just ask Remy about it.”
From what Bo had seen, most normal, good people struggled to believe psychopaths truly existed. Or rather, they knew psychopaths existed on a cognitive level, but they couldn’t imagine ever being victimized themselves. “I wouldn’t,” he said.
The look on her face when she glanced over at him suggested she’d heard the caution in his voice. “Why not?”
He refused to meet her gaze, because he couldn’t tell her why—at least he couldn’t say what he really wanted to say. “I just wouldn’t.”
“You think that duffel bag could indicate something terrible?”
“Don’t you? Isn’t that the problem?”
She didn’t answer.
“I think it could also mean nothing,” Bo continued. “But we won’t know until we learn more.”
She let go of her knees and began to push the sand into a pile. “Bastian called my parents this morning.”
“What for?”
“To tell them he’s looking out for me while I’m here.”
“What would make him do that?”
“I have no idea. He didn’t tell me he was going to do it. I don’t even know how he got their number.”
“Do they have a landline?”
“Yeah. They’ve had the same number for years—since I can remember.”
“Then he was probably able to look it up online.”
“But why would he go to the trouble?” she asked. “That’s what has me boggled. He was such an asshole when he first got here. And now he’s trying so hard to be the man. It’s just...weird.”
Bo shrugged. “He gets off on doing weird things,” he said, but he was willing to bet the way Bastian had acted at first had more to do with Bo than Ismay. Bastian hadn’t liked finding them together, hadn’t wanted to be one-upped by a mere caretaker.
“I guess so,” she said. “But... I’ve been feeling strange ever since I got here. Everything I thought I knew... Never mind.”
He helped her pile more sand on top of the mound she was creating. “Are you having second thoughts about spending the summer here?”
“It’s not that exactly. It’s... Oh, never mind. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“There’s a lot going on.”
“And I don’t really know where to turn,” she admitted.
He wanted to tell her she could turn to him. He also wanted to put his arm around her and pull her close. But he resisted—so he was surprised when her hand slid into his.
He knew he shouldn’t accept the overture, but he wasn’t about to reject it. He stared down at their clasped hands, his heart pounding far harder than it should as he threaded his fingers through hers.
Ismay wasn’t sure what she was doing. To second-guess everything she’d thought was a given—that Remy was a wonderful person who would go on to do great things in the medical field, that they’d overcome the problems they’d been having in their relationship and find a way to stay together, that she’d enjoy a leisurely couple of months on Mariners and go back to California a new woman ready to tackle her own career—made her feel as though she’d been suddenly cast adrift. She certainly couldn’t lean on anyone in her family. They were going through enough with the implosion of her brother’s marriage. She couldn’t lean on Remy or his brother, who were also the reason for most of her concerns. That left Bo as the closest and most accessible friend, the one who’d been supporting her since she’d arrived on Mariners. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t known each other long. When she was with him, everything felt better.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” he said, obviously referring to the contact.
“We’re just holding hands,” she told him. “There’s nothing wrong with that. Lots of friends do it.”
“That’s fine, I guess. Except...”
“Except...” she prompted.
“What I’m feeling is definitely not platonic.”
As guarded and cautious as he was, this admission took her by surprise. But he was a person who called everything the way he saw it and, apparently, this was no different.
Knowing he was right, she pulled her hand away and opened her mouth to say she hadn’t meant anything by it. But that would be a lie. And she couldn’t lie to Bo. She felt like she was always pretending lately. Pretending not to feel estranged from her family, even though she did, probably because she was the only girl and had chosen a different path. Pretending not to feel strange about staying with Bastian when he made her so uncomfortable. Pretending all was well with Remy so that he could get through his exams when she’d been having serious misgivings about their relationship for quite some time. And, of course, she was pretending she hadn’t found what she’d discovered in Remy’s closet. So, instead of telling Bo the contact hadn’t meant anything, she simply said, “I’m sorry.”
He said nothing. They sat in silence, listening to the churning of the ocean and watching the waves wash up the beach toward them. But then she heard him mutter, “Aw, what the hell,” and he put his arm around her and pulled her into the warmth and shelter of his body. “Don’t be worried,” he said. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
She closed her eyes as she rested her head on his shoulder. She had only a second before she had to pull away again, or she really would cross the line, but she was going to take this chance to imprint the feel of him on her brain. If all things remained the same, this summer could be the only time their lives would ever overlap, and there was something tragic about that.