Somehow, Ismay managed to fall asleep, but half dreams and troubling thoughts bothered her all night. Bo played a major role in what was going through her mind, which made her uncomfortable. So did the way she justified wanting to spend more time with him. She was engaged to Remy; she needed to get her head and her heart back where they should be. But before she could move in that direction with any degree of confidence, she had to know whether her fiancé was the man she’d always assumed he was.
That was what it came down to, wasn’t it? That was the cause of her confusion and uncertainty. If she felt she really knew Remy—completely believed in him—she’d be able to put forth more of a dedicated effort to make the relationship work. Then even the contents of that duffel bag wouldn’t shake her.
But she hadn’t even had the nerve to tell Remy what she’d discovered. She’d been afraid he’d react in a way that would only create more doubt—because she feared her intuition had been trying to tell her something for quite a while. She’d certainly seen personality traits in Remy that concerned her. And those traits, taken together with the panties and jewelry in that bag, were—
“There you are!”
Although she couldn’t see who’d just spoken, Ismay recognized the voice. She twisted around to see Bastian coming up behind her, wearing swim trunks and carrying a towel, and nearly groaned. She’d chosen the public beach for a reason, had never dreamed he’d follow her here—not when he’d insisted the private stretch of beautiful white sand at the cottage was so much better. Apparently, he was more interested in company than privacy; he was always eager to put on a show.
“I thought you were going to see your friends today,” she said, covering her irritation and disappointment with a friendly voice.
“It’s such a gorgeous day I decided to put them off until tomorrow. Maybe then I can convince you to join us.” He winked as he laid out his towel and dropped down on it. “What are you reading?”
Crime and Punishment sat next to her. After waking up to a text from Bo this morning, telling her he’d finished the book and left it under the cottage porch for her, she’d gone out to retrieve it and added it to the contents of her beach bag. As he’d mentioned, it was a library book, so she needed to read it sooner rather than later but she hadn’t been able to sink into the story. She was too preoccupied with how she was going to track down Remy’s connection to the girl who’d lost her life in the fire and determine if it meant anything.
“Just an old classic,” she told Bastian as she watched three kids toss around a beach ball nearby.
He lifted his sunglasses as he picked up the book. “I’ve read this.”
From what she’d heard, he never really applied himself to anything, so she was somewhat skeptical that he’d actually read such a tome. “Did you like it?”
He thumbed through the book before setting it back down. “I did, actually.”
She suspected he was lying, but she didn’t press him. She’d moved on to The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, anyway, something she’d downloaded to her e-reader a couple of hours ago. At the moment, she was much more interested in the subject of that book and various facts she’d been looking up on the internet via her phone.
According to what she’d read, up to 30 percent of the population had some level of psychopathic traits. Most were subclinical, meaning they weren’t violent offenders, but they were callous and selfish enough to lie, cheat, steal, manipulate, and hurt people in other ways. She found it interesting that such individuals gravitated toward jobs that held some respect and power—like police, clergy, and CEOs. Doctor was also on the list, but so was lawyer.
Maybe none of it had any real meaning. The whole point of Ronson’s book was how dangerous it could be to classify someone as a psychopath according to some standardized test that could easily be too simplistic a measure for anything as complex as human thought and behavior—and therefore prone to error.
Still, psychologists had to work with something to try to protect the general population. Most used the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, or PCL-R, the R standing for the revised edition, which a Canadian forensic psychologist had developed in 1985. It listed twenty traits—everything from lack of emotional depth to parasitic lifestyle to grandiose sense of self-worth—to measure traits of psychopathic personality disorder.
If she were being brutally honest, Ismay could imagine Remy fitting within the 30 percent. That was what her intuition seemed to be telling her—that he had some traits that might cause problems down the line. But she couldn’t imagine him actually hurting someone, could she? Could he also fall within the 1.2 percent of US men who had enough psychopathic traits to be clinically significant?
Supposedly, 20 to 30 percent of US prison populations were psychopaths—but the smartest ones never got caught, and Remy was certainly smart. She’d read that psychopathy also tended to run in families, which didn’t surprise her. Bastian seemed to possess far more of the characteristics on the checklist than Remy—lack of emotional depth, callousness, poor behavioral controls. He also abused alcohol, which was listed as an indicator.
“How long do you plan to stay out here?” he asked when she went right back to reading. Obviously, he’d been hoping she’d entertain him—or, more accurately, let him entertain her.
“I’m waiting for Jack to join me,” she said without lowering her e-reader.
“Why isn’t he here now? What’s he doing?”
She figured she might as well tell Bastian that Jack was helping Bo. If he found out on his own, it’d look like they were trying to hide it. And once Bo and Jack started fixing the fence around the garden, they’d be in plain sight of the cottage. “He’s helping Bo.”
Bastian’s eyes widened. “Helping Bo do what?”
“Fix the roof and water damage at the bungalow. Jack’s good with his hands, and he was looking for something to keep his mind off his troubles.” She was tempted to elaborate, but she’d learned in law school that sometimes less was more, or at least the smarter way to go.
“We’re paying Bo enough that he can hire other people?” Bastian asked.
Ismay was tempted to take issue with the we in that statement. His parents were paying Bo. Bo didn’t work for him or Remy. But she bit her tongue. What she needed to do was act like she wasn’t all that involved, so that Bastian would drop his guard. “Jack’s doing it for free.”
He scowled at her. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Of course it does,” she replied mildly. “Like I said, he needs something to do. And Bo could use the help.”
His dark eyebrows slammed together. “Does Remy know?”
“I haven’t told him yet. I’ve been trying to leave him alone as much as possible so he can study. Besides, I can’t see why he’d care what Jack does.”
“It’s just...weird.”
She pulled her knees in and hugged them to her chest. “What’s weird about wanting to help? Jack grew up on a farm. He’s used to working hard.”
A skeptical expression settled over Bastian’s face. “Are you sure you aren’t trying to help Bo instead of your brother?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, even though she knew exactly what he meant.
“You really like our caretaker. I can tell.”
She busied herself putting Crime and Punishment back in her beach bag so she could return it to the library later. “I’m grateful for the way he looked out for me during the storm. That’s all.”
“You realize my mother told him to do that. He wasn’t some knight in shining armor riding to the rescue. It was his job.”
She could see a distorted version of herself in the reflection of his sunglasses as she took her hair down, raked her fingers through it, and pulled it up again. “So? It was still nice.”
With a sigh to demonstrate his exasperation, he stretched out on his towel but rose up almost immediately onto his elbows. “Nothing happened between you and Bo before I got here, did it?”
The question was wildly inappropriate and should’ve made her angry. But Bastian was like that—hot then cold, sometimes acerbic, sometimes unexpectedly magnanimous, always unpredictable, and...shallow. That was her assessment of him so far, anyway. But her anger was immediately quashed when the memory of taking Bo’s hand last night landed on her conscience like an anvil. She shouldn’t have done that. She wouldn’t want Remy to do the same thing with another woman. What had she been thinking? She still loved her fiancé. At least...she’d been fairly certain of that only a week or so ago, and real love couldn’t change that fast. “I hope you’re not asking what I think you’re asking,” she said, trying to sound offended enough to beat back his suspicion.
“No, never mind.”
Although he’d finally broken eye contact with her, Ismay felt a sudden impulse to call Remy and confess to taking Bo’s hand. But she couldn’t. That would only distract him at the worst possible moment and make him feel justified for acting like a jealous ass before there was any good reason to. It might also cause the Windsors to turn on Bo.
What she had to do was stay in better control of herself in the future. That would be easier if she could just keep her distance from Bo. But he was letting her brother stay with him, and helping her determine what that stash in the closet might mean. She couldn’t avoid him altogether.
Which reminded her of Lyssa Helberg. She wanted to casually bring up the topic of the past to see how Bastian reacted. So she asked him what spending summers on the island was like, whether he’d made any lasting friends here, and, eventually, if he’d known the family of the girl whose remains had been discovered at the lighthouse last year.
He told her he’d always loved summers on the island, they were some of his fondest memories, but most of the people he’d met through the years weren’t his age and they didn’t stay in touch. He said the girl who’d been killed had come to the island with her family as a tourist, so he’d never met her. He’d merely heard about her when she went missing and again when her body was found.
But bringing up Emily’s case allowed Ismay to work the conversation around to the subject of crime on the island, which opened up a small opportunity. She just had to handle it well. “What happened to her is terrifying,” she said. “Is there a lot of crime on the island?”
A beach ball came bouncing over to them, and he tossed it back to the kids. “No. You don’t have to worry about anything like that.”
She slid her sunglasses farther up the bridge of her nose. “Then why’d you call my parents and tell them you’d look out for me while I was here?”
A sly smile slanted his lips. “They told you about that, did they?”
“They did.”
“I just wanted to let them know you’re in good hands now that I’m here. That there’s no reason to worry about you.”
Could his motive really have been that altruistic? Somehow, Ismay couldn’t believe Bastian was so thoughtful. His call to her parents felt orchestrated, designed to impress her—or them. She didn’t know which.
Maybe he’d done it just to bug Remy. Remy claimed his brother did whatever he could to get under his skin. “That was nice of you,” she said, smiling despite her true feelings.
He seemed to revel in the praise. He also seemed to accept what she’d said as sincere, even though her true opinion was that he’d overstepped. “I have my moments.”
“But why did you feel the need?” she pressed. “If the island is so safe?”
He seemed to be searching for an answer when she added, “Wasn’t there another girl? Lyssa Something? Who died at a party?”
His mouth fell open—proof he was shocked to hear Lyssa’s name. “That was something else entirely,” he said. “An accident that happened years ago.”
Although mentioning Lyssa caused a much stronger reaction than mentioning Emily, Ismay had already figured out that the Windsors had known Lyssa. “But isn’t it sort of weird that everyone else got out?”
“It was tragic, not weird. I really liked Lyssa.” He scooped up a handful of sand and let it drain through his fingers as he added sullenly, “I can’t believe Remy told you about her.”
Remy hadn’t mentioned Lyssa, but she went along with the assumption, since it was a logical one. “He didn’t say much, just that a girl died in a fire at a party he went to once.” She was pressing her luck assuming Remy had been there, but she couldn’t get the information she needed without risk. “And that it was something he’d never forget.”
She couldn’t see Bastian’s eyes behind his dark lenses, but it seemed as though he were looking right through her. Had she screwed up? Given herself away? It was obvious he didn’t like this subject. “Remy never cared about Lyssa,” he said when he finally spoke again. “And she certainly didn’t care about him. She didn’t want anything to do with him.”
Then why had Remy—if it was Remy—hung on to her picture? And what was it doing in that duffel bag with the other items?
“What happened? How’d the fire get started?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he snapped and got up and grabbed his towel.
Despite having sunglasses on, too, she raised a hand to block the sun. “You’re leaving? But...you just got here.”
“I’m going back to the cottage. It’s too damn hot for the beach today,” he said, but she got the distinct impression that his leaving had nothing to do with the temperature.
“You told her about Lyssa?” Bastian knew he probably shouldn’t have called his brother. This wouldn’t end well. Most of their conversations didn’t. But he’d had enough to drink since he’d come back from the beach that he was aching for a fight.
“What are you talking about?” Remy sounded confused.
“Lyssa Helberg. I know you remember her, so don’t pretend.”
“Bastian, I’m studying. I don’t have time for this.”
“You’d better make time, brother,” he said, pivoting at the fireplace to head back across the living room. “After all, I’m here alone with your fiancée.”
There was a long pause. Bastian almost thought his brother had hung up—until Remy spoke again. “Is that some sort of threat?”
“What would you do if it was? Go to Mom and Dad?” Bastian peered through the window toward the walkway leading to the front porch. It’d been two hours since he’d left Ismay at the public beach. He didn’t expect her to come back yet, not with her brother joining her at some point. They’d probably hang out all afternoon and have dinner together. But he also didn’t want her to walk in on this conversation.
“I might. You know how you get.”
Did he have to be so damn patronizing? Bastian could never have a legitimate complaint. Remy passed off whatever he had to say as his own fault because he wasn’t right in the head, which was so fucked up it made Bastian instantly angry. “Stop with the bullshit! Don’t pass this off like you do everything else, saying it must be me because it’s always me.”
“Will you calm down?”
“Don’t tell me to calm down!” Bastian warned. “You think you’re so superior, just because you’ve been through med school. But you’re not a doctor yet, even though you act like you are.”
“I don’t have to be a doctor to know you need mood stabilizers or something, buddy. Anyone who’s around you for five minutes can tell you that.”
“Fuck you!” he said.
“I don’t remember telling Ismay anything about Lyssa,” Remy said, ignoring Bastian’s foul language. “I can’t imagine why I ever would.”
“You must have. She just asked me about her.”
“What would make her ask about Lyssa?”
“She heard about Emily Hutchins, and...never mind. It doesn’t matter how it came up. It just did. And she said you told her Lyssa died in a fire.”
“She did die in a fire.”
“Because of you!”
“Not because of me.” His brother remained calm, but his words were velvet over steel.
“She was the only girl I ever loved!” Bastian railed. “I don’t want you talking about her. Ever! Do you hear? Not to anyone.”
“Fine,” Remy responded wearily. “Like I said, I don’t remember doing it in the first place. Maybe Bo told her.”
“He didn’t live on the island back then. But there’s something about that son of a bitch. He watches everything. Listens to everything. I don’t trust him. Neither should you. He acts respectful, but... I think he hates us.”
“He doesn’t hate us,” Remy said. “Don’t get paranoid—I’m not worried about Bo. Now I have to go. My exams are coming up, and I’m running out of time to study.”
“There’s something going on between him and Ismay, Remy.”
The silence that followed was all too satisfying, so satisfying that Bastian was tempted to reinforce his statement—to tell Remy that he was losing her to Bo, that he’d found them sleeping in the same room even though the storm no longer made that necessary, that her brother had just arrived and yet he was helping Bo fix the place up after the storm for free.
Still, he held off, so he wouldn’t make Remy defensive. He’d said enough; he just needed to let the seed of suspicion he’d planted take root and grow on its own...
“What makes you say that?” Remy’s voice was low when he spoke again.
“You might think my head is screwed up, but I’m not so screwed up that I could miss something like that.”
“What would she want with a caretaker?”
“Maybe she doesn’t want anything long-term. Maybe she’s after what a lot of tourists are—one hell of a fun summer.”
After another long pause, his brother said, “I’ll take care of it,” and then he was gone.