Black Rock Bay

by Brianna Labuskes

  Mia’s smile was rueful as she looked down so that her hair slid in front of her face. Always hiding something, no matter how small it might be. “I’ll tell you the truth. You have my word.”

  Izzy knew she couldn’t ask for anything else. But as Mia’s eyes tracked over the maps, the fireplace, the couch, as they lingered on the stairs, before continuing to the stack of books on the coffee table, the jewelry box on the mantel, Izzy knew she hadn’t really won.

  Maybe Mia would tell her truths, but that didn’t mean she would tell Izzy what she was thinking.

  And Izzy had a feeling that the space in between the two was where Mia would flee to hide.

  It was fully dark by the time they left the lighthouse behind, and Izzy huddled in on herself, cursing the ferry’s schedule that had them arriving on the island so late in the day.

  “Hey, the doc said he’d be at his office till six, right?” Izzy asked, the words made shaky by the chattering of her teeth.

  Mia slid her a glance. “Yeah.”

  “Maybe he has the addresses for the guys who found the body.” Izzy shrugged, or tried to. It wasn’t clear what came through the layers of clothing.

  Glancing at her phone’s clock, Mia nodded. “Yeah. They’re fishermen, so they’re probably home. Let’s do it.”

  “Speaking of the doc . . .”

  Mia must have heard something in her voice. She stopped, turned, ducked her chin so her cheeks were protected from the cold. “What’s up?”

  “Walk and talk, Hart, walk and talk.” Izzy snagged her elbow to pull her into motion. Mia laughed as she fell into step. “You seemed to be on board with his suicide theory.”

  It wasn’t a test, it wasn’t. But they were going to have to work on being up-front with each other.

  Even though Izzy hadn’t framed it as a question, Mia was good enough to know what she was asking.

  “Horses and zebras, right?” Mia shrugged. It was something of a motto for them, that old saying: when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. Too often on their cold cases, they were asked to make leaps of logic when evidence didn’t exist to back it up. But they both knew they needed to be kept in check sometimes. If either of them ever wandered too far down a path, the other reined her in. Horses and zebras.

  “You think we’re making this too complicated?”

  Mia paused, and this time Izzy stuttered to a stop next to her. “I think you and I, we tend to see murder where it might not be.”

  The off notes, though. The lack of clothes in winter. Ending up in the ocean. These weren’t reaches.

  But Izzy knew that the people who thought “zebra” instead of “horse” were also convinced they were right. She nodded once, not an agreement, really, but an acknowledgment, and they started walking again.

  “I’m not convinced either way,” Mia said softly after a few minutes. “I know I want it to be suicide, though.”

  Izzy gasped, overdramatic. “Mia Hart is volunteering information? We’ve really made progress.” She wiped at a fake tear while Mia shoved her hard enough for Izzy to stumble a bit.

  This was a sore spot, and maybe too soon to joke about. But they couldn’t be careful around each other, tiptoeing and cutting off thoughts just to skirt the confrontation. That’s not how they worked.

  “Why do you want it to be suicide?”

  Mia tipped her head back toward the lighthouse that was almost out of sight. “So we can leave. This isn’t exactly my favorite place to be.” She held up a hand. “I still think it’s worth poking around, chatting to some folks in town. We’ll check out his notes, too. Try to figure if anyone cracked and talked to him.”

  They walked in silence until they were nearly at the tree line.

  “Murdoch must think it’s murder,” Mia said, putting voice to the vague idea that had been lurking behind all of Izzy’s unease. Why send two of your specialized cold-case detectives out to investigate a suicide? Even if it was because Mia was from St. Lucy’s, that didn’t warrant sending them out here for anything less than possible foul play.

  “Did she tell you why?”

  “No.” Mia shook her head. “Think she’s like you. Gut feeling, a few details that don’t add up.”

  “We work the case then.” Izzy shrugged, because that’s all they could do. Strip away expectations, be smart about it, but also question anything out of place.

  “Yeah,” Mia said, but her voice cut off, abrupt enough for Izzy to glance over.

  Mia must have been caught midstep, because her position was awkward, wobbly. Her eyes were locked on the line of trees toward their left, the rest of her body rigid.

  “What . . . ?” Izzy’s gaze ping-ponged between the darkness and Mia’s face.

  “Quiet,” Mia snapped.

  Where Izzy’s pulse had ticked up a notch before, that harsh command sent it rabbiting, fast and uncertain, as she reached for the gun she wore holstered beneath her jacket.

  “Do you . . . ?” Mia rasped out, and then she was gone. Sprinting, full-out, across the short expanse, her boots sinking into the snow without any hesitation in her stride.

  Cursing, Izzy followed, her limbs awkward from the layers, her feet unsure of the terrain. Mia pulled ahead easily, slipping into the forest along with the wind.

  Izzy swore with each ragged inhale. Branches caught at her arms, at her face, as she tried, and failed, to follow Mia’s path. Her foot caught a buried root that sent her sprawling, and the hardpack against her face might as well have been tiny shards of glass slicing into the windblown, raw skin of her cheek.

  She shoved herself up, shaking off as she did, assessing for injuries. Her knee throbbed beneath a wet patch, but there was nothing broken. Not that she could tell.

  Once she was sure she could, Izzy started running again, desperately searching for prints to follow. While she was prepared to get lost in an effort to find Mia, it didn’t prove necessary.

  Mia was on her knees on the path up ahead, staring into the void, her hands resting against her thighs. The rise and fall of her shoulders was erratic, but it was slowing even as Izzy came to a stop next to her.

  Izzy bent over at the waist, embarrassed by her noisy gulps of air. “What the hell?”

  She asked it quietly, despite the fact that Mia’s calm posture spoke of a threat unrealized.

  “I thought I saw . . .” The words were dragged over gravel. “I’m sorry, that was stupid.”

  Straightening, Izzy pressed the heel of her palm against the stitch that tugged at her side, a direct result of her erratic breathing. “Yeah, you think?”

  She waited for more, but Mia was silent.

  “Who?” Izzy finally prodded.

  Mia glanced back at her, her chin touching her shoulder, her hair brushing against her cheeks. “It was no one. Just a shadow.”

  Izzy met her eyes. “Who?”

  It was Mia who looked away first, back toward the empty path ahead of her. The whisper, when it came, chilled Izzy beyond the snow, the ice, the wind.

  “Asher.”

  “It was the way he moved,” Mia said, the first words she’d spoken to Izzy since she’d pushed to her feet in the woods. They’d stopped by the doc’s place to get the address for the fishermen and then walked the empty streets toward the small shared house the men lived in.

  In all that time Mia hadn’t met her eyes once.

  “It was someone, then?” Izzy asked, because she was still off-balance, not even sure what had happened back there. Asher. Mia had whispered the name like a confession, a penance for the way she’d run off. She’d thought she’d seen her dead friend in the woods, or, at the very least, something that looked like him. Was it her imagination? It had to be. It had to be.

  “No, I’m sure it was nothing. A shadow.” But Mia said it like she was convincing herself. “Just dredging up those memories . . .”

  Why was Mia seeing her dead friends in the shadows, though? Christ. Too close, too close, too close. The mantra repeated. Mia shou
ldn’t be back on St. Lucy’s. She shouldn’t have taken this case.

  If Izzy wanted answers, she knew better than to attack from the front, though. This required a more subtle approach. It was how they usually handled their suspects, their witnesses. “What was he like? Asher?”

  Mia stuttered a bit, her boot catching in a footprint that had half filled up with more snow. Izzy was almost thankful for the sign of life, the proof that someone else had walked there, that they weren’t alone. There was a quiet that had settled into the island along with the storm, and it had Izzy swiveling to check her peripherals every few steps.

  “He was my best friend,” Mia said, warm, as if it were a familiar vow. “He was kind of a scrawny kid, had bad asthma and allergies. But, God, he never backed down from a dare.”

  Most of Mia’s face was covered by her scarf, but a smile had tucked into the corners of her eyes, the lines there thin but noticeable.

  “Did you guys ever?” Izzy let her voice go suggestive so she didn’t have to spell it out.

  “No.” There was no wiggle room in the denial. But Mia was also a good liar, so Izzy didn’t trust it. “I was with someone else.”

  Izzy thought back to the darkened hallway from earlier, the pictures. “Big jock guy?”

  A gurgle that was an almost laugh swallowed. “Cash Bishop. We were all friends since we were babies.”

  “And then Asher started dating Monroe Bell,” Izzy filled in. To be young and riddled with hormones. Izzy wondered how those dynamics had played out. Not well, if the end result was any indication.

  “People thought I’d be jealous.” Mia nudged them toward a side street. Up ahead at the end of the lane was a one-story house, like most of the island seemed to be, its windows bright, welcoming. “But we weren’t like that, Asher and me.”

  “Then he was okay with you and Cash?” Izzy asked.

  “I thought so,” Mia said quietly, but she’d turned inward now, the wall between them thick and impenetrable.

  The part of Izzy that made her good at cold cases, the one that found the out-of-place nugget of information and didn’t stop questioning until it made sense—the one that her mother had cursed as her bulldog stubbornness—wanted to dig in, root around in whatever messed-up relationships had been going on in a way that would leave everyone emotionally bruised and bleeding in the process. The part that realized she’d been asking mostly to suss out Mia’s current mental state whispered that she needed to focus on the reporter.

  Izzy bit back any further questions as they climbed the stoop to the fishermen’s house.

  Greg Lawson had only an inch over Mia, and the ruddy, chapped skin of someone who worked outside. He smiled, affable and welcoming, when he saw them, and the fondness that lingered in his expression as he invited them inside told of a kind soul.

  Brandon was his visual opposite, a tall, thin whip of a boy, who was the kind of skinny where you could see his frame, the sharp points of his collarbones, the jut of his wrists and knuckles. He was not as welcoming, hovering in the doorway of the living room, all angry eyebrows and suspicious frowns, as Greg settled them into an overstuffed yellow couch.

  “And you didn’t recognize him from his stay?” Mia asked Greg after declining several offers of cookies, tea, ice cream, and, inexplicably, fish. So far, the interrogation had proven mostly useless, a repetition of what they’d already been told.

  “Not enough to place a name to the face,” Greg said. “He looked familiar, right?”

  “Yup.” Brandon nodded, his arms crossed over his chest. “Familiar.”

  “But, like I said, just one of those visiting types.” Greg leaned forward a little, the skin around his eyes crinkling with an inside joke. “You know those artists.”

  Mia straightened. “He wasn’t an artist.”

  Greg leaned back. “Oh,” he said, glancing at Brandon, who was watching Mia. “My mistake. I just assumed.”

  “He was a reporter,” Mia said, slowly. But Greg just nodded, accepting it without protest.

  “We’ve been gone for a few long stretches in recent months.” Greg shrugged. “Don’t even get to church as often as I’d like to, if I’m being honest.”

  Izzy wasn’t sure what that had to do with the dead reporter, but Mia hummed like it meant something.

  “And you called Sammy right away? When you found the body.”

  “Mainland cops first, right?” Greg looked at Brandon for confirmation.

  “Yup.” The boy’s eyes were dark and flinty.

  “Then Sammy,” Greg continued, his hands relaxed, resting on his belly. “He took it from there.”

  “Did anyone else see or handle the body?” Izzy asked.

  Greg smacked his lips. “Can’t say they did. But can’t swear against it, either.”

  Mia smiled her thanks as she stood up, and Izzy followed. “If you think of anything else . . .”

  “We’ll be sure to tell you ladies.” Greg huffed to his feet. “Won’t we, Brandon?”

  There was enough of a nudge in his voice that Izzy stopped, then glanced between the two.

  Brandon shuffled back, shoulders rounded and protective. “It’s nothing.”

  “Sometimes what seems like nothing can actually help us solve the case,” Mia said gently, and Izzy could almost see the Thanks, Sherlock sitting in the twist of his lips.

  “Listen, it’s not a big deal,” Brandon said, Greg watching him patiently. “When we were leaving the doc’s place, though.”

  “Yes?” Mia prompted.

  “He . . . He called someone.” Brandon shrugged. “Didn’t say a name. Didn’t even overhear anything really. I only even know about it because I had stopped to tie my shoe.”

  “Sammy told the person about the body?” Izzy clarified.

  “Maybe, I don’t know,” Brandon said, his arms coming up again to cross over his chest. “Like I said, it’s nothing.”

  The downward slant of his jaw, his rounded shoulders, his eyes on the floor—he wasn’t giving them anything else. Mia apparently read it, too, because she stood without protest.

  “Okay, thank you, Brandon,” Mia said, and left her card with Greg. “Anything else, no matter how small.”

  His fond expression didn’t change as he patted her on the shoulder and promised he’d call.

  “Not much new there,” Izzy said, her arms instinctually wrapping across her chest as they stepped back outside.

  “Hmm,” Mia hummed. It was noncommittal enough to catch Izzy’s attention.

  Izzy lowered her voice, though there was little danger of being overheard in this wind. “The doc?”

  Mia flinched, almost imperceptible but there nonetheless. She probably didn’t want their guy to be someone she’d been friends with, which was understandable, but problematic if the island was as small as Mia advertised.

  “It’s strange that Brandon noticed a phone call.”

  That was true. The brain was good at assessing and then dismissing extraneous information. People called it a gut feeling or a sixth sense or hairs raised at the nape of the neck, without realizing they’d just picked up on something about their surroundings that they hadn’t even realized they’d observed.

  But Brandon had been able to pinpoint what felt odd about the moment. That meant it had probably stood out enough to make it into a memory.

  “So the doc goes on our persons-of-interest list,” Izzy said, as they passed the morgue, which was closed up for the night.

  It wouldn’t hurt to swing by the bar, would it? Catch Sammy in a more casual setting, possibly with alcohol loosening his tongue. “You know, I think there was a mention of an adult beverage at some point?”

  With an exhale that crystallized into white ice in the night air, Mia stared at the darkened windows of the doc’s place. She nodded once, more to herself than to Izzy, and started toward Main Street. “I definitely owe you a drink.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MIA

  The bar on St. Lucy’s was technical
ly called Macky’s, but it had never actually been referred to as anything other than “the bar.” It was the only place on the island that served liquor, so there was no chance of confusion.

  Although she’d agreed to go, Mia was already regretting the decision.

  There was going to be gossip now that she was back. At first it wouldn’t be terrible, focusing mostly on the fact that she was home after fifteen years. But if she was stuck on St. Lucy’s for more than a day or two, those whispers would turn biting, laced as they would be with suspicion and bitterness and a very human hunger for others’ misfortune. If she went to the bar that night, she’d kick-start the whole process, and then there would be a ticking clock until she heard the first snide remark that someone didn’t bother to hide behind a dropped voice or the back of a hand.

  But the little outing was about more than the alcohol that would be sure to take the edge off the shakiness she hadn’t been able to soothe following their trip to the lighthouse, the figure in the woods that had seemed too real, the moment she’d blinked and found herself kneeling in the snow without memory of sinking to the ground.

  Gossip flowed like water through this town, and she wanted to drag her fingertips through the currents to tell which way they flowed when it came to what exactly had happened to the reporter.

  Mia and Izzy finished the rest of the walk in silence, and Mia was left wondering if the lingering, sidelong glances from Izzy were real or imagined. If the situation had been reversed, Mia would have been more demanding about the incident in the woods. She’d run off, without explanation, completely breaking any kind of proper protocol. She’d endangered not only herself but Izzy as well. For what? For an overactive imagination and a hint of terror lingering behind the fog she knew so well.

  But maybe Izzy was going easy on her after the emotionally draining day.

  The bar was dark, cozy; the neon signs that hung along the wall buzzed, casting shadows onto the faces of the men who perched on the vinyl stools. The light caught the bottles that lined the shelves, the amber liquid absorbing the pink and yellow into its depths. The paneling was deep mahogany and the leather of the booths forest green.