Black Rock Bay

by Brianna Labuskes

  “Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt, you know,” Mia said, without looking up from her screen, which remained stubbornly useless.

  “Boooo,” Izzy mock shouted from across the room. “You’re better than cheap wordplay, Hart.”

  Mia lifted her head to flash Izzy a quick smile. “Don’t underestimate how cheap I can get.”

  It was a joke, but the words landed a bit heavy, effectively suffocating the light moment until the only thing left was the knowledge that neither of them knew how low Mia could go.

  “So a storm . . . ,” Izzy prodded.

  This wasn’t the time to brood. Mia rolled her shoulders. “Coming in tomorrow afternoon. Will probably drop a couple feet over the next few days.”

  Izzy huffed out a laugh that was far more distraught than amused. Then she set aside her tea, pushing to her feet. “I think I should go to the mainland.”

  No. The suggestion sat strangely in Mia’s stomach, and the pain beneath her breastbone throbbed in time with her heartbeat. “What?”

  Eyes wide, Izzy began to pace. From the refrigerator, to the back door, to the table. Rinse and repeat.

  “Look, we need to find information on Peter, on the Bells. We need one of us on the ground, not some knucklehead right out of the academy. And we need you here, so that people will actually talk to you.”

  It was logical. Even if it wasn’t protocol to split up like that, they were in extraordinary circumstances. Their case was growing colder by the day, and they were handcuffed by their lack of access to information, a problem that was only about to get worse. At best, they’d be able to talk to a few more people during the storm, but more likely they’d be trapped in Mama’s house, hunkered down just like everyone else.

  But Mia didn’t want to be left behind, not on St. Lucy’s. The rational part of her mind told her that wasn’t what was happening, but the irrational side knew how easy it would be to sink into the cloying familiarity of home.

  For the first time in her career, she was worried about being able to be objective. She didn’t say any of that. She was already too aware of the way Izzy’s suspicious eyes sometimes lingered on her when the woman didn’t think she was aware.

  “Earl’s service is tomorrow,” Mia said. “Why don’t you stay for that. Then we’ll see if Quinn can get you back before the storm moves in.”

  “You’ll be okay?” Izzy asked. She was a good cop.

  Mia looked away to find her own reflection in the window. It was distorted, but even still she could read the fear on her face. “I’ll be okay.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  IZZY

  Bodies pressed against each other, curves and elbows and shoulders slotting into any empty space, as the residents of St. Lucy’s attempted to fit in the one-room church that was desperately trying to accommodate the mourners.

  Against the snow and the white clapboards of the church, they looked like ravens, black and sleek and chattering in the early-morning light as they waited in line to squeeze into what Izzy knew must be a tiny room.

  Mia and Izzy joined the line, a few back from Patty Masterson. The woman had forgone the blue lipstick for a more respectful cherry gloss, but her dress was cut in a deep V, revealing the lace of her bra beneath the fabric. Izzy gave a little salute when Patty tipped her head in Izzy’s direction, but they both kept it respectful, understated.

  “You’ve made friends,” Mia said under her breath, amusement in the twitch of her lips.

  “I can’t figure her out,” Izzy mused, letting her eyes run along the rest of the crowd. She recognized Max from the bar. And Quinn, the pilot, had sidled up behind them. “She gave me all the gossip on you but also defended you.”

  “She’s a good resource.” Mia didn’t sound annoyed but rather fond, actually. And Izzy gave up the hope of ever understanding this place.

  “So Earl was popular, it seems,” Izzy said as they shuffled forward. How there was still space, she didn’t understand. But she wasn’t going to question it.

  “Ran the island,” Mia said, like that explained it. Maybe it did. “I wouldn’t call him beloved. But, he was important.”

  And sometimes, in these kinds of situations, that mattered more. For turnout, at least.

  They listened more than talked as they slowly pushed into the church, the joints of the building straining beneath the weight of the collective—and perhaps performative—grief trying to fit inside.

  The men behind them chatted about Earl’s boat. What was going to happen to it, if Cash was planning on selling it?

  The woman in front of them was a sniffler. She even had a delicately embroidered hankie. Her makeup stayed in place despite the way she dabbed at the corners of her eyes every so often.

  Izzy caught other snippets of conversations, but nothing stood out as important. People wondered about the house. Wondered about him being buried in consecrated ground. Wondered what Lacey and Cash would serve at the wake.

  She and Mia finally breached the entryway and found a spot at the back, against one of the milky windows. Izzy couldn’t tell if the glass was warped from age or if it was designed to look like that.

  It wasn’t until Cash and Lacey walked in that she realized she’d been looking for them. He had his hand at the small of her back, guiding her through the crowd to the front pew. Lacey’s face was covered by a birdcage veil, but Izzy got a flash of pale white skin before they both ducked into the pew that had been reserved for them.

  Izzy glanced out of the side of her eye to find Mia watching the pair, though she supposed everyone was.

  But. There were times when Izzy questioned how much distance Mia had really been able to put between herself and whatever attachments she’d had growing up. First loves were hard to forget.

  To Izzy, Cash seemed like the perfect suspect. Violent, angry, big, and loud. For all that people wanted to say Mia was the only one that came out alive, that wasn’t true. Looking at the collective dynamics of the group, it couldn’t be ignored that Cash had come out alive as well. Just because he supposedly hadn’t been at the lighthouse that night didn’t mean he hadn’t emerged even more unscathed than Mia.

  As people continued to file into the small space, Izzy let the scenario play out. What was Cash’s motive for killing the reporter?

  Had he actually been there at the lighthouse? Had Earl Bishop let that slip during his interview with Twist?

  At that moment, Cash turned. She met his stare head-on and couldn’t help but note that his eyes were dry, despite the grim set of his mouth. He looked away first, shifting to whisper in Lacey’s ear.

  The woman stiffened, then glanced toward Izzy and Mia. Izzy couldn’t see her expression, hidden as it was behind the intricate design of her veil.

  Lacey. Was he protecting her? From whom? Charles?

  Izzy itched to be on a plane to the mainland. She didn’t even know yet what she would ask Charles or Bix, whichever one of them she found. Why is your daughter hiding away on a remote spit of land where her sister was either killed or committed suicide? Yeah, that might be a start.

  Lacey moved so that she settled into the crook of Cash’s shoulder, both turning their attention to the front to the priest.

  The service itself was short and surprisingly impersonal. Izzy was used to funerals that went on for hours, each family member, extended or not, getting a chance to speak, to pay respects.

  For Earl’s service, it was only Jimmy who stood up. He rambled on, his sentences never quite ending, just blending into the next as he told one fisherman’s tale after another. Toward the end, he broke down, his face flushed and sweaty, his mouth trembling. The crowd fidgeted in a collective mix of embarrassment and commiseration. And then exhaled as Jimmy stepped down to the side, retaking his seat next to Cash and Lacey.

  “I don’t think he killed Earl,” Izzy whispered, leaning close to Mia’s ear. There were so many people around them.

  Mia’s head jerked once, a quick negative in agreement. And if Jimmy hadn
’t killed Earl, then he probably hadn’t killed the reporter, either.

  “How bad would it have been?” Izzy asked, confident that her question was masked by the overwhelming bass from the organ, which had just launched into “Amazing Grace.” “If Earl had been having an affair with Monroe?”

  Mia kept her attention directed ahead, on the priest who was swaying along with the chorus, his arms upraised toward the sky.

  “He wouldn’t have been arrested,” Mia said. “I can’t imagine anyone filing that complaint.”

  “Even the Bells?”

  “They were old money.” Mia shrugged. “Doubt they would have wanted that bad press.”

  “So why kill her?”

  Mia glanced at her and then shifted straight again. “A baby might do it.”

  “Yeah, but what if the father didn’t know? Or what if she wasn’t pregnant? Do you think it warrants killing—an affair with a sixteen-year-old?”

  Why hadn’t they thought about this before? They’d been focusing all their attention on Monroe, as if she were the obvious victim. But there had been two other people in the room that night.

  “What are you getting at?” Mia asked, quietly now as the final chords ripped through the air.

  “What if Monroe wasn’t the intended victim but rather collateral damage?” Izzy suggested. “What if it was Asher who was the target?”

  Mia half nodded to acknowledge she’d heard Izzy, but any attempt at conversation would have been drowned out by the women who surged to their feet in the pews across from Cash and Lacey, belting out an ambitious “Ave Maria.”

  Izzy waited until the crescendo before leaning closer, her breath hot against Mia’s ear.

  “What if it was you?”

  There was a brunch at the Bishop house following the service. Izzy hated to be mercenary about it, but the gathering provided the perfect opportunity to poke and prod at their list of suspects. The entire town seemed to be in attendance.

  “I’m going to find Lacey,” she told Mia.

  Mia nodded. “I’m going to try Cash again. If I can get him alone.”

  Izzy was definitely getting the better end of this particular deal. “’Kay.”

  Although the house was much larger than the church, it was still cramped with people trying to hold flimsy cocktail plates and maneuver around small talk and bulky furniture. The place reeked of too-sweet floral perfume that highlighted rather than masked the underlying hint of fish and sea.

  After Izzy made it through all the first-level rooms, she admitted defeat. Lacey wasn’t downstairs. That’s how Izzy found herself ducking into each of the rooms on the second floor. They’d been mostly empty, save for a couple of kids playing hide-and-seek in the guest suite.

  She’d already done a sweep of the downstairs and outside areas and knew Lacey wasn’t there. That left what Izzy guessed was the attic. The door was already slightly ajar, so it swung open easily on well-oiled hinges.

  The room was filled with dusty sheet-covered furniture and duct-taped cardboard boxes with words like “kitchen” and “baby stuff” scribbled on their sides. A bare hanging lightbulb cast a warm yellow glow as it swung on its chain. Lacey hadn’t been up here long.

  The woman sat on a dilapidated couch beneath one of the skylights that had been carved into the roof. Her head was bent forward, her legs pulled up crisscross style. There was something in her lap and a gentle smile on her lips.

  “He had the biggest chipmunk cheeks,” Lacey said without looking up, her voice barely a whisper, and then held up what looked like a photo album. It was hard to make out, but Izzy could vaguely see there was a yellowed baby picture slotted into one of the plastic holders. “Cash.”

  Izzy laughed and ducked under a crossbeam to take a seat next to Lacey. Craning her neck, Izzy tried to get a better look at the album. They were all pictures of Cash as a kid. The affection on Lacey’s face was clear. But so was the memory of how she’d looked in the bar, after the door had slammed.

  Who are you afraid of?

  “You have more questions, Detective?” Lacey asked, most of her attention back on the album. It was funny how they all referred to her that way, always putting distance there.

  “Just a few,” Izzy said, trying to decide where to start that wasn’t Did your father kill your mother? And did your sister die because she knew it had happened? It sounded absurd even in the safety of her own mind.

  “When you went to get your parents that night, did they both come back to the lighthouse with you?”

  Lacey’s hand paused mid–page flip. “You’ve been talking to Martha Lowe.”

  It was a conversation that had simmered, back-burnered but not forgotten, throughout the investigation. “She has some theories.”

  Rolling her eyes, Lacey snorted. It was somehow elegant, just a puff of air, a scrape of sound against the back of her throat. “That’s one way to put it.”

  “So they were both there?” Izzy pressed. No one ever seemed to want to answer questions around here, no matter how easy it would be to give a simple yes or no.

  “Yes,” Lacey said. “My mother came to the lighthouse, but once she saw . . .”

  Lacey’s voice wobbled, but she tried to cover it with a cough.

  “Once she saw Monroe and Asher, she broke down,” Lacey continued as if nothing had happened. “My father sent her back to the mansion. That’s why I ended up at Edie Hart’s place. With Mia.”

  “Bix went back by herself?”

  “No,” Lacey said slowly, but it was thoughtful. Like she was trying to make sure she remembered right. “I don’t think so.”

  “Who took her back?”

  “Jimmy. I think.” Lacey shook her head, her eyes slipping shut. “I don’t . . . It’s not all the clearest, you know?”

  Jimmy. I loved her.

  “And she was still there the next morning? She didn’t leave early?” She was still alive? is what Izzy really wanted to ask.

  “We all left the island together a few days later,” Lacey said. “Martha Lowe needs help.”

  Grief did strange things to a person. Turned coincidences into conspiracy theories, stitched together snippets of different events to create wild scenarios. And all of this must have been festering in Martha’s mind for the past decade and a half.

  That didn’t mean Lacey was telling the truth, though.

  Izzy hummed, not in agreement or dissent.

  “Was Monroe pregnant?” Izzy asked, watching her closely.

  “God, what?” Lacey was either surprised or good at faking it.

  “Cash said he got into a fight with Asher that day because Monroe told Cash she was pregnant.”

  Lacey’s tongue darted out over her lipstick, and her fingers came up to toy with her dangly earrings. “Cash said that?”

  “Said he went after Asher, yeah.” Izzy nodded. “Do you remember that?”

  “I didn’t see any of them that day,” Lacey said. “Except, well . . .”

  “Well?”

  Lacey touched her bangs, pushing them to the side, then centering them again. Fidgety. It had only been when she’d been looking at the album that she’d seemed still, calm, peaceful.

  “Um, I saw Mia,” Lacey said, hesitant. Izzy’s attention focused. No one seemed to know what Mia had been doing that whole day. “But not the others.”

  “Did you just run into her . . . or . . . ?” Izzy waved her hand to prompt the woman to fill in the blanks.

  “Look, it’s not important. It was years ago.”

  Izzy waited while Lacey crossed and uncrossed her legs, plucked at the seam of her stockings, slipped her heavy rings on and off her fingers.

  “Shit,” Lacey finally said quietly, more to herself than to Izzy. “All right. This isn’t meant to make her look bad. We were teenagers.”

  “Sure.”

  “She came over to the house that day,” Lacey said. “She was messed up. High or something.”

  Drugged. “The mansion?”

&n
bsp; “Yeah, um, asked if she could come in,” Lacey continued. “She was upset. Talking about Monroe and Cash or something. Maybe Asher, too. I couldn’t really make anything out. She was crying and incoherent, really.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone this?”

  Lacey shrunk back against the couch cushion. “I don’t know. She kind of calmed down. Got real quiet. And then left? It didn’t . . . I don’t think it meant anything. I just think they were all a little emotional that night. It kind of fit, you know? With the suicide thing. Emotionally unstable behavior.”

  “Did she say anything about Cash punching Asher? Or Monroe being pregnant?”

  “No, no.” Lacey’s eyes were wide, the white stark against her smoky liner. It reminded Izzy of Martha. “Nothing like that. I just thought she’d gotten jealous and was on her period or something.”

  “Was Monroe interested in Cash, too?” It was still strange to Izzy that Monroe had gone to Cash in the first place about the possible baby.

  “Monroe was interested in attention,” Lacey said, her eyes flicking away. “But I never saw her make a move on Cash.” Lacey paused, breathed in. “I think she liked being friends with Mia. It made her feel . . . important or something.”

  “Important?”

  “Mia idolized her back then,” Lacey said. “It was so obvious. I mean, teenage girls want guys to like them, but more than that, they want other teenage girls to like them, right? It makes them popular. And coming here, Monroe was the queen bee of that little gang.”

  “I thought you were a part of it, too.” There was that little-sister resentment that Izzy had heard slip into Lacey’s voice a few times. As a little sister herself, Izzy couldn’t fault her for it.

  “Barely.” Lacey shrugged. “Think they forgot about me most of the time. Which was fine. Just . . .”

  “But Mia came to you,” Izzy said interrupted. “That day.”

  “Because she was fucked up,” Lacey said. Then shot her a look. “Sorry.”