Sawyer exhaled, frustrated. “We’re back to the same place.”
Willa’s voice stayed steady. “Not exactly. Now Madden knows. That matters.”
Madden’s gaze dropped. For a second, the steel slipped and something raw showed through. “It matters that I didn’t know.”
It was an accusation and a confession all at once.
I shifted closer. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes lifted to mine. She didn’t soften. She didn’t accept it. Not yet. But she heard it.
Gabi swallowed. “We didn’t do it to hurt you.”
Madden looked at my sister again, and this time the edge in her expression eased a fraction. “I get that.” The words sounded like effort. “I’m not—” She cut herself off, jaw tight. “I don’t know what I am right now.”
Fair.
Gabi leaned back, wiping at her eyes with the heel of her hand like she was angry her body was betraying her. “What it means is Gwen didn’t vanish into the ocean. Someone took her.”
“And they filmed it,” Madden said, voice flat.
“And they sent it,” Daniel added. “At some point.”
Ford’s shoulders tightened. “It was on that flash drive with the other file. The guy who was blackmailing Miles kept it.”
Madden’s eyes turned distant for a beat, brain already moving. “So it survived thirteen years in someone’s possession.”
“Yeah,” I said.
Her gaze sharpened again. “Which means people protected it.”
Or used it. Or traded it. Or kept it as leverage the way they’d kept Miles as leverage. The implications branched out fast enough my head hurt.
Madden looked down at her hands like she couldn’t make sense of them. “And none of this helps Priya.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a verdict.
Willa leaned forward again. “We don’t know that.”
Madden’s laugh was short and humorless. “We don’t even know where Priya’s phone was beyond a last ping at the ferry terminal. We don’t have a location. We don’t have a suspect. We don’t have anything we can legally force.”
Sawyer’s jaw tightened. “We have eyes. We have instincts.”
“Instincts don’t get her back,” Madden said.
I watched her face as she said it. It wasn’t just frustration. It was fear. Fear with teeth.
Because now she’d seen Gwen on that screen, and she could finally name the thing she’d been circling around since the beginning. This island didn’t just lose women. This island fed them into something that moved through the water and out of reach.
Madden’s chest rose and fell fast. She pressed a hand flat to her sternum like she was trying to steady her own breathing.
Though every cell in me wanted to hold her, to offer comfort, I didn’t reach for her. Not in front of everyone. Not with the room already watching her bleed.
A phone began to ring. Madden jolted, pulling hers from her pocket. We’d picked up a replacement at the general store earlier in the day, but I didn’t think she’d done anything to set it up other than having her number ported over. One glance at the screen and her already gray face chilled. She rose to her feet, stroking one hand along the dog’s back. “I… have to take this.”
She was already stepping into the hall when I heard her stiff, “Hello?”
Everything broke up quickly after that. Dark had already fallen, and everyone had work tomorrow. There was nothing more to be done tonight except figuring out a way to get Madden to let me back in.
