June nodded once. “It was a message.”
Margo’s stomach tightened.
“A brutal one,” Holt said, “to tell anyone else who started digging into what Gilbert and those four men knew that their fate was likely to look very much the same.”
The air chilled a few degrees more in the room as what Holt said sank in.
18
MARGO
No one in the kitchen moved. It was like they were all rooted to the floor.
“Look at what’s happened to Lacey and Judy,” June said. Then her eyes settled on Margo. “And you,” she added. “How many close calls have you had now, Margo?”
Margo didn't answer. She couldn't. Because the answer had become too large and too ugly to say aloud comfortably.
“Instead of stepping back,” Holt said, “instead of stopping or at least telling us the full truth, you four kept going.”
June pulled out her phone, found the clip again, and hit play.
The sound of an unreleased Hidden Truths episode filled the kitchen.
But the voices hadn’t been altered this time. The voices were the narrators' true voices. Voices that matched the four of them in the kitchen as they promised the viewers that the next episode would be the one that the viewers had been waiting for, for thepast ten years. The truth about what had happened in Sandpiper Shores that fateful day.
Margo felt sick.
When the clip ended, she looked straight at Harvey.
“How could you?” Margo hissed at him, needing the lash out at someone as their stupidity at tempting danger slapped them all in the face.
His face tightened. “June and Holt had already figured it out,” Harvey defended his actions. “I told you that promo wasn’t a good idea.”
“Harvey,” Willa said in disbelief. “Really!”
“I did warn you. More than once, they would figure it out,” Harvey told them. “And they did. What did you want me to do?”
“Buy us a bit more time?” Ace glared at him. “We knew a bit more after the meeting yesterday.”
“This was getting out of hand,” Harvey declared. “To be honest, and I don’t care how angry any of you are with me right now.” He held up his hand and stood his ground. “I’m glad they did because I, for one, don’t want to lose any of you. You’re my friends, and I probably would’ve gone to June and Holt if one more incident like what happened to Dr. Peltz or Dr. Vernon had happened.”
Margo believed him. That was the worst part. Quiet, loyal Harvey had been trying to steer them toward sense for a while now, and all of them had kept going because they thought they had more time. More control. More room to finish what they had started before the adults in their lives came in and made them stop.
“Leave Harvey alone,” Holt said. “This isn’t on him.”
That shut down the impulse to blame him because there was no getting around the truth of it. Harvey had not written scripts, created videos, followed old threads, or decided to keep major things from people who should have known.
The four of them had.
“I can understand why Willa and Margo,” June glanced at Ace, “and even you, Ace, would be so vested in trying to figure out what happened to your friend and loved ones ten years ago.” Her eyes softened a little. “We all thought there was more to what happened. I know it’s a very emotional time with the memorial fast approaching…”
“But that’s no excuse for being so reckless,” Holt added. “Or lying to the two people you duped into helping you figure out if what was going on recently had anything to do with what happened ten years ago, while the four of you continued investigating the past.”
“Harvey!” Four voices accused again.
“That was not me,” Harvey stated, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “That, they also figured out.” He turned, and a look of sheer admiration and a bit of hero worship flashed in Harvey’s eyes as he looked at June and Holt. “That’s what you get when you involve the A team.”
“Mom, Holt, trust me, we didn’t want to get either of you involved in what we were investigating,” Willa told them. “But when we realized there might be a bit of a pattern…”
