The room settled into easy conversation after that.
The laptop stayed closed beside Shay while the three of us sat cross-legged on the bed eating chips, drinking margaritas, and talking loud enough that Prime kept glaring down the hallway every few minutes like he expected Anchor to come storming in at any second.
He probably wasn’t wrong.
The first drink disappeared faster than I intended.
Then the second one happened.
Somewhere during refill number two, the tension in my shoulders finally started loosening for the first time in days.
The girls shifted the conversation toward Bernice and Shay eventually, and the mood softened.
“You didn’t know?”I asked quietly.
Shay shook her head slowly while tracing her finger around the rim of her glass.“No, I didn’t figure it out until after she died.”
“That’s insane.”
“Pretty much,” Pearl muttered.
Shay leaned back against the wall.“My mom left the island years ago after Caleb Token died.Mom never told me who my real family was or anything about that night.”
I frowned slightly.“And Caleb Token died at the clubhouse by the lake?”
Pearl nodded.“A long time ago.”
I looked between them slowly while pieces moved around in my head again.“The killer has to be connected to that time period somehow.”
Shay sighed.“That’s what we think too.”
“Because all of this keeps circling back there,” I continued.“Bernice.Shay.Your mom.Caleb Token.”
“And now Erin,” Pearl added quietly.
The room went still again.
Shay frowned into her drink.“Yeah, but why?”
Nobody answered immediately, because none of us knew.
Shay finally looked up.“Why would the killer have Erin’s picture and that date?”
I rubbed my forehead.“I don’t know.”
“The date bothers me,” Pearl admitted.
“Everything bothers me,” I muttered.
We fell quiet again for a second before Shay’s eyes suddenly narrowed at me suspiciously.
Uh-oh.
“I think we need to shift this conversation to something else Pearl and I have been noticing,” she sang.
I blinked.“What?”
Pearl slowly grinned.
