I trudged around a bend in the road and froze when I saw a pair of headlights gleaming up ahead, illuminating a wild stretch of weeds. The car was sleek and silver, idling in the silence. The brake lights were on, and the window started to slide down as I arrived. Something moved off to my right, and I ducked down behind a wild berry bush, peering over the uneven branches. Officer Dorn slid down an embankment—an embankment from which he could have seen everything going on at the cliff—and walked over to the car, his black patent-leather shoes gleaming in the moonlight.
He leaned in toward the car window to talk to the driver, but I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the blood whooshing in my ears. The conversation went on for a few minutes before the window slid up again and the car slowly rolled away. Dorn stood up straight, sighed, and checked his watch before moving off in the opposite direction.
When I stood up on solid ground once more, my knees were shaking.
Dorn seemed to be everywhere lately. I thought of the accusatory look he and Grantz had given me in the park along with Nadia, and that odd feeling I’d had at Tristan’s this morning, like someone was listening—watching. And was it just a coincidence that Pete had happened by on the bay last night, or had he been following me, too?
A cold wind blew all around me, and I shivered from head to toe. I raced up to the road and headed south as fast as I could. I wanted answers, and as far as I could tell, there was only one place on this island I could get them.
Tristan was alone behind the bar at the Thirsty Swan, methodically moving a white rag in circles over the dark wood surface. I hesitated outside the screen door, all the dashed hope and hot humiliation from that morning rushing back, and I started rethinking this whole idea. But it wasn’t as if I could avoid him forever.
Holding my breath, I pulled open the screen door and let it bang shut behind me. It was the first time I’d ever seen the place so still and silent, the only sound the even ticking of the fan at the center of the ceiling as it pushed the salty air around the room.
“Sorry, we’re closed,” Tristan said, looking up. When he saw me standing there, he paused, and a pained look passed quickly through his eyes. “Rory,” he said, dropping the rag. I found myself staring at his hands. “What’s up?”
Focus, Rory. Focus.
“Who’s Jessica?” I asked.
Tristan reached out and gripped the edge of the bar. His chest went concave, as if I’d just shot him through the heart. Wow. Lauren wasn’t exaggerating when she’d used the word epic.
“How…who told you about Jessica?” he asked finally, his voice a whisper.
I strode over to the counter, trying for cool detachment. All the chairs had been turned upside down and placed atop the tables, their spindly legs reaching toward the ceiling. Beneath my feet, the floor shone. I glanced toward the kitchen doors, the light glowing through the cracks, and wondered if anyone else was there.
“Lauren, mostly,” I told him matter-of-factly. “Right before Nadia showed up and accused me of being responsible for all this strange stuff that’s been going on. Any idea what that’s about?”
Tristan’s eyes flashed. “She shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “I’ll talk to her.”
I slid onto a seat. “So what happened between you and Jessica?” I asked, folding my hands in front of me.
Tristan sighed, pressing both hands onto the surface of the bar. Outside, a bell dinged mournfully as a boat made its way into the marina.
“Jessica broke my heart,” he told me, his jaw working. “I thought she was…perfect. But she turned out to be the exact opposite.” He took a deep breath and looked me over as if deciding whether or not he should say whatever was on the tip of his tongue. “She was the first Lifer to ever go bad.”
I felt as if the bar stool had just tipped beneath me. “What do you mean, go bad?”
Tristan turned his profile to me. He pinched his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger, considering, then walked out from behind the bar, taking the stool next to mine. He turned toward me, and the outside of his thigh pressed against the inside of mine. My heart flip-flopped, heat radiating up my leg, through my chest, and all the way into my scalp. Then it flip-flopped again when he didn’t move away.
“Do you remember yesterday when we told you what would happen if you told your father and sister what was really going on here?” he asked, looking into my eyes.
“How could I forget?” I said, my pulse thrumming quickly in my wrists, my ears, my chest.
“Well, Jessica decided that it was…immoral of us to keep that secret,” Tristan told me. “She thought that the visitors deserved to know the truth. So she went from house to house…telling them.”
“What?” I breathed.
Tristan nodded, staring past me with a far-off look. “What happened next was not pretty. It was devastating, actually.” Suddenly his eyes welled and without thinking, I reached out and placed my hand over his. He froze for a second, his muscles tensing, then clutched me back. I held my breath, staring down at our fingers, feeling the warmth of his skin pressed against mine.
“What happened?” I asked.
“You have to understand this was a long time ago,” Tristan said, touching his leather bracelet. “The people who were here at that time…they’d died during the first World War—they’d seen their brothers and sons go off and never come back. Some had gone with little or no food for weeks on end, watched their children suffering. The population of Juniper Landing was generally…”
“Pissed off?” I supplied, even as I absorbed this new information—that Tristan had been her
e at least as long as Joaquin had.
He looked at me and snorted. “Yeah. Pissed off.” He blew out a breath. “So pissed off they formed a mob.”