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But he’d always find a way to shut it down. “Yeah, it’s sad. But she shouldn’t have been walking so close to the ledge. What was she thinking?”
And then things started to return to normal. In fact, Logan was more affectionate than ever, taking any excuse to rub my shoulders or touch my hair. And was it really worth talking about it? It was only a kiss. So I followed his lead and pretended it had never happened. Pretending is something I’m especially good at, after all, having spent years honing my skills.
I’ve done it ever since Mom died, back in that old house in New York, the one that quickly stopped feeling like a home. I did it on the days the house was still, when trash would pile up in the kitchen and the doorbell would ring unanswered. Those were the safe days, when my father would hide in his bedroom, without any memory of his two children roaming the house. Those days were much better than the others, when the stillness would break into frenzied, hysterical episodes, as if his hibernation had fueled up an uncontrollable energy. He would start something—a houseproject, an assignment for work, or a plan for a family vacation—with unrelenting vigor. Materials strewn throughout the house, his limbs moving so fast that he looked like a cartoon. That energy was potent, often boiling over into violence. A black eye for Robin, a sprained wrist for me.
Afterward, my father would be inconsolable. He would grab at us, hard, pushing our skin against his, as if the feeling of our flesh would bring him back to normality. He would tend to our injuries furiously. Fixing gauze on our cuts, holding ice to our bruises. And then the apologies would start, a running stream of excuses, all of which tied back to Mom. As if he deserved a free pass from the grief that had destroyed all three of us. As if the burden was on us, his two adolescent daughters, to fix this. To fix him.
So I tried. And in doing so, I destroyed everything.
I can’t risk doing the same with Logan.
I breach the Khrum Yai summit and see the island spreading out below me. I take a few steps from the path and sit, my legs straight out in front of me, my feet just brushing the edge of the cliff.
I barely register the view. Instead, despite my best efforts, my thoughts return to the threatening notes. Who is leaving them? I think about all the times over the last few days that I’ve felt someone following me, watching me.
I imagine what Robin would say if she were here.
It isn’t the first time I’ve done this. Far from it. I’ll choose a secluded spot on the island, somewhere I think she would have loved, and pretend she’s next to me. I like to imagine what she would think of me and the life I’m living, whether she’d be proud.
I’ve never told anyone about this. Not Brooke and especially not Logan. He wouldn’t understand. None of them would.
I look out on the sprawling waters in front of us, a view that Robin never saw in life, and try to breathe. But the anxiety has contracted my chest so tightly I feel I might explode.
And then I realize. This is what they want. The person who’s been leaving me these threatening notes, who’s been following me around the island, who’s been threatening me in my own home. They want me to suffer.
I think of Robin, of everything she never got to see during her short life. And I feel the anxiety change shape, hardening into something else. Anger.
I stand up abruptly, the decision coursing throughout my body.
No more. I’m not going to let this stranger win. I’m not going to give them the satisfaction of watching me squirm as I wait for them to act.
I look out at the beauty of Koh Sang, at this perfect island that I’ve made my home, at this life that some stranger now wants to steal from me, and I’m certain.
I’m going to find them, and I’m going to do everything in my power to stop them.
21
BROOKE
The silence that follows my scramble to turn off my ringtone stretches interminably. I hold my breath, crouched beneath Cass and Logan’s living-room window.
Up until now, things had been going smoothly. I’d used the same bobby pin trick that had worked on the door to Lucy’s guest room, and the lock had clicked open without a struggle. Clearly the security systems in Koh Sang could use some work. Even though I’d knocked before resorting to the bobby pin, I still paused in the doorway, listening. I knew from Cass that Logan spent most afternoons at the island gym before starting his shifts at Frangipani, but I had no idea where Cass could be. I called out their names gently, prepared with an excuse in case either of them happened to be home—their door was already open a crack, and I just wanted to make sure nothing was wrong—but I was met with silence.
I started with the desk in the living room, and I was in the process of rifling through its top drawer when I heard it. A soft purring from outside, an engine easing up the drive. Before I could processthe implications—Logan returning early from the gym, Cass getting back from wherever she may be—my high-pitched ringtone flooded the room. I scrambled for my phone, my fingers fumbling to silence it, Cass’s name left flashing mutedly on the screen.
I slid over to the side of the room and ducked beneath the window, holding my breath.
Now, letting my muscles relax, I inch up slowly and flick at the cheap blinds lying horizontally against the windowpane.
Cass is staring right at me.
I immediately drop to the floor, clasping my hand over my mouth. I stay there for a moment, my back hunched, my head buried. Finally, after an endless moment, I lift myself up just enough to see out of the very bottom of the window.
I let out a deep sigh. She’s left her motorbike and is walking toward the trees at the start of the Khrum Yai trail. The thought provides only temporary relief. The hike is short, and she’ll be back soon.
I flip down the blinds, blocking out the sun, and get back to work. The desk has proven useless so far, so I tidy it up as much as I can and head back to the bedroom.
It only takes me a second to figure out which side of the bed is Cass’s. On the left-hand bedside table are several protein bar wrappers and a water bottle, its sides stained with the residue of pink-colored powder. There’s nothing on the one on the right, however, apart from a small framed photograph of Cass and Logan smiling at the camera.
