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“Erm, right,” he says, a flash of surprise darting across his face. “Greta was going to tellLucyto stop poking around. She was asking questions about…things—”
“What things?”
He doesn’t answer, but I know what he’s referring to. The other death. Jacinta’s.
“It got out of hand,” Logan continues.
“So Greta killed her.” I almost laugh at how absurd the statement would have sounded just an hour ago, back when Greta could do no wrong.
But when Logan nods, I’m not surprised.
“Greta needed our help. We didn’t know what else to do with the girl—Lucy. The Full Moon Party was going on, and we couldn’t just carry her past everyone. So we left her in the water. Doug and I dove down and brought her with us, securing her to the coral so her body wouldn’t float. It was just supposed to be temporary. Somewhere she could be peaceful until we moved her.”
Peaceful. The word turns my stomach. Greta killed Lucy, and Logan helped cover it up. There was nothing peaceful about that.
“You weren’t supposed to find her,” Logan continues. “Doug had shifted around the dives for the next morning so you would take your group out to Turtle Cove first. We were going to move her when you were out, when it was still too early for anyone to come sniffing around the dive shop. But then things, you know…”
I think back to that morning. About how Doug told me at the last minute that we would be diving Turtle Cove but how the boat wouldn’t start, forcing us to stick with our original plan: the offshore dive. It would have been so much easier in so many ways if that boat had just started. I never would have found Lucy. Logan and Greta and Doug could have made up some elaborate, more realistic story about what happened to her. I wouldn’t be here, confronting the man I thought I loved, waiting for what could be the final minutes of my life to tick by.
“If everything had gone to plan”—I force the question through the bile rising in my throat—“what would you have done with Lucy’s body?”
Logan sighs again. “Cass, you don’t need to know. It’s not—”
“Tell me.”
Logan pauses but reluctantly answers. “Doug and I had planned to dive down and get her while you were out at Turtle Cove. Wewere going to wrap her in one of the tarps we use to cover the Frangipani courtyard when it rains. And we were going to bring her to—out to the middle of the island. There were a few fires lit. The locals burning trash and all that. So we…” He clears his throat. “We were going to dispose of her there.”
My mind tries unsuccessfully to process what he’s saying.
“We were planning to report her as a missing guest,” he says when I don’t respond. “Let the police draw their own conclusions.” He pauses and looks at me. But this time, his dark blue eyes don’t make me feel warm and loved. Instead, I feel cold. So cold. “You were never supposed to be involved, I promise.”
I think of his hands, the hands that have grasped my face as we kissed, that have traced my body countless times, that I wanted to hold in mine until we grew old. And then I think of those hands dragging Lucy’s lifeless body out to sea, planning to toss her away, to burn. Discarding her like trash.
There are so many things I want to say to him. I want to yell and scream and tear him limb from limb, not only for what he did to Lucy but for how he’s treated me. He cheated on me, gaslit me, lied to me. But when I finally open my mouth to speak, there’s only one thing I can think of to say, one statement that encompasses everything I’m feeling.
“I don’t know you at all.”
His face contorts as if he’s been wounded. “You don’t understand. I did this for you. Forus. So that we could continue our lives together. I didn’t want you to have to play a part in all this. I protected you so that you would never have to be involved. And I was hurt, Cass, really, when I saw Brooke’s post. All those lies, you’ve got to understand…” He trails off, and I wonder whether he noticesthe hypocrisy in his statement. “All I’ve ever wanted was you. To live a peaceful life on this island withyou.”
“No,” I say, the rage bubbling in my chest, a strength returning to my muscles despite all the blood rushing from my leg. “You didn’t do this for me. You never even thought of me. You did all this for yourself.”
“Believe what you want,” he says, the pain in his face hardening, his jeweled eyes turning to stone. “You shouldn’t have gone digging into things you have no business knowing. Why couldn’t you just let it be? And then you befriended that girl, Brooke.” He says her name like a curse word. “If you hadn’t brought her around, maybe she never would have published that post. Maybe things would still be the same.”
“No,” I say. “You are not going to pin this on me again. And it’s not Brooke’s fault either.”
I feel the ground shift beneath me, and I realize Logan’s arm is still looped around my waist. If he wasn’t supporting me, I would collapse to the ground. But isn’t that how it’s always been with him? I’ve relied on him for everything since I first moved here. I set out to try to figure out who I was and find a life of my own. Instead, I found Logan.
Part of me wants to keep asking him questions, wants to understand why these three people had to die. But another part wants to run, to get away from this place and never have to see Logan or Greta or any of them again.
Logan begins walking, pulling me toward the end of the street. I try to stop him, using all my body weight to resist, but it has no effect. He drags me along as if I’m nothing, and I notice the faint line of red left in my wake.
I look up at him. His chin is clenched, his jaw set in a rigid line. And I realize he doesn’t know me either.
He only saw my weakness, my complacency. That’s what all of them have always seen. Greta, Brooke, my father. None of them have ever known who I really am, who I could be if I just gave myself the chance.
Ever since Jacinta’s fall, I’ve been too scared to confront Logan about the deaths. I didn’t want to know, and I didn’t want to upset anyone or draw unnecessary attention. So I stayed quiet. I kept my suspicions to myself. I was the good girl this island family expected me to be, the quiet one.
But I’m done with that. That girl is dead.
