“Who else is aboard?” Tom asked.
“No one. Just me,” Miranda said.
“When did Leo leave?” Conor asked.
“Maybe twenty minutes ago?” Miranda asked.
Conor stared at her. Her right cheek was bruised and swollen. “What happened to you?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said, touching her cheek. “We hit a wave, and I crashed into the wall.”
Conor recognized that excuse as the nautical version of walking into a door, the lie that victims of domestic violence were so often pressed into telling, to protect whomever had beaten them.
“Is Randall Flook aboard?” Tom asked.
“No, I told you. No one is. They left,” she said.
“And you stayed behind to scrub the deck?” Conor asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Where did they go?” Tom asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. As she spoke, her gaze went to Conor’s uncle. She looked at Mike for a moment, then away. Conor glanced at his uncle, wanting to see his reaction. Mike’s face was bright red.
Conor’s guard was up. He didn’t know what it meant, but the interaction between Miranda and Uncle Mike wasn’t casual. As they stood there, Miranda turned away and began to uncap the Clorox bottle.
“Stop that,” Tom said. “Put the bottle down, and I’ll say it again—step off the vessel.”
“I have to clean up a mess,” she said. “Before it stains the deck.”
“You can do that later,” Tom said. Conor caught his glance. “Call Joe,” Tom said.
“Why are you acting this way?” Miranda asked. “We’re all friends, aren’t we? I didn’t do anything ...”
“We didn’t say you did, Miranda,” Conor said. “But can I ask you a couple of questions?”
“Okay,” she said.
“You were Belinda’s best friend, right?”
“Well, her cousin, actually. But yes, we were best friends. I already told Kate this. I feel horrible about playing along with Belinda. I didn’t know what she planned to do at your rehearsal dinner! I would have stopped her ...”
“Forget the rehearsal dinner,” Conor said.
“You’re not mad?”
Conor ignored that. “Tell me how you know Leo. He wasn’t at the rehearsal dinner; he didn’t even show up in Watch Hill until after Belinda was murdered and my uncle thought I needed a lawyer. You’re not from Rhode Island, are you?”
“No,” she said.
“So how would you have known Leo before? How do you know him well enough for him to take you out on his boat and make you clean the decks?”
“It’s complicated,” Miranda said. “We met when ...”
“Don’t say anything more,” Mike barked.
“Uncle Mike!” Tom said. “What the hell?”
