Skylar showed the photos to Max. Then Ryan died, and they disappeared.

Who deleted them?

We’d looked through every single pic. All selfies, landscapes, macro shots. No Skylar.

Unless Ellis hadn’t shown me all the photos she recovered.

Like she hadn’t shown me the autopsy. Like she’d lied about Ryan’s ex.

“Max,” I said, my body tense. “Why did you warn me about Ellis? What is she hiding from me?”

He looked at me a long time. I didn’t think he would answer.

Then he said, simply, “Her.”

Nothing moved in the woods but me. Chebeague was even more desolate than Peaks, quieter, lonelier. On a winter night there was only the soft rush of snow, the sky whispering sparkling white ellipses, words unheard. I walked carefully but my boots crunched, too loud in this deep stillness.

Our footprints had been erased on the log steps. I climbed up balancing on the railless edge, nearly falling.

Inside, small piles of snow collected in corners like pillars of salt. I went straight to the hollow rectangle traced in the paint and flicked on my phone’s flashlight. Found the loose board and pressed my weight into it.

The envelope was gone.

“You’re freezing. Did you walk here? Why didn’t you call?”

Ellis was waiting in my room at the beach house. Candles lit, incense burning. Mug of tea on my desk. It all smelled like her now—my clothes, bedsheets, skin. Part of me, permeating everything. I couldn’t look her in the eyes. She’d read me immediately.

How do you outwit someone who’s so much smarter than you?

Think of her like a man. Prey on his weaknesses.

I flung my coat off, began to undress.

“Vada?” She followed me to the clothes rack. “What did Max say?”

“He was drunk. He didn’t make a lot of sense.”

“Did he want something?”

I glanced at her. “Me.”

Her eyes widened. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Nothing happened.” I pulled my shirt off. Stood there in my bra, my hands lingering on my chilled skin. “I’m fine.”

When I shivered Ellis moved close, circling my waist. “Are you sure? You’re so cold.”

I took a shaky breath.

“Did he touch you?”

“It was nothing.”

Instantly she went rigid, pulling me against her. “If he did something to you, I’ll—”

“It was nothing. I stopped him before anything happened, I promise.” I bit my lip. “But it made me feel weird.”

“In a bad way or a good way?”

“Both.”

She let go and I turned around. No expression on her face, but she watched me sharply, gears turning.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No. I’m glad you did.” Her eyes danced back and forth. “How did it really make you feel, being touched by a man?”

Time to push. “Like a woman.”

She stared a beat longer, not reacting, then walked toward her belongings on the other side of the room.

“Ellis, where are you going?”

“Home.”

“It’s late. The ferry isn’t running.”

“I’ll call Brandt.”

“It’s snowing. It’s not safe. Don’t be like this, baby.”

When I touched her shoulder she spun, seizing mine. “Is there something going on with you and Max?”

I laughed, disbelieving. “Seriously?”

“Is there?”

“Are you going to have a meltdown every time I so much as glance at a guy?” I wrenched away from her. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you.”

“I’m not overreacting. You still haven’t let Blue go.”

“I just want to know who he is. And there’s a good chance he could be Max.”

“Is that what you want? Do you feel something for Max?”

I sneered. “Please. I’ve always been faithful to you. Your paranoia is not my fault.”

“You’re a cam girl. You seduce men for a living. Sorry that it makes me paranoid.”

“Well, I wasn’t seducing him.”

“Then why did he touch you?”

I threw my hands in the air. “Who fucking knows? He was barely lucid. He kept talking about Skylar.”

If I hadn’t been watching for it—if I didn’t know her so well—I wouldn’t have noticed the way her eyes flashed, the pique of alarm. She smothered it quickly with a frown. “What did he say, exactly?”

“Random shit. About the photos, and the autopsy. He actually met Skylar. They knew each other. I mentioned Ryan’s ex, but Max had no idea who I was talking about.”

“Why did you mention him?”

“Is there a reason I shouldn’t have?”

“Because we should save our leverage until we need it?”

A perfectly reasonable thing to say.

Always my voice of reason, warning me back from the edge.

“You’re right. I fucked up.” I pretended to muse. “Now that I think about it, they never sent us that autopsy, did they?”

She looked at me for a long moment. “No. Must’ve gotten lost.”

I headed toward the clothes rack. “I’m going to request it again. And I’m going back to Bar Harbor, to see that guy. Something doesn’t add up.”

“Vada.” Ellis slid behind me, laid a hand on my bare back. Her fingertips glided down to the dip above my ass. Unsettling and arousing, both at once. “I think it’s time we left this to Max. Let him deal with it now. It’s not our business.”

“Max doesn’t want to deal with anything. He wants to bury it.” I steadied my voice. “Sometimes it seems like you do, too.”

Her hand moved to the clasp of my bra. “I want to let it go. I don’t want to be haunted anymore.”

“By who? Ellis, by who?”

But she didn’t answer. She touched me until I stopped asking.

I let her open my bra, cup my breasts in her palms. My tension was palpable and she felt it, too. She pinched my nipples, bit my neck when she kissed it. We didn’t make it to my bed. Instead she drove me up against the wall, one hand inside my jeans, the other around my throat. Her teeth shone in the candlelight, clenched. Aggressive. Masculine. Something primal in me responded. I pulled her toward the cam lights, the nightstand. Took a tie from the drawer and looped it around my neck. Put a silicone cock in her hand. “Do it like this,” I said. “Fuck me like a cam girl.” And she did, my legs around her waist, my spine to the wall. I looked at my fingers kinked against the wood, clawing for something to hold. There was nothing. Nothing but her.

In the morning I woke before Ellis, showered and dressed and left the house undetected. Sent her a text—running errands, nos vemos esta tarde, Christmas tree emoji—and got on the Portland ferry.

No gifts for me, she wrote back. I already have everything I want. I’ll miss you.

It went in like a knife.

For a second I wanted to reply: What are you hiding? Why? But I thought of Blue, slipping away like quicksilver when I tried to catch him, hold him. I knew she’d be the same.

Not again. Not this time.

I’ll miss you too, pajarito, I wrote, and turned my phone off.

All the way over on the ferry, I felt every swell and smash of the waves inside my ribs.

On the wharf the scent of raw fish and wet hemp hit me hard. I’d fallen in love with this city, too. Sometimes love for a person and a place get a little jumbled, and you can’t feel one without the other. No matter what happened, Portland would always be Ellis. I’d never take that lion’s head down. Brass doesn’t rust. Max told me they used it on ships because it was one of the few things that could withstand the harsh salt sea. It would hang there while everything else burned slowly, disintegrating into red smoke.

I rang the doorbell.

“Vada,” Brandt said, smiling. “What a nice surprise. Come in.”

“Can’t stay long.” I kicked my boots off at the door. “Ellis sent me to pick stuff up.”

Brandt was still in PJs, lounge pants and an undershirt. Bedhead and bare feet gave him a boyish air.

“Something warm to drink?” he offered.

“I’m good.”

He eyed me a moment, still smiling. I couldn’t tell if he read emotions as well as Ellis. “Come on.”