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Except they’re not here because of the fight.

They’re here because Grady told them everything.

They keep walking until they’re nearly to where we stand, and then one of them turns to the security guards surrounding us and holds up a piece of paper. “We have a warrant,” he says, and nods to the guys behind him. Several of them walk to Luke, and one of them comes to me.

“Luke Taylor and Juliet Cantrell,” he says, “you’re under arrest for the murder of Daniel Allen.”

34

THEN

JUNE 2015

I startle awake to find every light in the room is still on, and Danny is not beside me. The house is silent for the first time, which means it must be late. I rub my eyes as I look at the clock. It’s 3:30. Would he have…left? Would he have gone home? Is he back in Rhodes right now, telling Donna everything? I don’t know how I’ll face her again when this all comes out.

I go to the front deck to look for his car, and it’s still there, right where we left it.

Upstairs, the living room is an absolute disaster, a wasteland of red plastic cups and beer bottles, but there’s no one up here. I search the decks, the couches in the basement, the hot tub. I even look inside the bed of Danny’s truck. I call and he doesn’t answer.

Where the hell is he? I walk out to the beach, using my phone’s flashlight once I’m down there. In the distance, I see a blanket I recognize from the basement couch, someone moving inside it.

He’s out here with another girl?

My shock turns into relief in seconds. If he’s out here with another girl, so be it. I want it to be him. There’s a reason I’ve still got my ring on, after all. If he’d come back to the room begging me not to leave him, it would have bordered on the impossible to do it. Finding him with another girl right now would give us a clean end.

The huddled figures startle and blink into the light as I approach.

“What the fuck?” Ryan demands a voice, sitting up.

“Sorry,” I whisper. “Sorry. I’m looking for Danny.”

As I lower the flashlight, the figure beside him, scrambling to pull the blanket overhead, is illuminated: Grady.

I stumble backward in shock.

Grady, with all his bitching about “the gays” at the beach. Grady, always threatening to call the cops on them for no good reason.

“Sorry,” I say, turning away, walking rapidly in the direction I came.

I can’t wait to tell Danny about this.

My stomach ties into a knot as I remember he’s missing, that he might never get over what I’ve done. That we might never be friends again, after tonight.

God, I hate that I hurt him. He has flaws, but we all do, and he never meant any harm. I begin to shiver, wrapping my arms around myself as I walk.

“Juliet,” Grady calls. I turn to find him running toward me, still buttoning his goddamned shorts. “It wasn’t what it looked like.”

My laughter is thick with disbelief. “You might sell that better if you weren’t undressed.”

He reaches me and wraps a tight hand around my wrist. “Wait. Please. Seriously…I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m not gay. It was just…I was half asleep, and I’d had that beer earlier, and I didn’t even know what I was doing. I’m not gay.”

It’s the lamest explanation for cheating I’ve ever heard in my life. One beer and some fatigue doesn’t make you walk out to the beach with blankets and blow the captain of the football team if you didn’t already want to.

“I couldn’t care less if you’re gay,” I tell him, jerking away. “I do care that you’re cheating on Libby, but you’re not my issue right now.”

“I’m not gay! It was so stupid. Please don’t say anything to anyone.”

I throw out my hands. “Grady, I don’t give a shit. Danny’s missing. He didn’t come back to the room last night.”