Page 98 of By the Time You Read This

No part of this conversation was going as planned. “What?”

“I got into the cold-case community a while back,” he said, pacing now. “I’m not saying it was a good idea, but I learned a lot. About police work, about police in general. I knew they were interested in me. They’d already brought me in because I’d talked to Emily before her death. I had a solid alibi, thank god, but then Raisa contacted me.”

“You thought they might suspect you, despite the alibi,” Delaney said.

“Yeah, so I followed them following you.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Right.”

He snapped his fingers. “You went into a bar. A hole-in-the-wall. St. Ivany went in after you. Raisa sat in the SUV.”

Delaney pressed her lips together. “That was sloppy of them.”

“And of you,” he said, and she had to concede he had a point.

“They dropped an AirTag on me,” Delaney muttered, and then realized that letting them do that had been sloppy in and of itself. Best to keep it moving. “Okay, so then you decided to sleep with me?”

“No,” he all but shouted. “I just wanted to talk. I knew who you were, but didn’t want to scare you off.” He paused. “The sleeping-with-you thing ... well. I just think you’re hot.”

She stared at him. “My sister killed your brother.”

“And no matter what you might think, you’re not her,” he said, and she realized in that moment he must have been to excellent therapy.

Delaney waved the argument away. “Anyway . . . ?”

“They recruited Gabriela Cruz to provoke you into making a mistake,” he finally said on a rush. “I know her from her online presence. She bragged about it in a private chat, and I got sent the screenshot from a friend. The police miked her up to go talk to you on the beach. They want you to thinkshe’s ... I don’t know ... something other than she is. Which is a basic college girl too interested in police work for her own good.”

Delaney thought about the beach, the bonfire.

“No one has cigarettes anymore,” Gabbi had said.

Delaney had been pleased she hadn’t had to approach the girl first. But, of course, she’d been so stupid. Still, she was certain of one thing. “No, she’s lying to them.”

“How can you be so sure?” Roan asked, like he really did want her to give him reassurance. Her stomach tightened. “Delaney. How do you know that you’re not the one being played?”

Chapter Thirty-One

Raisa

Day Six

Raisa sat staring out the window of the hotel room, Isabel’s journal page on the desk in front of her. She’d read it so many times now, she had it memorized.

Lana and Larissa aren’t broken.

But wouldn’t it be more fun if they were?

She felt like it was the key to everything, and yet, Raisa couldn’t see the few steps ahead she needed to.

Once again, Isabel was winning.

Meet me at the harbor, she texted St. Ivany.

Ten minutes later Raisa found St. Ivany standing across the street from the very coffee shop where Raisa and Kilkenny had stopped the morning of his accident.

Something pulled tight in her chest and she brushed it aside. She took one of the cups St. Ivany was holding. “Isabel hid a page of her diary behind a painting that was included in her belongings.” She took a sip of the coffee. “Belongings she wanted left to me.”

St. Ivany took her own long gulp. “I’m almost scared to ask, but what did it say?”

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