Page 104 of By the Time You Read This

“I’m missing something in it.”

“You think Essi has something to do with Emily’s death?”

“No,” Raisa said honestly. “I know it’s a cliché, but it feels like an itch I can’t scratch. Something I read in here lodged in my brain, but it’s buried beneath way too much other information.”

“And you think reading it again and again is going to shake it loose,” St. Ivany said, drumming her fingers on the table. She was all nervous energy, just like Gabriela had been earlier.

“No,” Raisa said, before pushing it over to St. Ivany. “You read it.”

St. Ivany’s brows raised, before she flipped open the cover. Her eyes moved over the page.

“Out loud,” Raisa said, kicking her under the table.

“Oh, right.” St. Ivany laughed at herself. “‘I’ll never be able to eat casseroles again.’”

Raisa closed her eyes as she made it through those first few pages.

“‘It wasn’t one of my neighbors at my door, though,’” she said. “‘Instead it was a girl. She asked, “Do you know who killed your father?” And that’s when I found something besides the casseroles to make each day worth waking up for.’”

Raisa reached out and grabbed St. Ivany. “Holy shit. It worked.”

“What?” St. Ivany asked, staring down at where Raisa’s fingers dug into her skin.

This, finally, was the question her brain had been screaming at her to answer.

“Who the fuck was the girl?”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Raisa

Day Seven

St. Ivany just stared at Raisa. “I don’t know who the fuck the girl was. Essi probably made her up to tell a better story.”

But Raisa was already dropping her bills on the table. “Let’s go ask her.”

“It’s past midnight.”

Raisa didn’t care for facts. “Which means Essi will be on her boat.”

St. Ivany hesitated one second longer, then pushed herself out of the booth. Raisa took off toward the door.

“Emily?” St. Ivany suggested as she beeped open the SUV.

“Essi said she’d never met her,” Raisa said, sliding into the passenger seat. “She could be lying, but then why include the encounter in the book?”

St. Ivany shrugged. “Gabriela?”

“She was trying to exonerate Isabel,” Raisa said. “Why would she try to find people who would make that tally higher?”

“Delaney?” St. Ivany offered, though she sounded hesitant.

“No one in their right mind would call Delaney a girl,” Raisa said. “Well, maybe a man in his eighties or something. But Essi wouldn’t have called Delaney a girl.”

“Then I’m all out of girls,” St. Ivany said, as she pulled to a stop at the harbor gates. They both leaped out of the SUV and took off towardBig Deck Energy.

St. Ivany slowed as she reached the boat. “The rules are different with boats.”

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