“Yes, I remember.”
“And I remember it’s been quite some time since you went visiting the lighthouse. You mustn’t keep him from his job, Moira.”
“I’m not.” Kicking a pebble ahead of me, I add, “He gets lonely is all.”
And it feels better having Jude Osric by my side again. We’ll solve Connor’s murder together—bring real closure to the Sheahans, keep the sirens safe.
We’ll be unstoppable.
* * *
That night I write Connor Sheahan on a blank sheet of paper.
Downstairs, I hear my mother cleaning. Cabinet doors squeak open and shut and glasses clink together. Each small sound cracks through my concentration like a shot. I hold my pen a little tighter, pressing down, and ink blots the page. I watch, unfocused, as the liquid blackness spreads, gleaming under the light of my lamp.
I write knife, adding a question mark and circling it.
It’s little to go on. Plenty of people on this island know their way around a blade, myself included. Jude Osric included. Fishermen, dock workers, butchers. I set my fingertips to my temples and close my eyes.
There was blood in the water, pooled around Connor’s body in the dark. Had someone forced him down to the beach? Someone he knew, someone he trusted?
My father’s hand holds tight to my own. It hurts my fingers a little, but I don’t say anything. I stare into his eyes, unblinking. They are blue, dark blue like mine, like the ocean at twilight. Today, he says, we’ll go down to the beach, to watch the sirens come ashore. Do you trust me, Moira? Do you trust me?
Brushing the memory aside, I write suspects near the bottom half of the page.
Connor must’ve been murdered just before the storm. It was perfect timing, the harbor emptying out as everyone headed home. The killer could’ve discarded the body at sea with no one the wiser.
Did they want him found? Did they realize the police would lay blame on the sirens?
If that’s the case, they must hate them well enough to frame them.
Below suspects, I write Jude Osric.
But I’ve hardly finished before I’m crossing it out. An ill sense of dread floods through me, leaching into the very tips of my fingers. I take up the paper and crumple it, smears of ink staining my hands. Crossing the room to my bed, I burrow under the blankets, blocking out the world. Sleep tugs at my eyes, and I gratefully surrender to it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I DON’T LEAVE FOR THE lighthouse until noon the next day. Before I go I sit on my bed, trying not to catch my eye in the mirror above my vanity. I pick every stray piece of lint from my dress, my hands much steadier than how I feel inside. The words I wrote last night bleed into my mind like poison.
Jude Osric, Jude Osric, Jude Osric.
I shake my head like I can dispel the memory.
Lifting my gaze to the mirror, I pinch my cheeks to get some color in them. Sleep hasn’t done me any favors in terms of making me look well rested. I sweep up my long hair into a chignon and take a deep breath.
Once I’m out of the house, I allow myself to turn over the possibility. That Jude Osric—a boy I’ve known my whole life, someone I’ve always called a friend—might be a killer. He likely expected me to come knocking at the crack of dawn, and I likely would have—but now I’ve no idea what to say.
Around the side of the tower, I spot him at work in the vegetable garden. On his knees in the dirt, he wears overalls, his shirtsleeves rolled up, and digs into the soil with trowel in hand. As I walk over, he lifts his head, catching sight of me.
His teeth flash white in a smile. “Moira.” Getting to his feet, he wipes the hand not holding the trowel on his clothes. “Good morning.”
I clasp my hands in front of me. “Afternoon now.”
“Is it?” Shading his eyes, he looks out to sea. Dirt smears the underside of his jaw. He turns back, and there’s a softness to the curve of his mouth, the tired lines around his eyes smoothed over. “Shall I make tea?”
I say nothing. I try to picture him taking Connor by the shoulder and slitting him open, his hand clutching a bloodied knife in place of his trowel. The image frays my nerves, quickens my pulse, until all I can hear is the shallow thud of my heartbeat.
It can’t be him. It just can’t.
He was the one to find the body. The thought is a low and lethal whisper. You saw him coming up from the beach.
Jude had been swift to fault the sirens, keen to have me think the same.
“Moira?”
I take a step back. “May we speak inside?”
“Yes, of course.” He glances down at his trowel before shoving the tool in a deep pocket. “I suppose you’re still set on visiting the police station?”
“That’s the plan.”
We walk from the garden to the front of the cottage, and Jude takes off his boots at the threshold so as not to track mud inside. It’s such a habitual gesture, such a simple one, my treacherous heart tries to win out over reason.
In the kitchen, I press my fingertips to the table’s edge. “I didn’t see you at Connor’s funeral.”
His brow creases. “I was there.”
I nod, looking away. I feel the weight of his gaze as he waits for me to say something. A chill brushes over my spine, my vision turning watery at the edges. And I can’t stop myself.
“Did you kill him?”
For the space of a breath, there is nothing between us but silence.
Jude opens his mouth. “Pardon?”
I glare back, teeth bared, my voice as fierce as I can make it. “Did you murder Connor?”
A light goes out in his eyes—one I didn’t realize was there until I no longer see the spark. His face drains of color until it is tinged gray. “Moira,” he says, “what are you talking about?”
My heart threatens to beat out of my chest. The world tilts beneath me, like the deck of a ship in the midst of a squall. It’s all I can do to stay on my feet.
“You’re the one who found him,” I say.
His face reddens. “Well, someone had to!”
I dig my nails into my palms, hard enough to know they’ll leave half-moon crescents in their wake.
“You know me,” says Jude, almost pleading. “How could you even…? I thought we were—” His voice becomes choked, and he takes a deep, shuddering breath. “You really think that of me? That I could do something so monstrous?”
“No.”
The word is hollow—too little, too late. I’ve ignored what my heart already knew, and the cost is more awful than I could’ve imagined. Jude looks like he can’t stand the sight of me. It’s made worse by the fact that I deserve it. I shouldn’t be accorded Jude’s kindness or his understanding or his friendship. He has given so freely, and I have taken it all for granted.
He says, “And yet you accuse me of it.”
My skin feels flushed and uncomfortable, stretched too tight over my bones. “It was my mistake. I’m sorry.”
He laughs in disbelief. “A grand mistake to make. I saw you there on the cliffs, but you don’t see me accusing…” He brings a hand to his chest, across his heart, fingers curling inward. “I would never, in all my life, think so poorly of you.”