Page 18 of Skin and Bones

“Why bring it to me?” I asked.

“I need you to read it. Immediately.” He glanced toward the windows. “I can’t be seen with it, and I can’t take it back to the station.”

I frowned. “Why not?”

“Because I technically shouldn’t have removed it from evidence,” he admitted. “Though I’m not sure it matters since it was never admitted as evidence in the first place. And because I don’t know who I can trust at the department. Deputies Harris and Jackson have been working with me to sort through everything. They’re not from the island and I hired them, so for now, I’m trusting them. But I’ve got thirty-eight other deputies who I inherited from Milton.”

The gravity of what he was saying sank in. “You think someone there is involved in the cover-up.”

He didn’t confirm or deny, but his silence was answer enough.

“Coffee,” I decided. “I need coffee before I can process any of this. Come on.”

I led him through to the kitchen, where Chowder had already waddled his way after us, looking thoroughly put out about having his beauty sleep interrupted.

“Don’t give me that look,” I told Chowder as he snorted indignantly. “This wasn’t my idea.”

Dash watched our interaction with something like amusement. “Does he understand everything you say to him?”

“For the most part,” I said, filling his water bowl since he was up anyway. “He’s a very intelligent dog.”

I busied myself with the coffee maker.

“You know,” he said, breaking the awkward silence, “Since the neighbors are already talking, we might as well give them something real to talk about.”

I nearly dropped the coffee scoop. “Excuse me?”

“Dinner,” he clarified, and I could swear there was a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “Tomorrow night. If you’re free.”

I turned to face him, coffee forgotten. “Like a date?”

“We don’t have to call it that if it makes you uncomfortable,” he said. “We could just call it dinner.”

I studied him for a moment, trying to decide if he was serious. He met my gaze steadily, and I realized with a little jolt that he was completely sincere.

“I…ahh…haven’t really dated,” I said lamely.

“Have you eaten dinner?”

If a hole had opened up in the floor I would have gladly fallen through it, never to be seen again.

“I’ll think about it,” I finally said, turning back to the coffee. “After I’ve had caffeine.”

He chuckled, a warm sound that seemed to surprise even him. “Fair enough.”

Ten minutes later, we were seated at my kitchen table, steaming mugs of coffee between us, the diary laid out like a time bomb waiting to detonate. Chowder had settled at Dash’s feet, the traitor, looking up adoringly whenever Dash absentmindedly reached down to scratch behind his ears.

I opened the diary carefully, mindful of its age. The first page had Property of Elizabeth Anne Calvert written in looping, girlish handwriting.

“She was twenty-two,” Dash said quietly.

I nodded and began to flip through the pages. The early entries were what you’d expect from a young woman—complaints about professors and assignments, sorority parties and guys she’d dated but that never seemed to last long. She wasn’t interested in college boys. She wanted someone who was mature and knew something about the world. There were more pages filled with her excitement about getting accepted into graduate school, and more gossip about friends. She never used their names. Only initials. But as I reached the entries from the weeks before her death, the tone changed dramatically.

“Listen to this,” I said.

Met with J again today. He says it’s too dangerous, that I should let it go. But how can I? What they’re doing isn’t just wrong, it’s criminal. The whole island is built on lies.

Dash leaned forward. “What date is that entry?”

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