See How They Run (Embassy Row 2)

Grandpa goes from annoyed to merely befuddled. “Okay. Go. Leave. Experience with my blessing.” Grandpa stands and slaps Noah on the back. “Before you drip all over the floor and Ms. Chancellor yells at us.”

Ms. Chancellor, I think with a pang.

What harm did it do Caroline?

“I take it you’ve been out enjoying the rain festival?” Grandpa’s voice pulls me back, but it takes a while to realize he’s talking about me and that I’m as drenched as my friends. But, as usual, Grandpa isn’t really concerned about my answer. “How they get it to rain every year at least once during these two weeks I’ll never know. But somehow they do.”

Then Grandpa shakes his head, as if in wonder.

My brother isn’t as easily distracted. “Where have you been?” he asks.

Noah cocks his head. “Yeah, where have you been?”

I give my friends an I’ll fill you in later nod and move toward my grandpa’s desk.

“The theory has always been that Alexei had to have killed Spence because he died on the island and no one else there had a motive to kill him, right?” I don’t bother to wait for their replies. “But what if Spence didn’t die on the island?”

If my change of subject surprises them, it doesn’t last long.

“You can’t know that, Gracie,” Jamie says.

“Yes. I can.” I pull Jamie’s phone from my pocket and hold it out to him. “I found this. And it’s full of messages from Spence. From after the party.”

“Is that mine?” Jamie asks.

“Yes.”

My brother comes toward me, takes the phone. “Where did you find it?”

If I tell him, we’ll fight, and, for once, I’m not in the mood, so I take a step back.

“The police think Alexei did it because Spence never left the island. Well, they’re wrong. There’s no cell service on the island. If Spence called and texted Jamie after the party, then he must have made it back. And if he made it back, then Alexei wasn’t the only person who could have killed him.”

I’m right, and I know it. They know it. But there is something else on Jamie’s mind as he leans toward me, his voice like ice.

“Where did you find the phone, Gracie?”

“Where did you lose your phone, Jamie?”

“I don’t know. That’s kind of what people mean when they say things are lost.”

“Where did you last see it?”

“I don’t know. Here, I guess. I remember putting it in my jacket pocket and then …”

“Spence was wearing your jacket,” I say, but Jamie only looks at me, confused. “When he washed ashore, he was in your jacket. That’s why I thought he was you.”

I regret the words as soon as I say them.

“Oh, Gracie.” Jamie moves to hug me, but I don’t need his comfort or his pity. I want his trust.

So I lie.

“The phone was downstairs. In the dining room under the table. You probably turned it off for dinner, and then it fell out of your pocket, but how I found the phone doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Spence made it back to the mainland.”

“No.” Grandpa shakes his head, walks around his desk. “Impossible. The police questioned everyone, and no one admitted to giving him a ride off the island, Gracie. It’s too far to swim. There’s no way.”

“There is a way! I know because it happened.” I reach for the phone again, shove it toward my brother. “Here. Play them. Play your messages.”

When Jamie reaches for his phone, it’s almost like he’s afraid that it might bite him, so I press the buttons myself, and soon there’s a voice in my grandfather’s office. A ghost on speakerphone, calling from the grave.

“Blake! Man, you’re not going to believe this. Call me back.”

Slowly, my brother reaches down to play the next message.

“Blake! Pick up the phone, man. I’ve got to … Just call me. As soon as you get this, call me!”

At first, Spence sounds excited, intrigued. But by the next message he’s out of breath. It’s like he’s been running and is winded. His voice is barely a whisper.

“Blake. It’s me again, man. I’m trying to get back to the embassy, but if I don’t, you have to know —”

Spence never speaks again. I hear a crash, like his phone falling to the street. There are mumbles and scuffling sounds. A hit. And then there’s nothing but silence and a cold chill of dread that comes with the knowledge that we’ve just heard the last moments of John Spencer’s life.

For a long moment, my brother just stands, looking at the phone, guilt and grief spreading across his face.

His friend called him, but Jamie wasn’t there. Not for our mother. Not for Spence. And now it’s way too late to save either one.

“He made it back to the mainland,” I say again, hoping that this time they’ll believe me. “He made it back, and he saw something. And they killed him.”

No one says, There is no “they.” My grandfather and brother have already spent years telling me there is no Scarred Man. But there is. Dominic is real. His scar is real. It’s just the details of that night that my mind always managed to forget and confuse.

This time, it’s the details I don’t know.

“He made it off the island,” I say again.

“How?” Jamie asks, and for a second, I think I might do something crazy. I think I might just tell the truth. But then I hear my name.