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“It’s fine. What’s going on?”

“I’m at school. At North Carolina State. My mom just told me about this guy they found back home. Floating in the bay.”

“Uh-huh,” Livia said, wondering how Jessica had gotten wind that Livia was involved with the case.

“Do you know about it?” Jessica asked.

“Do I . . . yeah,” Livia said. “I heard about it.”

“Some fishermen, like, found the guy floating or something. But people are saying maybe he didn’t jump. Maybe he was killed.”

“Okay.”

“So I saw a picture of the guy. The dead guy.”

“What kind of picture?”

“You know, on the news. My mom sent me the articlefrom the paper. She still doesn’t get that all of that stuff is online.”

Livia waited.

“So anyway, I just wanted to tell you because . . . I figured you’d wanna know.”

“Know what, Jessica?”

“The dead guy? Casey? That they pulled out of the bay? He was the guy Nicole was dating that summer. Before she disappeared.”

SUMMER 2016

“Let ’em drool.”

—Nicole Cutty

CHAPTER 5

July 2016

Five Weeks Before the Abduction

They sat on the edge of the pool, feet bathed in the cool water and the high summer sun on their shoulders. Emerson Bay was in the distance, just down the flight of stairs carved into the hillside and which ran down from the pool to the water’s edge. A pontoon and speedboat floated next to the dock, and two umbrella bays were vacant of the Jet Skis they stored. Rachel’s brother and a friend were streaking the bay on the Yamahas, hopping waves made by the wake of powerboats, the screaming engines audible from the poolside patio where the girls sat. It was Friday afternoon and Emerson Bay was busy. Already, there were boats pulling water skiers and tubers, sailboats angled from the wind, and music blaring from pontoons anchored out by Steamboat Eddie’s.

The three of them—Jessica Tanner, Rachel Ryan, and Nicole Cutty—had been friends since freshman year. At first a reluctant friendship, formed when previousfriends from middle school splintered off into various factions created by sports or neighborhoods or popularity or the hundreds of other categories that separated high school girls. Jessica, Rachel, and Nicole—along with handfuls of other girls—were left to fend for themselves at the beginning of freshman year. A lesson learned in high school, just as in the wild: There was strength in numbers. These three found one another and stuck together. As the other cliques grew, from the cheer team to the scholars, the chemistry geeks to the beauty queens, Nicole and her friends formed their own inseparable union. Only recently, as summer wound down and college beckoned, had things begun to change.

Rachel’s house sat on the edge of Emerson Bay, along with 987 other homes whose owners were lucky enough and wealthy enough to hold such a piece of prime real estate. Although the homes came in various shapes and sizes, most were elaborate structures with sprawling lawns and rolling greenery that spilled down the hillside to the banks of Emerson Bay. Most had pools and beach access and some sort of motorized water toy, from speedboats and pontoons to Jet Skis and fishing boats.

Rachel’s home was where the three had spent each summer since freshman year, lounging poolside or cruising the lake on Rachel’s ArrowCat. It was where they had become friends. Rachel’s house and the pool and the bay and the summers all held their secrets. The pool house was where Jessica had hooked up with Dave Schneider. The boat garage was where Rachel puked the first time she’d gotten drunk. And on theRyans’ docked pontoon was where Nicole claimed to have lost her virginity during a party last summer, although the story had changed so many times no one knew the truth any longer.

“What’s up with you lately?” Jessica asked.

“What do you mean?” Nicole said.

“You’ve been MIA. You don’t post anything. You barely return texts. So what’s up with you? I know you’re not hooking up with anyone.”

Nicole smiled and splashed the water with her feet. Shrugged.

“Get. Out! Who?”

“Yeah,” Rachel said, forehead wrinkled. “Who?”