Page 14 of The Same Backward as Forward

“I don’t need to tell you about secrets, Hannah.” It was just like him to phrase it like that, leaving the warning itself unspoken.No one can find out.

“It’s only a secret,” I replied, “if you have someone to tell.” Otherwise, it was just another way of being alone.

And I was a master at that.

I took a three-mile hike and then two buses to get to a chain pharmacy in a town where I knew no one. I was wearing a massive flannel shirt of Jackson’s over the same pair of scrub pants I’d been wearing for days. No one paid me a second look.

I planned to pay in cash. I’d worked from the time I was fourteen until I’d moved out, and my second-year internship had been paid. I had enough money to make rent each month, and I was Rooney enough to keep cash on me by default. No one in a family like mine put things on cards, not unless there was a reason towanta paper trail.

As an additional precaution, I mixed the medical supplies we needed in with other purchases—deodorant, snack food, menstrual products, and, on impulse, a spiral notebook, a pack of pens, and a deck of cards.

I got in a line with a male cashier and put the period products up first. He avoided looking too closely at anything I set on the counter after that.

Two and a half hours later, when I arrived back at Jackson’s, the first thing I saw was my patient, propped up just enough to throw back a glass of whiskey.

“Miss me?” Harry said darkly.

I turned to glare at Jackson.

“We were out of meds,” the fisherman grunted.

“And now we’re not.” I dropped the plastic bags from the pharmacy onto the floor. “Good luck with that,” I told Jackson.

I’d been killing myself to save my patient’s ungrateful ass, and he was well on his way to gettingdrunk.

As I turned to leave, Harry’s whiskey-laden voice rolled over me from behind. “Don’t worry, Beardy. She’ll be back.”

Chapter 12

It had been days since I’d been to my place. If I’d been a normal person, that kind of thing probably wouldn’t have gone unnoticed, but I was almost as much of a recluse as Jackson was. I stepped into my apartment assuming that no one had missed me—and then I saw the note.

My sister’s name was written in all-capital letters at the top of the page. KAYLIE. The only thing below it was a time, underlined with a heavy hand:8PM.

I had no way of knowing who had left this message or when, but I knew it was from my mother, and I knew better than to ignore it. Best-case scenario, that 8PMreferred to tonight. Worst-case scenario, I’d missed the summons and would have to come up with a plausible explanation about where I’d been.

As eight o’clock approached, I made my way to my car. This time, when I pulled onto the dirt road that dead-ended at the Rooney compound, the number of cars parked outside made it clear: I hadn’t missed anything, and I wasn’t the only one who had been summoned.

This was afamilyaffair.

I let myself in. A dozen people were crowded into the kitchen, including both of my parents. There was food on the stove andthe countertops, lots of it. Everyone else was wearing black. I was wearing jeans and a faded gray sweatshirt. No one gave them or me a second look until my mother turned to face me. The effect was instantaneous.

When Eden Rooney took notice of something, everyone else did, too.

“Glad to see you made it to your sister’s wake.” My mother’s tone was hard to read. “Hope the scumbag reporters didn’t bother you on the way in.”

Reporters?Old instincts kept me from betraying even a hint of surprise. “I didn’t see any.”

“Imagine that.” Her lips curled slightly, and I thought about the many and varied methods my family might have used to run off unwanted visitors.

“Where are the dogs?” I asked.

“This is private property.” My mother was a master at answering questions bynotanswering them. “Not my fault if someone ignores theNo Trespassingsigns.”

There wasn’t a single local reporter who would have taken that chance—not in this town, not anywhere close by.This isn’t just local news, I realized. I had no idea why it hadn’t occurred to me until then that the fire on Hawthorne Island had probably made national headlines.

Maybe even international.

A private island. A billionaire’s tragedy. Young lives cut short.I tried not to think about the kind of media circus that would happen when Toby Hawthorne reappeared alive—and focused on the other part of what my mother had said instead.