89

I stood back up. Being there where she’d been and feeling the way I’d imagined Amber felt, I wondered for the first time if Missy’s death had been a suicide. Jumping off the side into nothing would be a very thrilling and tragic way to end things. Like flying.

Maybe that was too dramatic. She could have just as easily fallen. If the railing hadn’t been there, in the dark and if she’d been drunk or high or upset or all of the above.

Or someone could have pushed her, relying on the probability that her death would be ruled an accident.

Reeve had told me he hadn’t been anywhere near her when it happened. He’d been on the beach, making sex tapes. There was proof that that was where he’d been. But there were still pieces of Missy’s death that felt unsettled. Things Chris Blakely had mentioned that didn’t have an answer in the story Reeve had told me.

Rustling leaves interrupted my reverie and drew my focus to the path behind me. The glimpse of white moving through the trees told me someone