Page 69 of The Unknown

“But who has copies of the screenplay?” Violet asks.

“Tons of people,” Ronan says, rattling off the names of the director of photography, the costume designer, the art director, the hair and makeup team.

“But none of them are here,” I say.

Ronan nods, catching on. “Of the people in Vermont, it would be just me, Loretta, Brad, and all of you.”

“What about former members of the cast?” I say, thinking of my phone and the texts I received as I was whisked to New Avalon.

don’t set foot on that island. if you do, i swear, you WILL regret it

At the time, I was told it was a warning. But what if it wasn’t?

What if it was a threat?

“What does Lindy Garrett look like?” I say.

“That’s hard to describe,” Ronan says. “She’s, well, not very memorable.”

Plain, in other words. While that might have worked well in a casting notice, it doesn’t help me now. Luckily, Ronan says, “We might still have her headshot somewhere. Either in my research or Loretta’s production notes.”

He hurries into the main house, emerging a few minutes later with the leather knapsack in which he’d kept Daisy’s diary. Now he sorts through it, shuffling the pages inside until he finds an eight-by-ten photograph.

He hands it to me, and I grow instantly dizzy. I’ve seen the woman in the photo before. Not in a movie or play or TV show.

In person.

Mere days ago.

The woman with the benign smile staring from the photograph is the same brunette who started to take my picture when I arrived at thedock. As she lowered her phone, I’d thought her expression was so unusual. Those big, round eyes full of envy.

Now I know why she looked that way—and who she is.

“She’s here,” I say. “I saw her at the dock. Lindy Garrett is here. In Vermont. Right now.”

GO

AWAY

DAISY

Seventeen

Night has fallen and there’s still no sign of Susie.

Or Loretta.

The notion that Lindy Garrett might be the cause of both their absences hangs heavy over New Avalon, as oppressive as the island’s silence and darkness. All of it makes me so damn anxious that I couldn’t sleep if I wanted to. Which I don’t. I’m too worried about what might happen to me if I close my eyes. Instead, I sit up in bed, scribbling down my thoughts by lamplight the same way I imagine Daisy did a hundred years ago.

While she kept a diary, I write a list of names. After all, Lindy isn’t the only potential culprit. There are others, whose names I jot down starting with the least likely.

Pete.

The theory that he did it to hide his grandfather’s crimes a century ago seems even more ridiculous now than it did when I mentioned it earlier. That brings me to someone tied with Pete as so impossible that I feel stupid for even writing her name.

Molly.

Despite the water on the porch and how utterly real she seemed in the moment, it can’t be her. That was just a bad dream or a stress-induced hallucination. She’s not real. She doesn’t exist. She’s gone.