Smiley slides his gaze onto my brother. “But you and Mr. Spencer are no longer in school, are you, Mr. Blakely? So why did you go?”

“We felt like it,” Jamie says, and Smiley turns back to me.

“And you talked to Mr. Spencer there?”

I nod. “Sure.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Nothing really,” I say, honestly not evading the question. It just seems so irrelevant. So far in the past.

I will not tell this man that Spence kissed me. I will not tell him how that made me feel or what happened next.

“Where did you talk to him?”

“At the party.” I’m so exasperated I do everything shy of roll my eyes.

“I mean where, exactly, at the party? What parts of the island did he make it to?”

“Oh.” I think a bit. “The beach, of course.” Everyone nods. After all, they’ve already seen the video. “And we might have wandered just a little bit.”

“Wandered where?” the cop says.

“Inland. There’s kind of a clearing. We saw some old ruins and looked at them for a little while.”

“Have you heard enough?” Ms. Chancellor asks, shifting, reminding everyone that she is still my grandfather’s pit bull. A pit bull in high heels.

“Almost. Mr. Spencer and Mr. Volkov got into a fight that night, did they not?” This time he looks at me.

“Boys are idiots,” I say.

“Why don’t you tell us about the fight?” Officer Smiley leans back and crosses his legs, like we’re just chatting, like at any moment Ms. Chancellor is going to ring for tea.

“I thought you were here because of the manhunt,” I tell him, but Smiley just raises an eyebrow. It’s almost like a dare. “It was a fight, okay? A bunch of hitting and grunting and showing off in front of girls in bikini tops. It was exactly what that fight always is. I know you’ve seen the video.”

“Yes. We have. But perhaps you can tell us what Mr. Spencer and Mr. Volkov were fighting over?”

The officer eyes me. We’re playing a game, I realize. Him asking questions to which we both already know the answer. But I don’t like games, so I don’t say another word.

“You don’t have to talk to them, Gracie,” Jamie says.

Smiley ignores him. “Were they fighting over you, Ms. Blakely?”

Beside me, I feel Jamie tense, but I have to laugh at the thought of it. It’s so absurd.

“They were fighting because that is what alpha males do when they are thrown together in close proximity. Herd dominance. Survival of the fittest. Alexei had been gone. Spence was new. So they were the designated fight of the night. Go to any high school party in the world, and chances are you’ll find one.”

“But one of the fighters doesn’t always end up dead.”

Smiley has a point, but I don’t say so.

“Did you give Mr. Spencer a ride off the island?”

It’s the woman, Officer Scowl, who asks this. I’m taken aback for a moment. I’d half forgotten she was here.

“No,” Jamie says. “My sister and I left early. We didn’t see Spence again.”

Until the next morning.

Until he was already dead.

“Did you see Mr. Volkov?” Scowl asks.

“Not until the next day,” Jamie says. “He came to tell me … He and Grace were there when the body washed ashore.”

“Have you seen him since then?” Smiley asks. Jamie shakes his head, so Smiley turns to me. “And when did you last see him?”

“Yesterday morning,” I say. “Not long before someone tried to kill him.”

“Do you know where he might have gone?” Smiley asks.

“No.”

“Do you know anyone he might go to for help?”

“Sure. Anyone who doesn’t want him to be killed.”

I’m being ridiculous, the grown-ups think. A kid. An innocent. A crazy girl with fantasies about conspiracies and wrongly accused boys with pale blue eyes and soft black hair. I am what happens when people just refuse to listen to reason, I can see it in Officer Smiley’s eyes. And I really can’t blame him. Sometimes the lies are so much less work to believe.

“Mr. Spencer died on the island, Ms. Blakely.” Smiley isn’t calling me Grace anymore, I notice. “Now that we’ve spoken to the two of you, we have officially interviewed every person who was there that night, except for Mr. Volkov, of course. It’s been a diplomatic nightmare, but we have done it. And what we’ve learned is that Mr. Spencer didn’t get a ride off the island with anyone. No one saw him on any boat. The current is strong that time of night — too strong for even a young, fit man to swim that distance. So listen to me carefully. Your friend John Spencer died on that island. And on that island there was only one person who might have wanted to hurt him.”

When the pair of officers stand, Officer Smiley closes his notebook and gives me a grin.

“Don’t worry. We have officers posted at the airport and all the private airstrips. All trains in and out of the country are being searched, and his picture is posted at every port. If he’s still here, Alexei Volkov isn’t getting out of Adria.” Then the man cuts his eyes around at the embassy — the fortress — I live inside. “And I highly doubt he can hurt you here.”

“You think Alexei would hurt me?” I actually laugh. “That would be like being afraid of my own brother.”