Summary

In Chapter 17, Avery finds Connor at the docks. They notice that Detective Collins is there, lurking like "a dark shadow on the edge of the pier, hands on his hips, watching [them] go" (190). The duo go out on Connor's boat to the Horseshoe, a small island off the coast of Littletown where Connor took Sadie the year before. Avery recalls going there with Connor seven years prior. Avery reveals that, at that time, people seemed to expect her and Connor to end up getting together. It was

"[a]n inevitability that everyone could see but [them]" (196). Avery admits that she was too consumed by bitterness at the time to see the possibility of being with Connor. On the island, Avery finds a hollowed-out log with a brown wooden box contained in it. Inside the box, she finds a silver flash drive. This was...