Ryan looked beautiful swimming in the water at The Cays at night, the moon throwing a cast on the water that made its surface a deep, gorgeous dark blue. She laughed and twirled around in her white T-shirt, which clung to her body like some nymph’s cloak spun of silk. Yet Lia had never known her to risk swimming in the deep waters of the bay.
Ryan had been the first to begin wearing makeup, the first to steal a pack of her mother’s cigarettes (and two diet pills), but now it was as if she’d changed, swimming far out to sea, past the point where Lia could reach her.
The girls told their parents they were babysitting for Cindy whenever they partied with Neil. They hung out with him steadily for about three weeks before it all collapsed.
The Cays was a development of condominiums right alo
