“Do you know where there’s a key?” Joanie asks.

Maia says, “Follow me.” They go across the deck, past the hot tub, and down the stairs to the shuffleboard court. The cues are hanging on the rack and the black and red disks are stacked in a milk crate. Maia reaches around to the back of the crate and feels the key taped just under the lip. Ha! She pulls the key loose. This is the key her mother used when she and Maia arrived before Russ got here (sometimes Rosie brought home-cooked meals—her jerk chicken with beans and rice—or pints of coconut ice cream from Scoops, which was Russ’s favorite), and this was where they put the key when they stayed after Russ left (which was sometimes very, very early in the morning). This means the last person to touch this key was Rosie. Maia brings the key to her lips.

She leads Joanie to the door that the key fits. It pulls right open, and seconds later, they’re up in the kitchen, opening the slider.

“Hey, guys,” she says to Shane, Colton, and Bright. “Who’s hungry?”

There’s still food in the fridge, though all of the fresh stuff has grown mold or gone bad. The cabinets and pantry, however, are a treasure trove. The boys dive on the bags of chips while Joanie unearths a package of hot dogs from the freezer (Joanie’s parents are vegan; for her, a hot dog is the ultimate forbidden treat). Maia opens three cans of SpaghettiOs and dumps them in a pot.

Ten minutes later, they have a feast: bowls of SpaghettiOs, hot dogs with yellow mustard and relish, Cheetos and dill-flavored potato chips—all washed down with Italian sparkling water.

Maia thinks maybe now is the time to start a conversation. “Does anybody have anything they want to talk about?” She looks at Colton; it was his parents’ divorce that brought the group together. But Colton and Bright are tussling on the banquette; Colton bumps up against Joanie, who must love it.

“Let’s go back in the pool,” Bright says.

“Should I turn on the hot tub?” Maia asks.

“Yeah!” they all say. The afternoon is sunny and very hot but there’s still something alluring about the bubbles and all of them close together.

“I’ll do it after I clean up,” Maia says.

Colton, Bright, and Joanie head outside. Shane stays to help Maia bring the plates and the bowls to the sink. He throws the empty bags and cans away.

“The FBI owns this house now?” he says.

Maia shrugs. “I guess so.”

“It doesn’t look like anyone’s living here.” He gazes upward. “Do you think they installed cameras?”

“I think…” Maia tries to remember if she overheard Huck and Irene saying anything about the fate of the villa. Gone was all they said. It’s gone. “I think maybe the government will sell it? And take the money and put it into their budget?”

“Yeah,” Shane says. “You’re probably right. When do you think the new owners will move in?”

“Probably not for a while,” Maia says. “Everything looks the same. It’s almost like the FBI locked it up and then forgot it was here.”

“So maybe we can use it again?” Shane says. “Because this is an awesome hangout. What’s upstairs?”

“There are nine bedrooms,” Maia says. She knows this is an outrageous number because she heard her mother say so. “Want to see my room?”

Shane’s eyebrows shoot up. “Sure.”

Sure, sure, sure, Maia thinks. Is this happening? She should not be doing this, she’s twelve and a half, too young to have a boy in her bedroom. If you listen to Huck, twenty-five is too young. But this is an opportunity she may never get again. What if the new people move in next week, or tomorrow?

The upstairs is unpleasantly hot and stuffy; the air-conditioning is off. Maia leads Shane down the long hallway past the other bedrooms, all of them the same as Maia remembers, with their camel cashmere blankets and fluffy white duvets folded at the bottom of each bed and the arrangement of six pillows plus bolster at the head. She wonders briefly about the people who will end up buying this villa. Will they be older with a lot of children and grandchildren? Will they be young with a lot of friends they invite for weekend house parties? Will they ever learn anything about Maia—or Russ and Rosie?

Maia reaches the end of the hallway and opens the door to her room. It’s a swirl of turquoise and purple tie-dye; pillows that spell out her name hang on the far wall.

“Wow,” Shane says. “This is way cooler than my room.”

“It’s way cooler than my room at home.” Maia feels disloyal to Huck in saying this, but it’s undeniable. Here, she has beanbag chairs and a dressing table with a lit mirror. She remembers her mother handing her the Pottery Barn Teen catalog and telling her to “go crazy.” Maia had pointed to her favorite picture in the catalog, and the next time Russ came back to the island, her room looked like this. He had thought of the name pillows himself, he said. Maia picks up her copy of The Hate U Give. “I forgot I left this here. I’m taking this home.” She sits on the bed and Shane sits next to her. He kicks at her foot and then their two legs are intertwined. She’s afraid he’s going to kiss her. But isn’t that what she wants? The door is halfway open. She’s safe here, safe with Shane.

She falls backward on the bed and he does the same. When she looks at him, he smiles. He’s so cute without his braces. He inches his face closer and she thinks, This is it. She closes her eyes. His lips touch hers and they kiss. He lingers and she thinks, Is this where we open our mouths? Yes; yes, it is. They are, suddenly, tongue-kissing, which makes Maia feel like she’s flying down the pool slide upside down and backward.

“Maia!” Joanie shouts from somewhere.

No, Joanie, please, Maia thinks. Go away! Don’t ruin this!

“Maia, where are you?” Joanie calls. “Someone’s here!”

Shane jumps to his feet. “Someone’s here?” he says. “Should we hide?”

Should they hide? Maia opens her bedroom door wide and sees Joanie’s stricken face; Colton and Bright are right on her heels, trailing pool water down the hall.

“There’s a woman here,” Joanie says. “She pulled up in a black Jeep.”

“With tinted windows,” Bright says. “It’s a four-door Sahara Limited, plate TP six-seven-five-six.”

“She asked to talk to you,” Joanie says. “By name. She said, ‘Is Maia here?’”

“What?” Maia says. She can’t hide if they know her name. “Did she show a badge? Is she with the FBI?” Maia can’t even fathom the massive amount of trouble she’s in. And maybe not only her, maybe Huck as well. She feels her SpaghettiOs repeat on her; she’s going to hurl.

Shane comes up behind her and squeezes her hand. “I’ll go down with you.”

“We’ll all go down with you,” Joanie says.

“We’re just kids,” Colton says. “We can say we didn’t know we weren’t allowed to be here.”

Maia is trembling when she gets down to the bottom of the stairs. “You guys stay here,” she says. She steps out to the deck.

The woman is gazing at the view across the water to Tortola and Jost Van Dyke. She’s short and has brown hair that’s pulled back in a ponytail; she’s wearing white capri pants and a beige linen shell and sandals, and when she turns around, Maia sees she has a round, pale face with wide brown eyes. She doesn’t look like the FBI, but maybe this is how they trick you. They send someone who looks like the person who cleans teeth at the dentist’s office.