Fourteen

I stare into the water, but it remains inky black and empty.

There's nothing there, Laney.

I know what I saw.

More garbage. You saw more garbage. Just this morning, Madison was talking about the corpses down there. Pale corpses.

I lower my face to the paddleboard, eyes closed as I catch my breath. That inner voice is right. My mind is playing tricks on me.

One last look over the side, and I reorient myself and get the board turned around. As soon as I try rising to sit, I know why Kit is shouting. I've stayed out too long. A wave hits hard on the back end, grabbing the board and slamming it toward shore, leaving me scrambling for a hold. I'm not a surfer, and this isn't a board meant to ride the waves. The moment the first one subsides, another hits. The board zooms forward, and I'm skittering along it, trying to stay on.

That wave dies, and I see the shore less than a hundred feet away. I'm okay. I'm close. As alarming as this is, the swell is actually taking me in—

A whitecap slams into me, and the board must have turned slightly after the last, because the wave hits wrong. The paddleboard flies up sideways, and I scramble for the fingerholds, but then the board topples, and I'm plunged into the ice-cold water.

The shock hits me first. Wading to the board, I'd felt how cold that water is, but now I'm submerged, and it steals the breath from my lungs. Another wave smacks into me, lifting me out of the water and then dragging me under.

I am under the water, life vest and all, surrounded by jet black. Then there's something there. A flash of white. I claw for it with both hands. It turns in the current, and I'm staring into a face haloed with blond hair.

"Sadie!"

I say her name aloud, and water rushes in, choking me. The face disappears. I fight, clawing and writhing, trying to find Sadie again, but the jacket finally does its work, jettisoning me up. I surface, gasping and hacking. Then I thrash, struggling to get back under the water, to find her, to find Sadie.

There's a moment where, in my fear and desperation, I almost undo the life vest. It's keeping me from getting under the water. Keeping me from getting to Sadie. I get as far as finding the first latch with my numb fingers before my brain kicks in.

I float and catch my breath. There's a lull in the wind, the waves only nudging me toward shore. I have a moment to look around. I can see into the water, and nothing's there.

Am I sure I saw something?

If I did, I should still see it.

Should still see her.

I don't. I'm not sure what I saw, but I'd been in a panic from going under the water, and I imagined seeing Sadie.

I close my eyes and inhale. Kit's shouts are frantic now, and I try to lift a hand to tell him I'm okay, but I can't get it out of the water. My arm feels like lead. I'm cold. So cold that I can't feel anything.

Swim, damn it. Just swim.

I lift my hand in a doggie paddle, and now my brain is the enemy as it gibbers in terror. I can't feel my arm. It's not just cold. It's not just asleep. I literally cannot feel even the dead weight of it. But it moves. Somehow it moves. I swallow the panic and swim.

Only a hundred feet. Isn't that what I just thought? The shore is only a hundred feet away. But now it is a hundred feet away, a seemingly endless distance, and each lift of my arms takes incredible effort, and I am not going to make it.

I'm going to die.

No, I'm wearing a life vest.

What difference will that make? I'm going to freeze to death.

No, Kit is there. He sees I'm in trouble. He will not let me die.

He'll save you? With what? A boat he doesn't have? Swim out and die trying? Run for a rope to throw that you cannot feel enough to grab?

Earlier we'd joked about life vests only letting you find the bodies afterward. Not a joke. Not a joke at all. When the tears come, I gasp with the sudden heat of them scorching down my face, and they shock me from my gibbering panic.

I am swimming. I did not stop to flip out. I am still moving, and the waves are helping. They threw me from my board, but now they are helping. They're pushing me along, and all I need to do is stay alive. Keep up my pathetic dog paddle. Movement will help. Don't surrender to the cold. Just keep going.

I think I have it under control. Then something white surfaces in front of me, and my arms fly up, water filling my mouth as I flail, first in terror—holy shit, Sadie's body!—and then intention—must get Sadie's body.

The waves hit harder now, the splash and foam of them obscuring my vision. I can only see something pale. Then I realize my arm is over it. I have it under my arm, even if I can't feel it.

I have Sadie. Oh, thank God, I have Sadie.

Thank God?

I have Sadie's body. The friend I still loved, no matter how much her betrayal had cut me. I loved her, and I grieved for the loss of her friendship, and I had imagined a day when we would reconcile. Now she is gone, and I am holding her body, and I am damn well going to get it to shore, no matter what.

I keep pushing on, blind and numb, heading in the direction I know is the shore. I can dimly see the blur of it ahead, trees rising in a wall of darkness. I have Sadie by her arm or leg or something. I see a scrap of pale shape every time I lift my arm to claw at the water, the other arm needing to do most of the work because I cannot let go of Sadie. I absolutely cannot—

A wave grabs me. It catches me off guard, seeming to come from the front. Have I gotten twisted around? Am I imagining the shore and heading out to sea?

Sea? No, a lake. It's a lake.

Isn't it?

My brain seems to stall, thoughts evaporating. Where am I? Why is it so cold? I must be dreaming. I'm so tired, and I just want to keep sleeping, but this silly dream won't stop. I'm floating on the waves, and then I'm flying. I'm in the air and flying, and there's a voice. Is that Kit? I'm definitely dreaming. Kit is at home, wherever home is these days for him.

A hoarse cry, and then I'm falling. I hit the ground and it's like startling awake, reality slamming back.

"Laney!" Kit's voice. "Oh God, Laney. I couldn't feel my legs. I fell."

Lake. Paddleboard.

Sadie.

I convulse, and I can sense something below me, even if I can't feel it. Then Kit is there, rubbing my arms.

"Laney? I need to get you to the house. Just give me a second. My legs. My fucking legs."

Kit never uses that word. I do, more than any English teacher should. I totally blame Jayla's influence.

And that is not what I should be thinking, but my brain keeps threatening to slide back into shock. No, hypothermia. Shit! This is hypothermia.

I close my eyes and struggle to focus.

"Laney!" Kit shakes my shoulders, or I presume he does from the motion. "Don't go to sleep."

"Not," I mumble.

Focus. Concentrate. I'm on the beach. Kit came in after me. That's the "wave" that carried me to shore. He can't walk because his legs are numb. That means I'm not the only one in trouble here.

"Okay, okay," he says. "I can do this."

His arm goes around me.

"I can do this," he says through gritted teeth. "Need to get you someplace warm."

He manages to get onto his knees. Then I feel the faintest tug at my arm and realize it's clenched tight.

"You need to let this go," he says.

I convulse again, the memory hitting. "No! It's…"

I look down at my arm. It is not holding Sadie. It's holding some piece of… I don't even know what. Is it the damn trash bag?

In my half-blind state, I'd bumped into something white and grabbed it, thinking I had Sadie's body, and now I could almost laugh. My arm has a death grip on a chunk of debris, maybe a foot long.

I drop it. As it falls to the ground, I blink. It's a piece of beige leather. The top part of a boat seat. And there's something on it. Black permanent marker scrubbed and sanded in an attempt to erase it from the leather. Only part is left, the rest ripped away, but I know what it said.

Dean Peters, 2022!

I know what it said because I'm the person who scrubbed and sanded, cursing the entire time. I'd contacted the renters and told them what I'd found and they'd laughed it off.

Kids, huh?

Kid, my ass. That kid had been their seventeen-year-old son, who'd thought it was just fine to write his name on a leather seat—his full name, because what the hell was I going to do about it? Call the cops?

This is from my boat.

It's a piece of the captain's seat. The entire leather top of the captain's seat, ripped off.

"Kit?" I whisper.

His arms go around me, the pressure telling me he's holding tight, even if I can't feel his touch.

"I've got you," he says. "I'll get you inside. I swear it, Laney. I've got you. This time, I've got you, and I'm so sorry—" His voice breaks.

"Kit?"

I try to point at the piece of leather, but my arm only lolls onto it. When I try to form a full sentence, my tongue won't cooperate and I can only jerk my chin at the leather. He finally gets it, and even then only frowns at the seat cover, as if he can't figure out what it is or how it got there.

"Ours," I say.

I mean to say "Mine," but the boat was ours, and that's what comes out.

"Our boat."

He reaches for it, and it falls through his numb fingers. "That's… that's from…"

"Graffiti. Renter. Scrubbed."

He rocks back on his heels. "That's from our boat? The seats? How—?"

He looks out at the water, horror dawning. Then he jerks his attention back to me.

"We need to get you inside," he says. "We'll figure out… We'll figure it all out later."

He gets his hands under my armpits again, and I start to shake, and when I start, I can't stop, my whole body quaking so bad he can barely keep his grip on me.

"S-sorry. C-can't."

"Shh, shh. I've got you."

He lurches, as if on stilts, and twice he almost falls before getting his balance. Then it seems to get easier, and he's walking, with me huddled against his chest, in near convulsions of shivering.

"The shivering is keeping you warm," he says. "Don't try to stop it."

Another three steps. Then he warns, "I'm going to shout," before he does it. His voice rings out over the crash of waves.

"Jayla? Jayla!"

A few more steps before he bellows for his sister again. It's after the third time, when he's starting to shake himself, with the exertion of carrying me when he can barely walk, that a shout returns.

"Kit!" Bare feet slap rock. Jayla's voice. "Laney? Oh my God. What happened? Did you capsize? The storm, the damn storm. You shouldn't have—"

"Laney," he says. "In the water. Hypothermia."

"Fuck!" she shouts. "Garrett!"

Then Madison's voice. "Laney? Kit? What happened to Laney?" Her voice rises with every word, and I want to tell her I'm fine, but my teeth chatter too much to form words.

Other hands grab me, and as Kit relinquishes me, he says, "I'm sorry," and I know it's not because of what happened—he had nothing to do with that. It's that he's handed me to Garrett. He had to.

"Get her inside," Jayla says. "Fuck! Kit? Can you walk?"

"Help him," I manage.

Garrett says, "Looks like Laney wasn't the only one who went for a swim. Yeah, help him to the house before he collapses."

Garrett carries me inside, and when that first wave of heat hits, it actually hurts. Needles prick everywhere, and I squeeze my eyes shut against the sudden rush of sensation.

Garrett lays me on the sofa while Madison shouts orders. Blankets. Wet clothes off. Don't rub our skin. No hot water. Leave the woodstove off for now. Let us warm up naturally.

I'd made her take first aid last year, when she started talking about spending a weekend on the island with friends. She'd grumbled about how boring the course was, and how she'd never remember anything. Obviously, not quite true.

Kit is able to talk first, and he adds to the instructions. Before long, I can feel all my body parts again, and I'm curled up with a hot cocoa and a plate of s'mores roasted on the woodstove fire, both of us being warmed enough for Madison to get the heat going.

"Bring more cocoa," Madison calls to Garrett in the kitchen. "They need sugar."

I'm not sure we need that much sugar, but Kit winks at me and calls, "All the sugar."

He's at the other end of the couch. We're both cocooned in blankets, having needed—as Madison correctly said—to get out of our wet clothing.

"Ready to tell us what the hell happened out there?" Jayla says. "I'm guessing the canoe flipped in the waves?"

I shake my head. "There is no canoe."

I don't mean to be that blunt, but I'm still mentally frozen.

"No canoe?" Garrett says, coming in with two more mugs of cocoa. "Did someone steal it?"

Jayla cuts in. "Please tell me you did not try heading to shore with the kayaks. Those damn things tip without waves."

"The kayaks are gone, too," Kit says.

"Then what…" Jayla stares at me. "You did not go out on that fucking paddleboard. A kayak is bad enough, but I don't know how anyone rides a paddleboard and thinks it's safe, much less fun."

"Laney paddled out a bit to check on something," Kit says. "She had her life vest."

"What the hell could be important enough to paddle out in a storm?"

"It's not a storm yet," Kit says, trying for patience. "She wouldn't do that. It seemed fine and…" He glances my way. "It was important. She thought she saw…"

"Parts of the boat," I say. "I noticed debris on the water earlier, and then I saw it again and remembered spotting it before falling into the crevice. This time it wasn't far from shore. Yes, I shouldn't have gone out. Yes, Kit trusted my judgment, and I took advantage of that. But I had to know."

"It wasn't…?" Madison begins.

"It wasn't," Jayla says firmly. "It couldn't have been. But everyone's on edge, and I get why your aunt had to be sure, even if I really wish she'd waited for it to wash to shore."

"Laney?" Madison looks at me. "It wasn't part of the boat, was it?"

"What I saw at first was garbage from the boat," I say carefully. "Jayla's coffee cup. Then the trash bag with the litter scattered."

"Which you then tried to clean up and fell in," Jayla grumbles. "First you fall into that crevice, then you nearly freeze to death cleaning up trash. You might love nature, Laney, but it clearly doesn't love you back."

"At least you're both fine," Garrett says. "Even if I do agree with Jayla. Mother Nature is a bitch. Does anyone else want cocoa? I'm going to make myself some."

"You said first," Madison says, moving from her chair to sit on the edge of the couch. "You said that's what you saw at first."

I glance at Kit.

He opens his mouth.

"We found part of the boat," I blurt, saving him from being the one to say it. "I grabbed it after a wave knocked me off the board."

"Part of the boat?" Garrett frowns. "Something fell off it?"

Again, Kit and I exchange a look.

"No," he says, beating me to it this time. "We found part of the captain's chair. The top piece of material." When Garrett's mouth opens, Kit says, "It was undoubtedly from Laney's boat. There was graffiti from a renter that she tried to scrub off."

"I saw that," Jayla says. "Some asshole— Wait. Part of the captain's chair? The leather? How…?"

She trails off as realization hits.

"The boat… sank?" Madison says, her voice a whisper.

"That doesn't make sense," Garrett cuts in. "Floating garbage might, if the boat hit the shore and sunk, but part of the seat? Like it came off?"

"It…" I begin.

"It's on the beach," Kit says. "You can examine it. The leather is torn, which doesn't seem possible, but the canoe and kayaks… They aren't missing. They're destroyed."

"How?" Garrett says.

"They're in pieces," I say. "Little pieces."

"Like someone hacked them up with a machete?"

"No, like…"

"It looks like a bomb," Kit says. "Everything that was on ground level is in small, twisted pieces."

"So someone blew up your boats?" Garrett says. "The kayak, the canoe, and the motorboat." He goes still. "Which means Sadie did not take the boat. Like I said." He strides to the windows, jabbing a finger out. "My sister is out there. On this damn island. She couldn't have left because the nutjob who killed your cleaner blew up all your boats, including that one. So we abandoned her out there, on the island, with a killer."

"All her things are gone," Jayla says.

"But she didn't leave on the boat because…" All the color drains from his face. "No. That's not— No." Before anyone can speak, he bears down on me. "Someone put a bomb on your boat, and if my sister took it…" He can't finish.

"We don't know that," Kit cuts in. "Yes, her things are gone, but she might have been planning to leave and then the boat wasn't there, so she's somewhere on the island, cooling off. Maybe she's even in the boathouse. No one searched it."

I remember what I saw in the water. Sadie's face. Sadie's body.

No, that's what I thought I saw. A blink, and it was gone.

Kit continues, "I shouldn't have said it was a bomb. I meant that's what it looked like with the canoe and kayaks, but it couldn't have been because the structure is intact."

Garrett's face screws up. "The structure is intact? Speak English."

"The shed wasn't touched," I say. "The boats, the life vests, the oars, they're all in pieces, but the paddleboard was left in the rafters—as if it wasn't noticed—and there's no damage to the shed, inside or out."

"That doesn't make sense."

"It doesn't. Which—"

"None of you are making sense," Garrett snaps as he stalks to the door. "I'm done listening. You don't even know what you're saying. I don't know why I expected better, all things considered."

That barb strikes hard, and I fight the urge to snarl something back. Not in front of Madison.

"I'll go with you," Kit says. "Give me a second to find dry clothing."

Garrett stalks out without pausing.

Kit looks at me. "Do you have any clothing renters left behind?"

"There's a box of your stuff in my storage room."

"Oh. Right. I never… uh, told you what to do with it."

"I thought you might want to come out here sometime," I say, as lightly as I can. "And if you didn't, I'd have added it to the box for renters who arrive in September with nothing but shorts and tank tops." I start to rise, blanket wrapped around me. "I'll show you where it is."

"I'll get it," Madison says. "Then I'm going out to see the shed."

Another exchanged look between me and Kit, but there's no reason to keep her from doing that. Better that we all see it and try to come up with a rational explanation.

There isn't one. You know that.

I need one. I know that, too.