Twenty-Five

We're at the patio when a voice from the forest shouts, "What the hell are you doing?"

It's Garrett. Kit ignores him, but I shout back, "Get in the house."

We near the door to see Madison running for it from the inside, having heard us. She jabs the security panel as I reach for the sliding-door handle. A hand grabs my shoulder, and I barely have time to spin around before Kit's fist flies out. It hits Garrett in the jaw, and the bigger man stumbles and then bounces back with a snarl of rage. Garrett swings, but Kit grabs his wrist and twists it away.

"You do not touch her," Kit says. "You do not ever touch her."

He shoves Garrett away. Madison has the door open, and Kit nudges me through while watching for Garrett to come at him. Garrett does, but it takes a moment. He didn't expect that from Kit. Oh, Kit might be a tech CEO and a band kid, but he was also captain of the football team in high school. Never the guy spoiling for a fight, he's always been the one getting between two guys who are. That's why he made captain. He was the player who commanded the most respect… while not being afraid to get in the quarterback's face if he had to. When Garrett does bounce back, it's only to wrench the door from Kit's hand.

"What the hell are you doing?" Garrett says. "My sister is out there." He jabs a finger at the forest.

"Get inside," I say.

"I am not—"

"Get the fuck inside, Garrett," I say. "Or I am locking that door and leaving you out there with Sadie and whatever the hell did that to her."

"A bomb did that—"

"Inside. Now."

He moves past the door, just enough for Kit to get it shut and me to arm the security system.

"A bomb did not do that to Sadie," I say. "And I think we all know it. You saw the shed. A bomb didn't destroy my…" I trail off as I see Madison watching.

I freeze. I need Garrett to know what's out there. If he chooses to still search for Sadie, that is up to him, but he must know what we saw. Yet there is no way in hell I'm painting that picture for Madison.

"Mads?" Kit says. "I could ask you to come and make dinner with me, but you're not a child. You'd know exactly what I'm doing, and you deserve to be treated like the young adult you are."

My gut clenches, and I'm ready to leap in before he tells her anything.

He continues, "So I'm going to be bluntly honest. Laney and I really do not want you to hear this. I can give you the basics while we make that dinner, but we don't want you hearing the details, and if that pisses you off?" He shrugs. "Then it pisses you off. I'm sorry, but you are not listening to this conversation."

There's only a moment's hesitation before Madison nods. It's the "we" that does it. Laney and I. The united parental pairing, something she hasn't had since she was too young to more than vaguely remember it.

"Thank you for making this easier on them," Jayla murmurs to Madison.

Madison ducks, cheeks flushing. She mumbles something and then lets Kit lead her out of the hall.

When they're gone, I motion Jayla and Garrett into my office. Garrett's mouth sets, but he just stomps in. He makes a move to slam the door shut behind us. I catch it and leave it cracked open.

"In case Sadie comes to the patio door," I say, but I'm not thinking of Sadie; I'm thinking of Madison and Kit. I need to be within earshot.

"Out with it," Garrett says. "What did you find?"

"The people who wanted to buy the island," I say. "Who staged everything."

His gaze shoots to the door. "They're out there? Where? There's four of us. We can—"

"They're dead."

"Dead? You're sure?"

"That's… that's the problem," I say. "Kit and I are absolutely certain they're dead. I found the woman's head staked on a tree."

"What the…?" Jayla says, and seems to lose the last word.

"It's up on the bluff, by the gazebo," I say. "There's also a wind chime. Made from her fingers and rib bones."

Jayla looks like she's going to be sick.

"Did you hit your head?" Garrett snaps. "You did, didn't you?"

"I did not hit my head."

"Then you're making up some bullshit story. Shouldn't be surprised. That's what you do. You tell stories, and I don't just mean professionally."

Jayla shoves him. It's as fast and unexpected as Kit's punch.

"Shut the fuck up and listen to her." She meets his gaze. "For once, listen to her."

I cut in. "Kit found me running back to the house. He wanted to go up the bluff, but I couldn't face it again. However, that wasn't the only thing I'd seen. There was a guy in the forest. Either injured or faking it to trap me. That's what set me running the first time, looking for Garrett and Kit." That's a lie, but I'm skipping the Kit-mirage for now.

I continue, "We went back to check on the man. It was the guy from the emails, Jayla. John Sinclair. The guy we suspected was behind this. Kit and I thought he was just injured, but there was a tarp. When we pulled it off… his lower half was gone."

"Oh God." Jayla's hand flies to her mouth.

"Bullshit," Garrett says. "You really think I'm stupid, don't you? I'm not a teacher or a lawyer or a fucking CEO. I'm just a dumb cop who'll buy any bullshit you three feed me."

"Why?" Jayla says before I can respond.

"Why what?" Garrett says.

"Why would we feed you anything? You honestly think, what, we've conspired to tell you about people being hacked apart? For shits and giggles? Hidden camera catches Garrett Emerson being punked… while his sister is running around the island, badly injured."

He crosses his arms. "Kit and Laney are the only ones who saw Sadie. They're also the only ones who saw this guy who was supposedly ripped in half." He turns on me. "This is revenge, right? You three cooked up this revenge scheme, and you're holding my sister hostage."

"After luring you to the island?" Jayla says. "Oh, wait. No. You and Sadie showed up uninvited."

Garrett goes to answer, but I cut him short.

"I wouldn't do this, and I sure as hell wouldn't do it with Madison around," I say. "But forget all that. Don't take my word for it. Go see Sinclair. Go up to the gazebo and see what's left of his wife. That's not all you'll see either. You'll see their bodies moving."

Jayla goes still. "What?"

"They are still moving. Her eyes opened. Her mouth moved. Her fingers moved on the wind chime. His hand moves. His lips move. His head moves. And before you ask, they are absolutely real bodies, not some kind of animatronic horror show. But don't take my word for it, Garrett. Go and check it out. She's up on the bluff. He's twenty paces west of the bridge, in a bush."

I wait for him to snarl and spit and accuse us of playing a Halloween prank. Instead, he says, slowly, "Kit saw this?"

"Yes."

"If it's a joke… If it's a prank…"

"Are we acting like it's a joke? A prank?"

"I… don't understand. What you're saying… it's not possible." He rubs his hand over his mouth. Then he stops. "Those things you found. The circles. The feathers and bones. You said they were meant to look like Satanic-cult crap. But they weren't meant to look like that, were they? They are that."

"What?" I say.

"Satanic cults. This is clearly the work of a Satanic cult."

I blink at him. "You're serious. A Satanic…?"

"There's no such thing," Jayla snaps. "You're a cop. You should know that."

"I know there are people who fuck around with that shit. Circles and hexes. Even animal sacrifices."

"Because they're deluded or mentally ill."

He looks at me. "You said it was this couple, this Sinclair guy and his wife."

"We think they—"

"You figured they wanted the island. They didn't. They were playing with…" He waves his hands. "Dark forces."

Dark forces? I want to laugh. I don't laugh. Neither does Jayla.

After a moment, Jayla turns, almost reluctantly, to me. "You and Kit definitely saw them moving."

I nod. "We compared observations to be sure we were both seeing the same things. We were. Earlier, in the boathouse, when we saw the rat king, we thought it twitched, but it was only maggots. We wouldn't risk making that mistake twice. This wasn't a twitch. It wasn't final misfiring electrical signals from the brain. Sinclair's hand was clawing at the ground when I ran, and it was clawing when we came back. It was like he was trying to crawl, but on autopilot. Instinct. When we talked, his face turned our way, but his eyes wouldn't focus on us. Again, like instinct."

"I'm going to say a word," Jayla says. "And the first person who laughs gets smacked."

"No one's going to laugh," I say.

"Yeah, not at you," Garrett mutters. "Because you're a goddamn lawyer."

I look at him. "No one is going to laugh at any suggestions from now on. It'll only keep us from sharing information. We accept that this isn't natural, right? That a head can't open its eyes and try to talk long after it's been severed? That a man can't survive after his body has been ripped in half?"

Jayla looks sick, but I don't regret my choice of words. There's no room for euphemisms here. We must be one hundred percent clear what we are discussing.

"Agreed," she says. "There's no natural explanation for that."

"Also agree," Garrett says. "What word were you going to say?"

She looks at me. "Zombies."

"Voodoo," Garrett says.

I make a face at the word. I'd correct him, but I just said we weren't mocking ideas, and that veers too close, so I just say, "Haitian lore of sorcerers reanimating bodies."

"Oh, that bit I actually know," Jayla says. "It originated with slaves. It's a nightmare come true—even after death they're enslaved."

"Exactly," I say.

"Could that be what we're seeing?" Jayla says. "Not Haitian or anything like that, but the basic idea that someone has raised the dead to serve them."

"Necromancy," I say. "That's another very old idea. But the way they were killed…" I shiver.

"Ripped apart, you said," Garrett says. "Not cut up."

Jayla looks sick again.

"I don't think a person did it," I say.

"So this couple, they were messing around with dark magic," Jayla says. "They actually raised something or summoned something, and it ripped them apart and won't let them die."

Now I'm the one who feels ill. Are John Sinclair and Rachel Rossi still in those bodies? Still conscious?

"You know this shit," Garrett says, his voice low, gaze on me. "You knew that someone planted that Satanic stuff. You knew what could happen."

"Knew what could happen?" Jayla says. "That a hex circle might actually hex someone? Laney didn't believe that, and if she'd suggested otherwise, you'd have laughed at her. It's not like being a chemist and knowing the water is tainted. This is made-up bullshit. Or it's supposed to be."

"She still knew something could happen. And she brought us here."

"Brought?" Jayla sputters. "Kit snuck over to help her, and I joined him. Both of us knew what was found here. Sadie also knew and also snuck over, and presumably you knew too. We all came uninvited—"

"Not Madison."

That one hits hard enough that I suck in breath.

Garrett's gaze meets mine. "You knew, and you brought her."

"That is not fair," Jayla says, bearing down on him. "No one thought it was anything more than a prank."

"But it's not, is it?" He throws open the door and stalks into the hall. "My sister is out there, and I'm going to find her."

I hurry after him. "Please, don't. At least wait until—"

"Until what? She's dead? Dead and reanimated like some fucking zombie? There is something out there, Laney. Something that murdered your cleaning guy and your renters, and now it's after my sister. I am helping her, and you are going to sit on your ass and look after Madison."

"I—"

"You brought her here!" he shouts, voice rising with each word. "You came because someone was doing God knows what on this island, and you brought our daughter."

Jayla lunges at him. "Lower your goddamn voice, Garrett."

"Why? What difference does it make now? Anna's dead. The kid's dad doesn't want anything to do with her. Who exactly are we keeping up this lie for, Laney? Oh, I know. For you. To punish me and to punish Sadie. All my sister wanted was to get to know her niece. You stole that from her. Stole my daughter from me. Stole Sadie's niece from her. You got to stay in our daughter's life. Aunt Laney. And now you have her all to yourself. You get our daughter, and I don't."

"Laney?"

The voice behind me is so soft I think I've misheard. Then I turn and see Madison there, her face pale, brown eyes fixed on me.

"Laney?" she says again.

"Stay with your mother, kiddo," Garrett says, his hand on the sliding door. "No matter what happens, you stay in here with your mother."

"You bastard," Jayla hisses.

Garrett leaves. Jayla moves to lock the door. The alarm light flashes. I run over and hit the sequence to disarm and then rearm it. Then I slowly turn to Madison. Kit is behind her, breathing hard, as if he ran from the kitchen. He puts a tentative arm around Madison's shoulders, and when she allows it, he gives her a quick squeeze. Then he nods at me.

Do something, Laney. Take control of this. You only get one shot.

I step forward, and my eyes fill. "I'm sorry, Mads. You weren't supposed to…"

"Hear it like this?" One corner of her mouth lifts in a humorless quirk as her own eyes glisten with tears.

I take another step and reach out, even more tentatively than Kit. She falls into my arms, and I hug her tight.

"I was young," I whisper. "Younger than you. Your mom and dad had just found out they couldn't have kids, and your mom wanted one so badly."

She nods against my shoulder and snuffles.

"She was—" My voice catches. "She was an amazing mother."

Madison sags against me, a sob ripping from her, and I hold her tight. When she pulls away, it's only a little, just enough to see my face.

"She didn't want me to know," she says. "Even after she was gone."

I shake my head. "No, she did want you to know. There's a video I'm supposed to show you. She'll—she'll talk to you about it. I just… It wasn't time yet. She hadn't been gone long enough, and it felt like… It felt like…"

Jayla fills in the words for me. "Like giving you a new mother when you lost your own, Madison. A substitute. Laney wouldn't have done that until you were ready."

"And Anna is still your mom," I say. "She will always be your mom. I never regretted that."

"And my father? My biological one?" She tenses in my arms. "Tell me what that asshole said… That he didn't mean it like that. That he's not…" She glances over her shoulder at Kit. "Was it you? You guys grew up together."

He shakes his head, and her face falls in disappointment. Then she gives a wry smile. "No, if I do the math, Laney was fifteen. That'd make you thirteen."

"Yeah."

"I wish it was you," she says, her voice the faintest whisper.

Kit comes in and hugs us both. "I wish it was, too. But if you thought that's why I care about you? That you must be my daughter? No. I care about you because I care about you."

Tears fall on her cheeks, and I slip out of their grasp to let her hug Kit.

After a moment, Madison steps away from Kit and looks at the door. "It was him, wasn't it. That's what he meant. About me being his daughter and Sadie's niece."

"I was young," I say. "Really young."

"He's older than you." She looks at me. "How much older?"

"A few years." I make a face. "Let's not talk about that."

"He raped you, didn't he?"

My whole body convulses. Jayla inhales sharply. Kit looks at me, stricken.

"I… don't know who told you that," I say carefully.

"No one did." She backs up, arms crossing. "I could tell he'd done something like that by the way you act around him. The way Kit and Jayla act about him being around you. I figured he did something when you were young, but then it seemed weird that you wouldn't try to keep me away from him. Now it makes sense. He isn't that kind of a threat to his own daughter."

"He didn't…" I flounder. Take control, damn it. This is her father. These are the circumstances of her conception, and you were never going to let her know those circumstances. "I had a lot to drink. There was some confusion."

"Some confusion…" she says slowly. "In other words, you were drunk, and he took advantage. Of a fifteen-year-old girl. That's rape."

Jayla cuts in. "Does it matter, Mads? He's an asshole, as you already noted. That's all you need to know."

"Is it?" Madison turns to me and shrugs. "Fine, he's an asshole. Not a crime, sadly. So I should probably get to know him. Take my friends to meet him. Would that be okay?"

I flinch.

"Or go on father-daughter bonding trips. Just the two of us. You'd be okay with that, right? You have no reason to believe he wouldn't—"

"Enough," Jayla says. "We get your point."

"And I get yours," Madison says. "No one wants a rapist for a dad. Only he's not my dad. He's just the biological contributor of half my DNA, and I might have hoped for someone more like Kit—smarter, nicer, cooler—but the guy I thought was my father is no prize either. I'll deal with it. But I want to know. That guy is going to expect something from me now, some acknowledgment that he's my father, and I need to know what kind of person he is."

Madison lifts her hands. "And before anyone says we'll talk about it later, this isn't the time, yadda-yadda, are we running after him? Going out there? Doing anything except waiting here and looking out for each other? No? Then you can tell me what happened. I want to know. In case he comes back, in case he tries to pull me off on my own and tell me his story, I need to know."

Kit looks at me, and that look tells me she's right.

"Let me put dinner in the oven to stay warm," he says.