Two

It takes four hours to get to Fox Bay, and I don't leave right away. I insist on having breakfast while waiting until the sun's fully up. Once we leave the city, it's a gorgeous drive along winding roads through trees painted red and gold. It's peak fall foliage season, and while I complain about the slow-driving gawkers, I'm mostly irked because I can't be one of them. It's a perfect autumn day, sunny enough to have the windows down, breezy enough for fallen leaves to dance and swirl before us.

How many times had I made this drive with Kit, my feet out the window or my nose pressed to it looking for wildlife? He'd rip over the hills and zoom around the curves in a roller-coaster ride that always made me grin. We'd stop to buy in-season fruit along the way and pull into our favorite roadside bakery to stock up on cinnamon rolls.

Kit and I always joked that we'd had a surprise wedding—a surprise to everyone including us. Growing up, he'd been my best friend's little brother. Then, when my sister got her cancer diagnosis, I'd taken a job back in our home city. Kit reached out and a catch-up dinner blossomed into friendship. When I sold my first book, he whisked me off to Vegas to celebrate, and we ended up in bed. Two days later, we were exchanging vows in a wedding chapel. There may have been alcohol involved.

We made it work for a while. Hell, there hadn't been much work involved. We slid into marriage as we'd slid into friendship, so easily and naturally that I'd wake up, see Kit beside me, and grin like I'd won the lottery without buying a ticket. Then the pandemic hit, and we survived but our marriage didn't, and I'm not quite sure why. My surprise marriage ended in a surprise divorce, and I'm still reeling.

When I see the sign for Fox Bay, I turn left. I don't need to pass through the town itself, which can be a relief. If anyone spotted me, I'd catch shit for not stopping, and stopping means chatting and then coffee and more chatting… I love that about Fox Bay, but today is all about expediency. Get to Hemlock Island. See what's going on. Fix it. Get Madison back home.

We round a corner to see Lake Superior stretching out to the horizon, and I motion as if pulling a conductor's bell. "Last call for internet connectivity."

Madison flips through her phone, getting and returning messages before we'll be offline until we return from the island. I barely drive another half mile before the cell phone signal indicator on my dashboard vanishes.

"We are officially disconnected," I say. "No email, no texts, no voice mail, no social media, no way to summon help if a masked killer leaps from the bushes."

"'Tis the season," she says. "Though, up here, if some guy in a goalie mask leaps out, he's probably looking for his lost road-hockey ball."

"Truth."

To my left is the local campground with the pay phone my renters had used. I slow and peer into the visitors' lot. I'll notice their vehicle if it's there. The people who rent Hemlock House do not stay in a place like Foxy Lady Campground, where the facilities can best be described as "rustic."

I turn in to the boat launch. There's a giant willow in the middle of the lot, and I'm steering around it when Madison says, "Is that Kit's car?"

I hit the brakes so fast that Madison jolts forward, and for a split second, my heart stops as I imagine her flying through the windshield.

"Oww…" she says as she plucks at her still-fastened seat belt.

That heart-stopping moment also makes me forget why I jammed on the brakes. Then I see the back end of a silver car. Yes, it looks like Kit's, but I don't even know what model of car I drive—it's my sister's, and I took over payments that I can barely afford, as another part of ensuring a stable transition for Madison. I couldn't exactly teach her to drive on my motorcycle. Well, I could, and she'd have loved that, but no. Responsible Parenting 101.

I presume the high-end silver sedan belongs to the Abbases, and I cringe. They've stayed behind to give me shit in person. Great.

Behind the car, a woman stands with her back to me. She adjusts one sleeve of her chic jacket with a dark-skinned hand. Mrs. Abbas, I presume.

The woman turns, and my insides clench. It's not Mrs. Abbas. It's a woman my age, with a flawless profile and intricate braids.

Jayla.

Oh, shit.

Jayla Hayes. Kit's older sister.

In high school, Jayla and I had been best friends. In college, we'd danced around the possibility of more. Jayla had been figuring out her sexuality as she realized that guys didn't do it for her. I'd dated both boys and girls in high school, having discovered that for me it was about being attracted to a person rather than a gender.

In the end, Jayla and I didn't do more than flirt with the idea. One awkward date, a few kisses, and we realized we didn't click on that level.

After that, we should have gone back to being friends, right? It didn't work out that way. She went off to law school and drifted, and there's been a Jayla-sized hole in my life ever since.

That is Kit's car, then. Jayla must have borrowed it—

"Kit!" Madison shouts as she gets out, slamming the car door.

I dimly hear Madison greet Jayla, too, and there's more said, but I don't catch it. I'm frozen in the driver's seat as Kit appears. He looks toward my car and shades his eyes against the sun. Then he lifts a hand in a tentative wave.

If Madison were still in the car, I might have hit reverse, peeling from the lane. That's silly, of course. Our split was amicable. Hey, we tried, and it didn't work, no hard feelings.

That's the story.

That's the lie.

Still, I've put on my happy face for Madison. She adores Kit—has since she was a baby—and I'm not about to take him out of her life. Neither of them deserves that.

I steel myself and open the car door. In three long-legged strides, Kit's there and holding it for me. I look up to feel my heart twist as I see the Kit I know—dressed in a hoodie, faded jeans, and hiking boots. It's so much easier to see him in an expensive suit, all corporate CEO, a far cry from the little kid with a skateboard, the teen with dreadlocks and a guitar, the husband who'd come to Hemlock Island every weekend, looking exactly like this.

"Hey, you," he says.

"Hey, yourself." I wave at his face. "Check out the new look."

He rubs a hand over the short and perfectly trimmed beard. "You hate it."

"No, it makes you look very distinguished."

He crosses his eyes and sticks his tongue out the side of his mouth, and I laugh, the tension slipping away, as hard as I try to gather it back in.

"So distinguished," I say, and his dark eyes light up in a grin.

The moment lingers two heartbeats and then fades. He clears his throat. "I, uh, heard what happened. With the renters."

Tension snaps back as my gaze shoots to Madison.

"Nah, it wasn't Mads," he says. "Bill at the campground called me this morning. I decided to come up and check it out for you."

He glances at Jayla, who's walking toward us with one arm looped over Madison's shoulders.

"Yep," Jayla says. "That's exactly how it happened."

I narrow my eyes at her. She meets my look with one that warns me if I call out Kit on this particular lie, I'll be dealing with her.

"So," Jayla says. "We hitting the high seas? Or hanging out awkwardly until nightfall?"

"Ooh, we should wait until night," Madison says. "Get the full-creep effect."

They riff on that, but I don't hear it. I don't hear anything. Don't see anything either, until Kit's face is lowered right in front of mine.

"Laney?" he murmurs.

I snap out of it, and pull my jacket tighter. "I've got this. You guys go into town for an early lunch. The fish-and-chips place is open."

"What?" Madison says. "We're all going out—"

"I've got it." I head toward the dockside lockbox.

Jayla jangles the keys. "Not without these." She walks toward the boat. "Someone put blood in your closet, Laney. From what we heard, it isn't the first disturbing thing that's happened out there. You are not going alone."

Without waiting for a reply, she starts the boat. "Pile in. Last one on board is swimming."

I tell Kit and Jayla what's been happening on Hemlock Island. They say little, and I struggle not to hear judgment in that.

Kit is at the wheel. He's the expert, having grown up with boats. No yachts. The Hayeses might be that kind of rich, but they aren't that kind of family. No country clubs. No yacht clubs. No dinner clubs. Not his scene, and definitely not Jayla's.

I look over at him, piloting the boat, and the sight is so familiar that I need to lock my knees to keep from walking up beside him, leaning against his shoulder, feeling his arm go around my waist…

I shake off the thought and glance over at Jayla. Her stylish jacket looks out of place here, but otherwise, she's dressed for Hemlock Island, in sneakers, tights, and a baggy men's shirt. She's comparing sneakers with Madison, who's wearing her "October specials"—a pair of horror-themed Vans. Then they're trading shoes, and I'm watching them, remembering when Jayla and I used to do that. I'm imagining I can hear her laugh over the motor and the surf and—

"What happened to the boat?" Kit calls.

I give a start and glance over at him. He waves me up to the helm. I hesitate, and then make my way there.

"The engine sounds different," he says.

"It needed some work."

"Seems like a total overhaul."

I shrug. "Renters. Insurance covered it."

Not true. The engine blew right after the warranty ran out. I'd tried going through insurance—I pay a small fortune to allow renters with boating experience to use it—but they called it normal wear and tear, and it cost me another small fortune to fix.

"You should have an old beater for the renters," he says. "Save this one for you."

"I'm fine."

He takes out his phone with one hand and brings up his notes. "I'll have a boat here by next—"

I put my hand over his phone screen. "No, Kit. Please."

He looks away, his jaw working. Does he think I'm punishing him by not taking his money? Making him look bad?

I already seem like "that woman"—the one who marries a rich guy in Vegas, sticks around for a few years, and then puts out her hand for a divorce settlement. I won't be her. I won't even risk being mistaken for her.

"I'm good," I say. "Really. Have I told you how much people pay to rent Hemlock Island?"

"You don't need to rent it out, Laney."

"I want to."

"Bull. Shit." He meets my gaze. "Look me in the eye and tell me that you honestly don't mind having total strangers living in your house. And now this? I know you've been up here writing, alone, at least once while all this has been going on. It isn't safe."

"I'm thinking of getting a dog."

His eyes narrow. "Really? Or are you blowing me off? If you actually want a dog—" He stops, and I tense for him to say he'll buy me one. Instead, he rolls his shoulders back and says, "That's a good idea. I know Mads would like one."

"She would."

"Maybe a poodle? I remember the one you had growing up. Ginger, right?"

I relax. "I've been thinking of a standard poodle, too. They're good stealth watch dogs."

He grins. "They are. Remember the time you tried to sneak out to meet Jayla, and Ginger woke up the neighborhood, barking like you were being abducted by aliens?" He snaps his fingers. "Wait. Isn't that what you told your parents? That you'd seen what looked like an alien ship, gone out into the yard and that's what Ginger was barking about?"

"Hey, it worked. Mom and Dad didn't think I actually saw aliens, but they bought that I'd go outside for a closer look if I thought I did."

He laughs, and I am caught in the tractor beam of that laugh. This is how I want things to be between us. The happy version, where we can still laugh together and pretend he didn't walk away during the worst time of my life, pretend he isn't desperate to buy his way out of that guilt.

I want the lie.

We move to the bow, where I lean out, catching the spray as I focus on the distant green and gray mass that slowly takes form as Hemlock Island. When I see it, my heart speeds up, and I find myself leaning forward until I can just make out the solar panels atop the house.

People talk about their "happy place," and I thought that was sentimental nonsense until Kit brought me to Hemlock Island. It wasn't just that he'd bought me a damn island as a wedding gift. He somehow figured out exactly the sort of place my soul longed for, even when I didn't know it myself.

And now someone is fucking with that. I've stomached renters' intrusions and incivility. I've chirped "Accidents happen!" when my things are destroyed. I've weathered the screaming when I politely inform renters that I can't get someone out until morning to fix something they broke. I've endured the bad reviews complaining because I lock up my personal boathouse… and I've endured those locks being broken, my kayak and paddleboard used. But this? Staging weird ritualistic shit as a prank? Scaring off the guests I desperately need?

This I will not endure. I'm going to find who the hell is behind—

I freeze. I've been gazing up at the wooded bluff where I like to sit and write, my legs dangling over the rocky edge, surf crashing below. Now I'm gazing at that spot… and someone is gazing back.

My foot slides as I reel backward. Kit is there in a heartbeat, catching me. For a second, I let myself stay there, secure in his embrace. Then I grip the railing, straighten, and stare up at the bluff, searching for what I'd seen.

"Laney?"

I snatch the binoculars and fumble to get them up to my eyes. My gaze sweeps the top of the bluff. I stop at a tall tree stump, scorched by a lightning strike. Through the binoculars, it is clearly a stump, but when I lower them, it looks like a human figure.

"Laney?"

Madison's there with Jayla, joining Kit in frowning at me.

"I thought I saw a…"

I see their faces, and I anticipate their reactions, Jayla thinking I'm just spooked, Kit worried, in case I really did see a person.

I did not see a person. I have an overactive imagination—that's why I'm a writer. When I'm stressed, it's an explosive combination.

"A moose," I blurt. "I thought I saw a moose."

"On the island?" Jayla says.

"Hey, they can swim," I say, forcing my voice light.

"They can also dive," Kit says. "They eat along the lake bottom."

"Mmm, unproven," Madison says. "That's one of those weird facts that gets passed around, but it may not actually be true."

"Ugh," Jayla says. "Can you please stop educating this child, Laney? She was so much more fun when I could tell her that vegetables would make her hair curly, and she'd believe me."

"I never believed you," Madison says. "I just humored you."

As they keep bantering, I turn to look at the bluff again. There's just that blackened stump. That's what I saw.

It must be.