“Do you mind getting wet again?”
“Are we going back to the car?”
“No,” I said. “It’s not raining that hard right now. Let’s sit out on the deck and watch the ocean.”
He followed me out the kitchen door onto the deck. It may not have been raining hard, but the wind made balloons out of our shirts and whooshed in our ears. I sat down where I always did, on the edge of the wet deck with my legs dangling over the side, my arms on the lower rung of the railing. The vibration was much stronger out here. The deck shook as if someone was running across it.
I patted the boards next to me and Andy sat down, too.
“Now we can see the ocean.” I could tell from the frothy white water that the waves were very high, crashing crazily into each other. The darkness scared me, though, because I couldn’t get a good sense of how high up the beach the waves were coming. I felt the spray on my bare feet as the water swirled around the pilings.
“We could fish from here,” Andy said. “If we run out of food, we can catch fish.”
Right, I thought. Like that’s in my plans.
“Yes, we could,” I said.
I put my arm around Andy’s shoulders. A different fifteen-year-old boy probably would have knocked my arm away, but Andy didn’t seem to mind. What I really wanted to do was wrap both my arms around him. Hold him tight. I’d resented my mother for pouring one hundred percent of her love and attention into Andy, giving him the fifty percent that should have been mine. But I’d never resented Andy. It wasn’t his fault she loved him more.
“Do you remember Daddy at all?” I asked him.
“I rode on his shoulders,” Andy said. In his room, he had a framed picture of Daddy holding him on his shoulders when he was about two. I was sure his memory wasn’t of Daddy, but of the picture.
“Sometimes,” I said, “when I sit out here, I feel his spirit.”
“Like a ghost?” Andy asked.
“No, not exactly. It’s hard to explain. You remember Piddie?” Piddie had been his goldfish. We’d found him belly-up in his bowl a few months ago.
“Yes. He was pretty.”
“Do you ever, sort of, feel him around? Like, you know perfectly well he’s not there, but you feel like he is.”
“No. He’s dead.”
“Well, okay. I’m trying to explain what I mean by Daddy’s spirit, but I don’t think you can understand it.” I lowered my arm from his shoulders and leaned on the railing again. “I just feel like he’s here with me sometimes.”
“He’s dead!” Andy sounded so upset that I laughed.
“I know, Panda Bear. Don’t worry about it.”
Between the wind and the light rain, it was chilly on the deck but I didn’t want to go inside. I thought I should keep an eye on the ocean, although I was sure we were okay. If the deck started to actually sway, though, maybe we’d have to leave the house.
“My friends think I’m going to go to jail,” Andy said suddenly.
“You won’t go to jail.”
“I’m scared I’ll have to because I lied to the policemen. I lied to everyone.”
I was confused. “What do you mean, Andy? When did you lie?”
“I said I didn’t go outside while the lock-in was there, but I did.”
“You did? Why?”
“To see if the bugs were dying. To see if the bug spray worked, but it was too dark.”
I shut my eyes. I knew what he was talking about. I knew everything.
“I promise you, Andy,” I said, “I will not let you go to jail.”
“Cross your heart and hope to die?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.” I felt a chill up my spine, saying those words.
“How can you stop the police from putting me in jail?” he asked.
“I can stop them.”
“But how?”
I put my arm around him again. “By telling them what really happened that night.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Laurel
IT WAS NOT DAMP IN MY HOUSE SO MUCH AS RAW, as though the weather had crept in through the windows. I huddled on the sofa beneath an afghan, while Marcus tended the fire he’d built.
“At least you know Maggie’s got him someplace where he’s safe.” Marcus sat down on the sofa near my feet. “Do you think you should call Shartell?”
“I don’t want to.” I realized that whatever insanity had made Maggie spirit Andy away tonight, part of me shared it. As long as he was with her, he wouldn’t be afraid and he wouldn’t be in jail. “But I don’t know what I’ll do in the morning when we’re supposed to show up for the hearing.”
“I guess we’ll deal with it then,” Marcus said.
I lifted my head to look at him. “Thank you for saying we,” I said. “You’ve always tried to be…a we when it came to Andy. I’m sorry I made that hard.”
“I understood.” He shifted on the sofa. “I don’t know how much Maggie told you, but Jamie and I had a colossal fight on the boat. I was angry with him about the whole Sara thing, and when I got on his case about it, he turned on me, saying I didn’t have much room to talk. He’d figured out that Andy was mine, and—”
“He did? I was never even sure that you knew.” Relief washed over me now that it was out in the open. It should have been for years.
The light from the hurricane lantern caught his smile. “I was pretty sure about that right from the start. From when you told me you were pregnant. Jamie probably was, too. We just let it be the elephant in the room. But that elephant didn’t fit on my boat with us.”
I remembered the bruises on Marcus’s body that had caused the police to suspect foul play. “Do you mean you had a fistfight?” I couldn’t picture the brothers physically fighting.
“Most definitely. That’s why I was scratched up, but I only told the cops about the whale. I couldn’t tell them the rest of it without getting into what led to the fight and all that.”
“Was there really a whale, Marcus?”
He nodded. “We watched it for a while, and then it disappeared. While we were…having at it, the boat suddenly shot up in the air and we were tossed out. Jamie hit his head on the bow. All of that part is true.”
“You should have told the truth,” I chided. “If I’d known the truth, it would have made me more open to you. You had to know that.”
“At what cost?” he asked. “I didn’t want to hurt you or your memory of Jamie. I didn’t think it would ever have to come out.”
“Keith is really Jamie’s son?” I whispered.
“Jamie told me he was. And once he said it, I could see Jamie in him. Do you see it?”
I thought about Keith’s dark hair, the body that was already growing thick and brawny. I rubbed my breastbone. “My heart hurts,” I said. “Ever since Maggie told me. It just hurts so much.”
“I know.” Marcus rested his hand on my foot through the afghan. “I’m sorry.”
I drew in a long breath and blew it out. “Maggie said you set up a college fund for him.”
“I did,” he said. “That’s how Keith found out. It just seemed so wrong that Jamie’s other kids had so much when Keith had so little.”
“Oh!” I suddenly remembered the day I tried to pay Sara’s hotel bill. “You’re paying for Sara’s hotel room!”
He nodded.
I dropped my head back against the sofa. “I’m so humiliated,” I said. “Sara…I thought she was my best friend.”
“She is your best friend.”
I shook my head. “How could she have done that to me, though?”
Marcus squeezed my foot through the afghan. “How could you and I have done it to Jamie?” he asked.
I don’t know how I managed to fall asleep. Marcus shook my shoulder and I jerked awake, flinching at a pain in my neck from the cramped position I’d slept in on the sofa.
“Did they come home?” I sat up and looked toward the stairs.
“No.” He shook his head. “It’
s a little after five and the weather’s settled down. I’m going to try driving over to Ben and Dawn’s. I can’t just sit here any longer, and maybe Ben’ll have a clue where they are.”
I tossed the afghan onto the back of the sofa and stood up, my legs wobbly beneath me. “I’m going with you,” I said.
I felt as though I was riding in a boat rather than a pickup as we turned onto New River Inlet Road from my street. Marcus’s headlights illuminated the water on the road, but it was impossible to know how deep it was. Tall wings of it rose up on either side of the pickup, although Marcus drove slowly. The wind had let up and it was no longer raining, but aside from our headlights, the island was in complete, disconcerting darkness that my eyes couldn’t pierce. The sky felt as though it was mere inches from the roof of the cab.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a night this dark,” Marcus said as he drove. He sat upright, close to the steering wheel, and I knew he felt as tense as I did.
Although there wasn’t another vehicle on the road, it took us half an hour to drive the seven miles to Surf City. Marcus got out of the pickup a few times to shine his flashlight on the road ahead of us, making sure the water wasn’t too deep or too swift to drive through. Finally, we turned onto the beach road near Dawn’s cottage, and Marcus inched along as we tried to make out one dark building from another.
“I think that’s it.” I pointed to the barely visible cottage.
“Isn’t that Dawn’s car on the street in front?” Marcus asked.
I followed the beam of his headlights to the car and saw that it was parked in front of Ben’s van.
“Why are they on the street?” I asked.
Marcus pulled into the driveway, his headlights answering my question: the parking area beneath the cottage was under at least a couple of feet of water.
“Oh boy.” Marcus turned off the engine. “I bet this storm did a number on the beaches.”
We got out of the pickup, each of us carrying a flashlight, and Marcus put his hand on my back as we walked toward the cottage. At the top of the front steps, he banged on the door with the side of his fist.
We waited thirty seconds, then Marcus tried the door.
“Locked.” He banged again, relentlessly this time. “Ben!” he shouted.
I saw a flicker of light inside one of the windows, and a second later Ben opened the door, a flashlight in his hand.
“Is there a fire?” he asked. Then he noticed me. “What’s wrong?”
“Let us in.” Marcus pushed past him and I followed.
“Do you know where Maggie and Andy are?” I asked.
“Aren’t they home?” Ben wore a pair of tan shorts, unbuttoned at the waist, and nothing more. I didn’t want to think about Maggie touching him, touching that bare chest.
“No, they’re not home,” Marcus said. “Maggie took him away, hoping to keep him from the hearing tomorrow.”
“Shit.” Ben ran a hand through his hair. I suddenly hated him.
“How dare you take advantage of her!” I smacked his bare shoulder with my flashlight, creepily aware of his manliness. My assault barely made him flinch. “She’s in high school!”
I felt Marcus’s hand against my back again. “Time for that later,” he said. “Did Maggie tell you anything about her plans?”
“Who’s here, Benny?” Dawn came into the room, tying a short robe closed over her legs and carrying a lantern. She stopped short when she saw us.
“Maggie and Andy are missing,” I said.
“Missing?” she asked. “What do you mean? Like kidnapped?”
“Maggie took Andy somewhere to keep him from the hearing in the morning,” I said.
Dawn looked at Ben. “Do you know anything about this?” she asked.
Ben shook his head. “Nothing.” He was avoiding my gaze.
“I bet I know where they are,” Dawn said. She looked at Ben. “You do, too.”
“Where?” Ben said, then shut his eyes. “Oh, no. The Sea Tender.”
“The Sea Tender?” Marcus and I spoke in unison.
“But it’s condemned,” I said.
“That’s where Ben was meeting Maggie,” Dawn said with disgust.
That was too much reality for Marcus. “You son of a bitch!” He threw a punch at Ben’s jaw, snapping his head back and knocking him halfway to the floor.
I grabbed his arm before he could lash out again. Now that I knew where my children were, I wanted to get to them. Hold them in my arms. “Let’s go,” I said.
“I cared about her!” Ben held his hand to his jaw as he regained his balance. “It’s not like I didn’t have any feel—”
“Shut up, Ben!” Dawn said.
Marcus flexed the fingers of the hand he’d struck Ben with. “I’m not done with you, Trippett,” he growled to Ben as he flung open the front door. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
“The Sea Tender,” I said as we drove through the darkness. I wanted Marcus to drive faster, but knew he didn’t dare. “How would Maggie even think of that?”
“That place is dangerous,” Marcus said. “It was condemned for a reason. It should have been torn down long ago.”
“I thought Maggie had a good head on her shoulders,” I said, knotting my hands in my lap. “I thought she didn’t need my guidance. My mothering. I don’t know her, Marcus.”
“Yes, you do.” Marcus let go of the steering wheel to hunt for my hand in the darkness. He found it, squeezed it. “You know she’d do anything for Andy,” he said. “Same as you.”
Chapter Fifty
Andy
I OPENED MY EYES, BUT COULDN’T SEE anything. I blinked and blinked to be sure my eyes were really open. I thought I was going to barf. My brain was rolling around inside my head. The only other time I felt that way was on a boat. I could go in a boat on the sound, but not in the ocean. Last time I went on a boat in the ocean was with Emily and my brain rolled around inside my head the whole trip. I threw up three times and one almost time. Mom said I never had to go on a boat in the ocean again. Mom didn’t like boats, anyway.
I knew I wasn’t on a boat, though. I was in the house where I was a baby. I was on the couch. It was dark but I could see some things and it was kind of cold. And loud. Under me and over me I heard popping noises and screeching noises and creaking noises. I was afraid if I sat up, I’d throw up. But finally I did and there was no glass in the window. The sky was pink by the ocean. I couldn’t see Maggie, but I heard her call my name.
All of a sudden I fell off the couch and my brain rolled and rolled and I couldn’t remember where the bathroom was to run to throw up. Maggie said the bathroom didn’t work anyway. I could hardly stand up. I had to hold on to a wood thing. And then I saw that I wasn’t in the cottage anymore. I was on a kind of boat and big chunks of wood and things floated around me. Water went over my feet. The beach was far away. I forgot about throwing up. I started thinking about how to save our lives, because I knew we were in trouble and it wasn’t like the fire where I could climb out a window.
“Maggie!” I hollered, and I ran across the floor trying to find her, as it bounced and broke apart beneath my feet.
Chapter Fifty-One
Laurel
THE PREDAWN LIGHT HAD CHANGED FROM coal to pale gray by the time we turned off Sea Gull Lane onto the continuation of New River Inlet Road. Marcus’s pickup rolled forward slowly in a foot of water. Between the oceanfront cottages, I could see the wash of pink above the horizon. Then I spotted the first of the condemned cottages behind those lining the street and heard Marcus suck in his breath.
“What?” I asked.
He shook his head.
I rolled down my window and saw what had caused his reaction. I knew where the second condemned house should be, but a pile of rubble stood in its place. The sliver of sun resting on the horizon glinted off shards of glass and metal.
“Oh, no.” My heart kicked into gear.
“Is that Maggie’s car?” Marcus braked the pickup
so quickly, I flew forward a couple of inches before my seat belt caught. Parked on the opposite side of the street was the only other vehicle in sight—Maggie’s white Jetta.
“Maybe they’re in the car!” I jumped out of the pickup into water up to my knees and sloshed across the street. I shone my flashlight through the car windows. Empty.
“Anything?” Marcus called through his open window.
“No.” I waded back to his pickup. “But Dawn must be right. Why else would Maggie park here, a block from The Sea Tender?”
We inched forward, passing another of the old condemned cottages that had been reduced to a pile of rubble. Had The Sea Tender—had my children—stood a chance?
“Let me out!” I said, pulling open the door. “I can’t stand it!”
“Laurel—”
I didn’t hear the rest of his sentence as I lost my footing and fell into the water. I got quickly to my feet, not bothering to close the pickup’s door as I waded toward the space between two of the front row of houses. I needed to get to the beach.
Please, God, let my babies be okay.
I was barely aware of Marcus catching up to me as we slogged through the water between the houses.
“Where’s the little dune?” I searched the gray light ahead of me, thoroughly disoriented. The water was only up to our ankles here but I couldn’t see the little rise of sand that marked the boundary between the front row of houses and those on the beach.
“I think it’s gone,” Marcus said.
We ran forward now that the water wasn’t holding us back, and what I saw turned my knees to jelly. “Oh God, Marcus!” I grabbed the back of his shirt to keep myself from keeling over.
“Ah, no,” Marcus said with such quiet resignation that I wanted to shake him.
In front of us, the beach looked like a war zone. None of the condemned houses were still standing; they’d been reduced to mountains of debris covering acres of sand, although many of the pilings still poked from the rubble, like totem poles against the lightening sky. The Sea Tender had been the last house in the row and I needed to get to it. Although I felt weak and nauseated, I started running north.