Chapter 4
Noa
I’m not sure whether Cave realizes that the man we dealt with has left behind a car.
We can’t just abandon it there in case someone comes looking for him.
Since I helped him dispose of the body, I guess this is now my problem to figure out.
Cave may have no issues with going to prison, but I do.
Not that he would end up in prison; he would end up in a psych ward with someone evaluating his mental stability.
But I know he’s fine—the guy is smarter than anyone I’ve ever met.
The dark-blue, mid-sized sedan is parked on the other side of the bridge, and it won’t take a genius to figure out its owner ventured onto the island.
The car has nothing personal inside, so I assume it’s either borrowed or stolen. Everyone keeps something in their car—sunglasses, old receipts, water bottles—but this car is clean besides the smell of cigarettes.
The trunk is open, and there is a small backpack tossed inside. It’s dark green, with one of the straps broken, and next to it lies a phone, a set of keys, and an earbuds case, though one of the earbuds is missing.
I pick up the phone, lighting the screen up to reveal four missed calls and a lock screen with two women laughing. The one on the left is beautiful, with blonde hair and a smile that lights up her whole face. I wish I was that happy.
After putting the phone in the bag, along with the keys and earbuds case, I take out my phone and call Cipher.
He picks up on the second ring. I knew he would be awake; he’s always tinkering around in his shed despite the hour, fixing something he probably broke trying to work out how it operates.
“There’s a car over the bridge. I need you to come look at it.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t want to know any details?”
He’s silent, and I swear I can hear him thinking. “I’ll come now,” he finally says and hangs up.
Cipher is weird, but I guess we all are—that’s why we’re here. He never says more than he needs to and never asks questions. I find it frustrating because I want people to ask questions, if only so I can answer them.
I have two one-sided friendships with people on the island: Cipher and Cave. Most people avoid them. They believe Cave is scary, and I guess he can be if you don’t know him, but the guy is just misunderstood. Cipher grew up with a deaf parent, so he is used to silence and thrives in it.
In comparison, I need people around me—noise of some kind. The cemetery is great, and I love always having something to do. But talking to the fake dead who inhabit my space doesn’t have the appeal of real people, dead or alive. I just wish I had someone to help me, to keep me company.
I sit on the hood and wait for Cipher. He doesn’t know that we are secretly besties, though I doubt he would care even if he did.
I love the island at this time of day, when all you can hear are the birds chirping away.
Rue, the cook at Ares’s bar, loves birds and has an entire aviary filled with different species.
Vesper threatened to deep-fry and eat them if they woke her up again, so Rue threatened to let his birds loose in her house to eat her spiders, and that shut down that fight.
Outsiders find the people on the island strange, but they all accepted me when I came here.
They didn’t ask questions or pry into my past—well, besides the mandatory background check.
We have to keep it safe here for the kids, not that I interact with them often.
I like to match people’s energy, and a grown man behaving like an excited child causes red flags apparently.
Eleven minutes later Cipher strolls toward me, and I can already see him eyeing the car skeptically. He walks around it with his hands in his pockets, then crouches down and looks at the tires.
“Plates are lifted,” he says. “Engine?”
I hop down off the hood, and he gets in and starts the car.
“I can break it down easily,” he says after he turns the car off and slides out.
“Good, I need this car to disappear. Fast.”
Cipher nods and looks at the bag clutched in my hands.
“I’m taking it to Cave. It belongs to the girl.”
Cipher’s eyes meet mine, and I smirk. He and Cave are chummy; I’ve seen Cave dragging him into the cornfield and can only imagine what goes on between them. I’m no peeping tom, but I would love to watch. Something tells me Cave is a freak in the sheets . . . or hay.
Cipher makes a noise of agreement, maybe—I’m not always great at reading social cues. “I’ll get it done. The girl lives in West Thornfield if you want to return the bag yourself.”
He rattles off an address, and I leave him to deal with the car as I take the long way round to the cornfield. It passes a water tower, and I love the view when I need to think. I climb halfway up the ladder, then turn and look over the rooftops.
In the bag, the phone won’t stop buzzing.
I consider answering it but decide not to, as it’s better if no one knows she was here.
Climbing back down, I head to the field and find Cave where he normally is waiting, though it’s freaky how he knows who is coming just from sound alone.
When I first ventured in here, wanting to be his friend, he chased me out while rattling off riddles, but once I’d guessed one correctly, he stopped.
Or maybe he gave up when he realized I would keep coming back.
“Morning,” I sing. “Beautiful morning, and great weather for standing around in a cornfield all day.”
He smirks at me, or at least his version of it.
“So, we had a small problem. That man had a car—I found it over the bridge, but don’t worry, Cipher is making it go away. Oh, and I also found this.”
His eyes move from my face to the bag.
“Her stuff,” I explain. “Phone, keys, the whole lot.”
Cave takes a few long strides, then grabs for the bag, and I let him have it. There must be something about her that drew him to help her. Cave doesn’t help strangers; he barely helps those he knows.
“The phone keeps ringing, but I didn’t answer it. Figured we don’t want anyone knowing she was here.”
He opens the bag and looks inside. Then closes it and holds it at his side.
“I know where she lives if you want to return it to her,” I tell him.
He doesn’t say he wants to go, but I know he does.
“You want to come?” I ask.
He looks at me and pulls the bag to his chest.
“That’s a yes,” I say, pulling my keys from my pocket. “I’m driving.”
He doesn’t argue, but that’s just because he has never been in my car before. He doesn’t know the experience he’s signing up for.
I collect the hearse—it’s beaten up, but it’s all mine—and clear the passenger seat of old paperwork and a sleeping bag, so there is space for his large body. Though I have a room here on the island, sometimes I like to pull my car up in the cemetery and sleep in the back.
I stop near the cornfield and pick up Cave, and he doesn’t hesitate to climb in. Normally people get weird about riding in a hearse, but not him. He slides in like it’s a regular car, then glances over at me with impatience.
It’s a forty-minute drive, and Cave remains silent the entire way, so I entertain myself with a Greatest Hits From the 80s tape stuck in the cassette player. Cave clutches the bag on his lap like it’s his most prized possession, and I don’t comment because I’m not suicidal.
The address Cipher rattled off is on a narrow street lined with houses.
It would look ideal for families with its rows of white picket fences, except most have now fallen down or rotted due to age, making it no longer the American dream.
The trees on the street are even the annoying kind that drop leaves all year round.
Cave makes no move to get out when we pull up out front, so I take the initiative and open my door. The noise startles him into movement, and he follows me to the door, walking one step behind me, almost bumping into my back when I reach up to knock.
We wait, but no one answers. So I knock again, this time louder. “Hello? Anyone home?”
Looking over my shoulder, I see Cave is still super close. “She isn’t home,” I say, trying the handle. “We can come back, or . . .” I nod toward a slightly open window. “I can get us in that way.”
I move around Cave and down to the window. It takes about thirty seconds to undo the inside latch and push the window up enough that I can pull my body through. I hear the front door open when I’m halfway through the window and find Cave standing in the front room holding the keys.
He looks at me and shakes his head.
“Keys, right, I knew that. I was testing her home security to make sure she is safe, and guess what? She isn’t.”
I extract myself from the window and right myself.
The inside of the house is small and well lived in.
There are dishes in the sink, and a jacket slung over the back of a chair.
Books are stacked on the floor beside the couch, which looks like it has been recently slept on, with a pillow at one end and a blanket balled up at the other.
We move into the kitchen, and there are photos on the fridge, held up by little pineapple magnets, and one magnet from a place called Sunset Diner. I recognize the woman from the phone’s lock screen. She is in a lot of the pictures and must be the girl Cave found.
Cave sets the bag down on the kitchen table. “She must live alone,” I say, moving through the house again, checking the bathroom. “Yep, only her here, one toothbrush.”
He looks at me and shrugs as I walk back to where he stands.
We stare at the bag that is ringing again. “Somebody must be worried about her. It’s fine, she will come home and find it here.”
Cave’s eyes move to the photos on the fridge, while I observe and don’t say anything—which is a huge personal achievement for me.
There is something behind those eyes of his, but I have no idea what.
They are typically a void, and if you try to read Cave, you won’t get far.
His clothes alone are enough for someone to think he is unstable, and maybe he is a little, but isn’t everyone?
This world is pretty fucked up for the most part.
He snatches a picture and shoves it into his pocket, and I shrug when he glares at me in challenge. We leave through the door, and before I pull it shut, Cave makes sure it’s locked.