Seventeen
“I need to talk to you about something really awkward, Kit,” I say once we’re in the forest.
“About Sadie, I’m guessing.”
“Yes. I’m not asking about your relationship. That’s none of my business, which is what makes this really awkward.”
He stops. When I keep walking, he strides in front of me and turns around. “You think I’m sleeping with Sadie?”
“That’d be none of my business.”
“Did she say we were?”
I hesitate.
“Not in those exact words, right?” He swears under his breath. “Because that’s not Sadie. She just insinuated it, and since you know we had a one-nighter before you and I got together, it makes sense, especially if she’s showing up here after I canceled drinks…” He shakes his head. “Let’s clear this up right now. Outside of business, I haven’t had any contact with Sadie since we got married.”
“If you did—”
“You’d understand. I heard that, and I know you mean it, which is why I wouldn’t lie. We were supposed to have drinks last night. Discussing business. She’s been pitching marketing projects to me, some of which I’ve bought. Yes, talking over drinks was her idea, and yes, it’s not the first time, and yes, I’ve gotten the sense she’s hoping it’ll lead to more, but it hasn’t and won’t. I can spot that particular trap a mile away. I have money, and Sadie likes money.”
I shake my head. “She likes you. She has for a long time, and she thinks I… Well, hopefully she doesn’t seriously believe I married you to spite her, but she does have a crush on you. Has for years.”
His brow furrows. “Sadie?”
I manage a small smile. “That is who we’re talking about, right?”
He shakes his head. “It’s not like that. Wait—she thinks you stole me from her? How? It was one night. I was in a rough place and…”
When he trails off, I brush a hanging vine out of the way and say, “I don’t need the details, Kit.”
“No, actually you do. I didn’t tell you before, because it felt like blaming Sadie when I might have been wrong, and it’s not as if I need to justify sleeping with someone before you and I got together. When I say she’s interested in my money, that’s not a lack of self-confidence, Laney. She’s the one who got in touch with me, right after it was announced that I was taking over the company. She wanted to talk business, and then Mom had a cancer scare, and there were a few weeks there where I was convinved I was going to lose her… while Dad was still recovering from his heart attacks. That’s when it happened. A night of comfort and companionship turned to sex, and I won’t lie—I needed that. But she started telling people we were a couple and showing up at my condo.”
“Well, you are really good in bed.” I lift my hands. “Just saying.”
He laughs, the sound carried on a whoosh of breath as he relaxes. “Thanks, but even I’m not that good. I just happened to have a job opening she thought she could fill, and it wasn’t in the marketing department.”
“CEO’s wife.”
He falls in beside me, and we resume walking. “Yeah. She apologized later for coming on so strong, but it still…” Hands in his pockets again. “I screwed up when Anna died. I know I did. It was the worst time of your life, and I was nowhere to be found. I hurt you.”
I open my mouth to say no, it was fine, I understood. After all, we’d been separated and on the road to a quickie divorce. Instead, what comes out is a single word.
“Yes.”
“I know,” he says. “And while there’s no excuse, if there’s an explanation, it’s Sadie. I couldn’t stop thinking about what she did, taking advantage of me when I thought I could lose both my parents. I wouldn’t do that to you. When Anna got sick again, I wanted to see you. I wanted to be there for you. I wanted to help with the expenses. But I worried it would only make things worse, so I settled for little things. Things you wouldn’t know were me.”
I think back to the anonymous gifts that’d come when Anna was in hospice care and after her death. Endless little things, for her, for Madison, for me, for my parents, from meals to gifts to housecleaning services. We’d presumed different sources—various friends and family being thoughtful. A few of the extravagant things I even suspected came from Kit’s parents. But his parents had helped under their own name and they’d come to visit, as had everyone else on my list. Everyone except Kit, who’d slipped in twice to see Anna when I wasn’t there, who’d taken Madison out a dozen times to cheer her up and give me a break. I figured that was his sole contribution. I should have known better.
“I’m sorry, Laney. I screwed up, and I hurt you more.”
I answer carefully. “I won’t say it didn’t hurt, but I understand why you kept your distance when she was dying. And I really did appreciate all those things you did.”
The path reaches a fork, and we head left, toward the water.
“You argued with Sadie last night,” I say. “That’s actually what I needed to talk to you about. The rest is good to know, but this is the important part.”
“What did we fight about, and could that be a reason for her to blow up your boats.”
“Somehow, I don’t think anything could be a reason to strand us, let alone destroy the boats, but was your fight something that might have upset her more? She was already mad at me.”
I explain why—what Sadie had said in the laundry room—and he squeezes his eyes shut.
“So that’s the real reason she was here,” he says.
“I think there were multiple reasons, but that was one of them.”
“Agreed. Which is exactly what we were arguing about. She said she came here for me, because when she got my message, she knew I was falling into your trap.” His hands fly up. “Her words, not mine. That was the start of the fight.”
“Okay.”
“She thought all this staging was a setup. Everyone knows you love horror movies. So you pretended to find all this stuff, maybe for book publicity.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And then you decided you could use it for something else. Getting me back.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You had Madison call and tell me everything, saying you were heading out here, just the two of you, after finding ritualistic symbols. Naturally, I would fly to your side.”
“Which you kinda did.”
“Yep, I’m predictable. That’s why Madison did call. She knew I’d come, and she wanted me to come, and I was fine with that.”
“But Sadie thinks I put Mads up to it.”
“Yep, and I said that proved she didn’t know either of you… which led to a whole different argument.”
“I can imagine.”
“Then she brought up the same subject she did with you, and I said hell no. The timing was so wrong. That means, yes, she was angry with me. I should have said that, but since everyone already figured she took off in a snit—and the evidence supported it—I didn’t want to stir up more trouble by saying she’d accused you of luring me out here.”
“Between her fight with me and her fight with you, I don’t think there’s any doubt she tried to leave and take the boat.”
“The question is whether she also set the bombs.”
We stand on the promontory, looking out at the lake. Waves no longer lap at the rocks. They crash with enough force to splash our shoes, and Kit eases me back from the edge.
“One hell of a storm coming,” I say, and the wind whips my words away.
Kit puts his arm around my waist. The half embrace is tentative, unsure of its welcome. When I lean against his shoulder, his arm tightens, and I take a moment to breathe in the smell of the lake, close my eyes, and imagine this is just a storm.
Two years roll away, and I’m standing here watching a storm with Kit’s arm around me. We’ll settle on the rocks, high above the crashing waves, and we’ll break out wine and crackers and cheese, because that’s what normal people do, right? Picnic in a storm? We’ll laugh at that—it’s so us, isn’t it?—and then the sky will open, rain drenching us before we can even pack up the basket, and we’ll only laugh some more. Then I’ll reach for his shirt and pull it up, joking that I’m helping him out of his wet clothes, and soon we’ll be lying in the grass, reveling in each other and in the glory of a summer storm.
Roll back time. Please. I don’t want to be in this moment, in this hellish perversion of a wonderful dream where I get Jayla back and I find peace with Kit and maybe even Sadie.
Sadie…
Fuck.
I squeeze my eyes shut and steel myself to continue this shitty, shitty conversation. Did my former friend blow up my boats and trap us on this island? Or is my former friend lying dead at the bottom of Lake Superior?
I open my eyes, ready to talk again, and something below catches my eye. I start to crouch, and Kit must think I’m falling—despite being two feet from the edge. He grabs me so fast we nearly do fall.
“There’s something down there,” I say just as thunder booms over the lake.
Kit cups his hand behind his ear. I shake my head and point to the surf below.
He motions for me to stay where I am. Then he inches forward. Careful, so damn careful. That’s Kit. Either cautious to a fault or diving in headfirst.
“Look, a wedding chapel. You wanna?”
“Wanna what?”
That grin, that glorious grin that made my brain spin in twenty directions. “Get married, of course.”
I laugh.
“You think I’m kidding?” he says. “I dare you to marry me, Laney Kilpatrick.”
“You dare me? What are we? Five?”
“Dare you, dare you, double dare you.”
I shake my head, sobering. “If you were ever serious about that, Kit, we’d need a prenup. The biggest, most ironclad prenup ever.”
“Which is why I am serious. Screw all that. Marry me, Laney. Tonight. Now. Before you overanalyze it.”
“BeforeI overanalyze it?”
“Before we both do.” He grabs my hands. “Come on. Let’s do it.”
I squeeze my hands into fists, nails digging in, and when Kit glances at me, my expression is neutral.
“See it?” I ask, pointing down.
He peers over the edge. “I see something. Wait? Is that…?”
He lies facedown on the rock. I stay where I am. I don’t trust my eyes right now. Not my eyes or my judgment.
“Whatever it was, it went under the overhang,” he says. “I can’t see it.”
“Did it look like…?”
He meets my eyes and nods grimly.
I wrap my arms around my chest. “Are we sure?”
He shakes his head.
“What do we do about it?” I ask.
He peers down again. “There’s some stuff snagged on the rocks. I can get to it safely, I think.”
“You think? Or you’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” He manages a smile for me. “No more polar dips today. If I can retrieve it, I will. If not, I’ll come back up.”
He means that. He might have swum out in freezing water to rescue me, but he’s not going to take that risk to answer a question. Unlike his ex-wife, who paddled out in a storm to answer hers.
I still worry as he climbs over the edge. I lie down and plaster myself to the rock, my head and shoulders over the edge to watch his descent.
If he slipped and fell in, would I dive after him?
Absolutely.
That’s love, and I still love him. I always will love him. It shouldn’t be that way. Something as brief as our marriage should die like a roman candle. One blaze of glory, imprinted on the retina for a few moments and then fading. This wasn’t that. This was a flash fire, and I am scarred for life, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
That’s the bitch of it, isn’t it? I got hurt. Hurt so damn bad, and I don’t care. Give me the chance, and I’d do it again. So yes, if he slips, there is no question what I’ll do, just as there’d been no question what he’d do. Does that mean he still loves me? I think so, and that should matter. But it’s not always enough, as fucking unfair as that is.
Kit pauses to shoot me a thumbs-up and a grin, and I lift my face to let the wind freeze-dry my tears before I return the smile. Our eyes meet.
Love you, Kit. I always will. And that’s okay. I’ll deal with it. I’ll live with it. I have to.
I let my gaze hold his long enough that he won’t think I’m pulling away, upset. Then I focus on scanning the rocks below. I know what I’d seen. We both did. There was no mistaking it. A bright pink carry-on suitcase, smacking into the shore below before disappearing under the rocks. There’s a tiny cave under the rocky overhang. That’s where it’ll be, but there’s no getting it now without going into the water. Instead, Kit heads for what looks like a piece of clothing thrown onto higher rocks.
He finally reaches his target and disentangles the piece of black and red fabric. He pulls back to a safer spot, and shakes out the piece. Then his hands run over it, as if trying to make sense of what he’s seeing. It’s torn and soaking wet, but I know what it is long before he does.
Panties.
A pair of fancy lingerie ones, the sort you don’t wear for everyday. The sort you wear for a lover.
Yesterday, I’d watched Sadie wheel that bright pink suitcase up to the house. Now it is down below. I know it is, even if we both wanted to be sure.
Her suitcase.
Her panties.
Panties she brought in hopes that she might need them. That Kit would turn to her for comfort, as he had once before.
I should see that lingerie and be furious. She came to my island hoping to hook up with my ex? Or I should laugh. Seriously, Sadie? You thought Kit would do that?
When Kit realizes what they are, he almost drops them, fumbling before wadding them up and stuffing them in a pocket. That should make me laugh. His expression should.
You really thought you had a chance with him, Sadie? He barely wants to touch your clean undies.
I don’t laugh, because I am not sixteen. I am not going to take one moment’s vindictive pleasure in seeing how deluded Sadie had been. Oh, I would, if I were convinced she was only after him for his money, but whatever else she has done, here she was her genuine self.
After hearing her pain on that call, when she accused me of stealing him, I believe Sadie genuinely cares for Kit, and once again, we actually have something in common. I feel her pain. I won’t say I’d ever want Kit to end up with her, but I can still feel a sympathetic pang.
On the heels of that comes a slap of real pain. Sadie’s luggage is down there. Indubitably her luggage. She did not set a bomb and push the boat out. She did not get to the Fox Bay marina, set a bomb, and push it out.
What happened is this: Sadie argued with me, and she argued with Kit, and in her anger and humiliation, she fled, and some bastard had the boat rigged up to explode in the middle of the night, only she was on it.
Oh God, Sadie.
I’m sorry. I know if you were here right now, after what you did to Kit and Jayla, I would want to throttle you myself. But once upon a time, I loved you. I missed you, and I regretted what happened between us.
If you’re dead…
If.
Tears well.
There is no if, is there? Stop with the fucking ifs, and the fucking alternate explanations, and face the goddamned fact that Sadie—
Something whispers beside me. Not the whistle of the wind, which is loud enough to drown out everything but the surf, and it should certainly drown out a whisper. Yet even as I know I could not have heard anything, I also know I did.
Not just heard it.
Felt it. I felt movement under my fingertips. Under my entire body. A vibration.
Under the rock?
That makes no sense.
“Laney?”
Kit’s lips move, the wind whipping away my name. I barely notice. I am turning my head, following that sound that I could not have heard, the whisper I could not have sensed, the vibration I could not have felt.
And then I see what I cannot be seeing.
I see Sadie.