Chapter Forty
FORTY
Blair
On the second floor of Island Adventure, surrounded by windows that overlooked the course, Blair traced the line of Nash’s lips with the tip of her finger and sunk her hand into his thick honey hair.
They’d parked behind the dumpster where no one could see Nash’s car, and shaken out the tarp like always—though it did little to soften the old hardwood flooring—and from where they lay she could see the darkening sky through the windows.
The course was closed, the greens abandoned.
It was just Blair and Nash high above the earth, entwined on the dusty floor.
This had always been one of Blair’s favorite places, in spite of the creepy mannequin her dad had dressed as a captain and propped in the window that faced the road.
The building that welcomed customers to Island Adventure had been designed to look like a tanker ship, the second floor replicating its control station.
The large room was used for storage, the ceiling so low that Nash couldn’t stand up without knocking his head, but the tower offered a view of the whole colorful course.
Once or twice, when feeling brave, they’d come in the daytime to spy on the customers, snickering as players struggled with the hole that emptied in a tiny Eel Bay.
The wind turbine was good for a laugh, too; it usually took people several tries to get their neon balls past its rotating blades, into a pipe, and down to the hole.
It was true that Blair had outgrown this place.
That didn’t mean it would be easy to leave.
“They never want to talk about the money,” she told Nash. “I just have a bad feeling, you know?” Ever since her chat with Woody in the garage, Blair had been paying extra-close attention, and there was definitely something weird going on with her mom and dad.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Nash slipped a hand under her shirt to thumb the hollow path of her spine. In the soft darkness, his eyes were molten. “You already accepted and signed the papers. They’ll make sure they can cover tuition. It’s not that much after financial aid, right?”
Not compared to some colleges, thought Blair, but the money wasn’t nothing. Nash’s parents owned an insurance agency, and with all the boats around they made good money. The only reason Nash even had a job was that his mom and dad thought it built self-discipline.
“And they’ve been fighting,” she went on. “Like, a lot.”
“Probably just the stress of you leaving.” Nash pulled her in for a kiss. He tasted like the Skittles he’d been popping when they’d pulled up. Fake fruit-sweet. “It’s good that you’re going—for everyone. Amazing, actually, since we’ll be together.”
Blair nodded, wishing she felt better about leaving than she did.
What if this thing with her parents wasn’t only about college?
What if the arguments got worse? What about Alana, who’d be left to deal with it on her own?
Blair felt her heart kick out of time and fidgeted on the hard floor.
As much as she loved Nash, his arms were suddenly confining, and she longed for the open air of the course.
As Nash’s tongue urged her mouth open, Blair froze.
A crunch of tires on the parking lot below.
The sound drew her attention to the window, and Blair wriggled out from underneath her boyfriend.
They never risked turning a light on in the tower, not even a flashlight on their phones, which would be visible to anyone driving Route 12.
Trading an anxious glance, Blair and Nash crawled to the front window.
A car had pulled into the lot. It was a white Tesla, and there was a truck right behind it.
The truck belonged to Blair’s dad.
“Holy shit,” Nash said, next to her at the window. “That’s Mikko Helle.”
“The hockey player? What in the world is he doing here?” Everyone at school had been so pumped when they heard Mikko Helle was moving to Cape Vincent.
The fact that a real live NHL player would be living in the area blew Nash’s mind.
But why was he at the mini putt? Starting next week, her dad would stay open till ten, but today they’d already been closed for an hour.
“Is he … meeting my dad?” Blair shook her head.
That made no sense, but here they were, greeting each other in the parking lot and heading out onto the course.
“Come on.” Nash was on his feet already, making his way to the ladder that led to the main floor.
“No,” Blair said firmly. “No way, Nash. They’ll see us.”
“We have to find out what they’re talking about. It’s Mikko Helle.”
From the corner of her eye, she could still see the Tesla, its gleaming body faintly yellow under the lot’s old school halogen lights.
As much as she tried, Blair couldn’t think of a single reason why the hockey star would be meeting her dad.
Her thoughts still lingered on the weird vibe at home. Her father’s unpredictable moods.
“OK,” she conceded, as much for her own benefit as for Nash’s. She wanted to know what the guy was doing with her father. Blair had to find out what that meant.
The course was packed with Thousand Islands landmarks, in between which her parents had planted shrubs and flowering trees.
At night it all felt eerie and sinister, like hanging out in a fun house after dark.
The shadowy structures allowed Blair and Nash to stay hidden, though, and as they crouched behind the same lighthouse her dad had been touching up last week, Blair could hear the men’s voices.
“I thought we should talk,” Mikko was saying. He had some kind of accent, a cadence that Blair couldn’t place. He was wearing designer jeans and a T-shirt that was tissue-paper thin; even in the feeble light, Blair could see the tattoos on his contoured chest right through it.
“Sure, of course.” Woody wiped his palms on his thighs.
He’d put on a little weight over the years and his pants were speckled with paint, and next to him Mikko looked completely out of place.
More than that, he looked unimpressed, and Blair felt a flood of embarrassment for her father.
At least the falling darkness hid the chipped paint and worn turf, but as the men stood beside the mouth of the cavern crafted in the likeness of the cave on Devil’s Oven Island, Blair caught Mikko frowning.
“I’ve been meaning to reach out to see how you’re doing, actually,” Woody said. “I heard what happened at your house. That must have been rough.”
“Rough,” Mikko repeated without looking at him. “Yes. I have to stay in the hotel in Clayton instead of my own home. The police interviewed me two times. They know who the bones belong to.”
Woody’s eyes were all over the place. The bones? What the fuck was going on? In the span of five seconds, Blair’s skin had gone ice cold. She looked at Nash and saw his face was bloodless, his mouth slack.
“Who is it?” Her dad’s voice sounded strange, like someone had their hands around his throat.
“It’s a woman,” Mikko said. “A woman named Angelica. Do you know a woman named Angelica, Woody? Because I would like to know how her body got into my basement.”
Silence. Woody’s mouth gaped, but he couldn’t bring himself to form a single word.
Behind the island, Blair’s head pounded with bewilderment and fear.
An NHL player was talking to her dad about a dead body.
Nothing about the scene felt real except the tremble in Blair’s hands when she splayed them on the model lighthouse, her back pressed hard against the painted wood.
“I don’t …” Her dad popped his jaw once, twice.
“The detectives showed me her picture,” said Mikko. “And after I left, I remembered something. You were with her, Woody. That night, at my house.”
“I—”
“Woody,” said Mikko, shaking his head. “I thought we were friends.”
“We are.”
“I thought so. But I also learned today that your wife has been working for me, and neither of you told me who she was.”
Your wife. The guy was talking about Blair’s mom.
She worked in lots of rich people’s houses in the summer months, but Blair had no idea Mikko Helle was one of Nicole’s clients.
Blair thought about Saturday night, when her mom hadn’t been around for dinner.
The slam of a car door had woken her up around two a.m., and when she’d looked outside, she’d seen Stacy’s Kia in the driveway and her mother stumbling toward the house. That wasn’t like Nicole, not at all.
When Blair looked around the side of the lighthouse again, her dad was pushing a hand through his hair over and over. “I didn’t know about that.”
“You didn’t know your wife was spying on me?”
“Spying!” Blair saw a spray of spittle escape Woody’s lips. Mikko flinched, and his face turned crimson, a red mask of disgust.
When Nash heard about Mikko Helle moving to town, he’d found an interview with the guy and made Blair read it. Her impression had been that Mikko was fun, a geyser of optimism and bringer of good times. That wasn’t what Blair was witnessing now, and the disparity stung like liquor downed too fast.
“Most of her clients come from her friend Stacy.” Woody was talking fast now, his voice frantic. “She sold you your place, right? It’s just a coincidence, that’s all.”
“Partnerships,” Blair heard Mikko say, “are about trust. They can’t exist without it. And you trusted me, Woody. When there were delays, you trusted me to take care of it. The problem is, I don’t know if I can trust you.”
Woody had lowered his head to stare at the path that wound its way around the course toward the exit. He had his back to Blair, but she could see his shoulders heaving.
“Mikko,” he said. “I didn’t fucking kill that girl. Trust me. Trust that.”
Blair didn’t remember unrooting her feet or retracing her steps to the building, but somehow she was inside again and she couldn’t breathe. Nash was close beside her, whispering something inaudible while she sank to her knees behind the counter, choking back sob after sob.
This couldn’t be real. It wasn’t right. Whatever he thought had happened, whatever he believed Woody had done, Mikko Helle had it wrong. What stuck with Blair, though, was that her dad knew about this body. This girl. He’d met Mikko here, at the course after hours. He’d come willingly.
It was this fact above all others that made Blair heave a ragged breath and collapse against Nash on the stained tile floor.