Chapter Fifteen
The next morning, I stepped out onto the already busy streets thinking that in the bright of day, the city was pretty. The row of rainbow-colored homes along with the horse-drawn carriages clopping along was like a dip into another time.
“When Luke brought Naira here, the horse-and-carriage tour was one of the things she wanted to do most of all. She was so excited,” Hailey said. “They didn’t get a chance before … all of this happened.”
She let her words hang in the air, the rest unnecessary.
I appreciated that she didn’t say Naira had died, whether she truly believed it or not.
“When I walked here from the marina—”
Hailey grimaced. “You walked all the way from there?” She made it sound like I’d said I trekked across the country.
I nodded, following her down the steps with my backpack slung over one shoulder. Her lips were bright red, her hair hung in perfect short curls, and a tiny designer backpack dangled from her hand. She moved fast, bouncing down the stairs to the sidewalk.
She went around to the driver’s side of her car with three jagged claw marks painted over the headlight. She opened the door and almost got in until she saw me still standing on the sidewalk.
“What’s the holdup? Get in.”
I eyed her car, remembering how she peeled out of the stadium parking lot at my graduation. “Do we have to … Maybe we can walk? It’s not that far.”
She made a face. “Yeah, I don’t walk. Plus, I need Starbucks. Get in the car.”
Still feeling like Hailey behind the wheel was a bad idea, I forced myself in.
“Okay.” She dropped her key fob in the middle console, a smooth, rose-gold egg-shaped contraption attached to the key ring.
I pointed at it. “What’s that?”
She briefly glanced at what I was pointing to. “A panic button. If I’m ever in trouble, I can push it and nearby security will be notified. You live in the city, you learn to never leave home without something.”
“Noted,” I said, hoping I’d never have to hear it.
She started the car. “What’s the itinerary?”
I only had two places on the list. Hopefully they wouldn’t lead to dead ends.
“Let’s start with the marina where Naira and your brother took off.”
We passed another church in the historic district Hailey lived in. It was huge, with Gothic architecture and stained glass windows glinting sunlight off of them.
“The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist,” I read as we passed. “I heard there’s a crypt somewhere in there. That true?”
“Wouldn’t know.”
“But you live right—”
“I don’t step foot in churches.” Hailey cut in. Her eyes remained straight ahead, her speed accelerating.
“Why not?” I asked, curious about this new vibe from her. Cool. Barriers slammed back up.
How was she able to do that?
Again, “Why?”
“Not my thing.” Which ended the conversation whether I wanted to or not.
Hailey was the worst driver I ever had the bad luck to ride with.
She rode people’s bumpers. She blew her horn and muttered curses at innocent people who weren’t moving fast enough for her.
She blew through yellows and I think a red while I clutched on to my seat belt and door handle for dear life.
I was pretty sure nail marks were embedded in the leather.
“Could we please maybe slow down?” I flip-flopped between squealing in fear and sending up every prayer imaginable.
“You don’t have to drive so faaaasst!” The last part just came out in a screech as Hailey floored it and cut off a Challenger to get in the left turn lane. All of my years passed before my eyes.
She didn’t hear me, or maybe she ignored me. Finally, we came to a squealing stop at the marina. We nearly hit the fence post in the process.
“You’re a terrible, horrible, no-good driver,” I informed her.
“Yeah, well, you’re welcome,” she returned, reveling in my trauma way too much.
She gripped her Grande coffee while she led me along the docks where rows and rows of boats bobbed happily in the water.
We ended up in front of an empty space. Several wreaths of various colors looped over the thick, round wooden post that marked Luke’s empty docking space like a ring toss.
Hailey stood solemnly in front of the memorial, pushing her large glasses flat against her face.
I couldn’t see her eyes, but her whole vibe told me she was struggling.
I was about to say something nice because that’s what a decent person was supposed to do in times like this. But Hailey started talking.
“Going out on the water was his favorite thing, and he loved coming to this marina and talking sailing with everyone here. He’d been planning this night for so long for Naira. Like since the moment they started talking. I think he fell for her the minute he saw her.”
Hailey was probably the last person to see Luke and Naira. It must have weighed a ton on her. At least she got to see Naira happy. The last time I saw her, I’d basically told her to go to hell.
“Before he met Naira, Luke would just go to class, work with our uncle on the artifacts they found in excavations for the Endowment. Sail around on his boat. He didn’t have many friends.
” Hailey snuck a look at me, and I could barely make out the outline of her eyes.
She wiped at her nose with the back of her hand.
“Did you know he took one of those tour ferries to your island?”
I stopped moving. I hadn’t. “I thought our graduation was the first meetup.”
“No,” Hailey said, pushing her glasses up so they sat atop her head.
“He surprised her and came over. He said the island felt like it was made of magic. I always thought it was bullshit and that he was just saying that because he was so into her. Later, he told me the island was like heaven. You should have seen how excited he was when he got home. He couldn’t wait to tell me.
Our uncle even made a comment that he’d never seen Luke look as happy as that before. ”
Must have been nice hearing all that in real time. Naira kept her real first meet-cute from me. He came all the way to Golden Isle and Naira never said a word.
I pushed down the remorse. It was distracting me from what mattered. Hailey said Luke had been working with the Endowment’s artifacts. They were the ones owned by the lab where the artifacts were being restored, like from the picture Naira had sent me.
“You said your uncle and Luke work for the Endowment?”
“Our family is the main benefactor. My uncle Simon was an archaeologist and led a lot of the excavations. Now he oversees the entire program. Luke helped out a lot; he was pretty into that kind of thing, like Naira. They used to debate about stealing and appropriating artifacts from other cultures. But I’m not involved in looking for the artifacts.
Digging in dirt isn’t my thing.” She held up her clawlike red nails and smiled.
I sighed. I knew Hailey meant well, but hearing about this side of Naira that I knew so little about just made me feel worse. If only she’d told me. But if she had, would I have acted different? Or would I have been the same ass I’d been that night?
“What is the lab for?”
“Research. Where we work with the artifacts uncovered in digs.”
“Stolen stuff you all appropriate and then try to pawn off as discovered and give back to the true owners like you did them a huge favor.” I rolled my eyes.
“You’re only doing what you should be doing in returning those artifacts.
You’re not, like, doing some humanitarian service to the world.
You won’t win the Nobel Peace Prize or some shit for doing what you already should.
” Come to think about how big business worked, they probably would.
The jaw muscles worked under Hailey’s skin. I side-eyed her as she licked her lips while I braced myself for whatever she had coming.
“That’s fair. It’s what happens, right? Throughout history.”
She didn’t have to tell me about it. I knew the history. I lived the history.
“Maybe we should try to find someone who might have been here that night,” I said.
As we walked to the dock office, a voice blared from nearby.
“Another discovery of a mutilated body … awaiting the medical examiner’s report, but sources say the body appeared to have been ravaged by animals…”
The news report broadcasted from a radio on a cerulean yacht, Sleeping Bluety. I tuned into the broadcast, listening closely.
“… the body count steadily rising in the last several months, not including the recent disappearances. Unconfirmed sources say the disappearances may be connected and the work of a serial killer, though police are not yet labeling it as the work of one.”
“How’s it not a serial killer?” I asked. “That many people dead?”
“Haven’t you been following the news lately?”
I hadn’t.
“There have been a bunch of unexplained attacks and missing people up and down the coast,” Hailey answered. “But they’re scattered so I guess no one’s alarmed, but it’s weird.”
That’s right, Sekou had mentioned something about missing people, but I had dismissed it with bigger things on my mind.
Now I wished I’d paid attention. Then I could have asked Nana Ama what she thought and if she sensed anything whenever she stepped out to clear the haze building in her, which wasn’t very often.
“Don’t forget the sick folks who go into the hospital and then go missing,” a voice said from behind us.
Hailey and I turned to see a ruddy-faced man wearing a white hat with a blue sail insignia on it stepping off the yacht.
His face was sun blasted, and he was wiping his hands on a grease-stained towel.
I said, “What sick folks?”
He shrugged. “That’s what they won’t tell you on the news. How they up and walk from their hospital bed. There one minute, gone the next. I’m retired janitorial services from one of the local hospitals. Still have friends there.” He grinned. “Who like beer and cards.”
Hailey returned his grin. “Who doesn’t like beer and cards?” she said easily, finding the connection between them.