Chapter 30
CHAPTER 30
SAWYER
“ I hate to leave good company, but this baby means I turn into a pumpkin when the sun sets.” Caroline rubbed at the belly bump that I’d swear was bigger than when we’d seen her on moving day when we’d dropped some furniture off at Beachcomber Bargains for consignment.
Did pregnancy work that way? I had no idea. I hadn’t been around but for the occasional short visit while she’d incubated Aubrey and Logan, and I’d only been six during my mother’s last pregnancy. After what had happened to her, I steered clear of pregnant women. But I wondered about it now. What would it be like to be there, day to day, to see all those changes? Was that something I wanted? Did Willa? We certainly hadn’t discussed it. But if we were serious about making a real go of this marriage, it was bound to come up, eventually. Was I willing to take that risk with her life?
“When are you due?” Jace’s question jerked me back from the precipice of a mental rabbit hole I wasn’t prepared to explore.
“November 23rd,” Hoyt announced. “Just in time to make room for turkey and all the trimmings for Thanksgiving.”
“You better believe your mama’s making me an entire pan of her sweet potato casserole that’s all mine since this baby is entirely her fault.” When I lifted a brow, she explained, “She was the one who gifted us the tequila.”
Against a patter of laughter, we helped gather up their empty dishes and food containers.
Caroline hugged me, then Jace. “Stay safe and come home again soon.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Then they made their way up the stairs to the house.
“And then there were six,” Bree intoned. “Anybody want another beer?”
More than a little unsettled by the direction of my thoughts, I lifted a hand. “I’m for that. This latest test batch is excellent.”
“Pretty sure I’m putting it on the menu. Gotta think of a good name first, though.”
Willa dug around in one of the totes. “I’m going to go romp with the pups to let them run off some energy before we lose the last of the light, and then I’m straight up making another s’more. I’ll concede Nutella isn’t bad, but I’m still a Reese’s girl.” She came up with a yellow tennis ball. At the sight of it, Roy leapt up, turning circles in ecstasy. His obvious joy brought a light to her eyes.
“Let me know when you’re nearly done. I’ll have a marshmallow toasted and waiting for you.”
“That’s a deal.” She grinned and swooped in for a fast kiss. “This marriage thing has great perks.”
As her brother was right there, I resisted the urge to make reference to any other perks, but I definitely thought about them. From the heat that leapt into her gaze, so did she.
“C’mon pups!”
“Guess we’ll see how well you behave.” Bree unclipped Keeley’s leash, and the smaller dog raced after her new best buddies toward the water.
Willa hurled the ball, laughing as both dogs streaked down the beach. The sound carried to me on the breeze, reminding me so much of that long-ago night, I felt a prickle of déjà vu. This was a much smaller group, and the air didn’t carry that electric feeling that presaged a storm. But all of us had been at that bonfire. Was anybody else remembering?
Jace nudged my shoulder. “Hey. You okay? You look like you’re thinking deep thoughts.”
“I was thinking about the bonfire.”
I didn’t have to specify which one.
Gabi extended a marshmallow toward the flames of the small one we’d been cooking over. “I guess we haven’t all been together like this since that night. Not all of us. Willa didn’t come to any that summer before y’all left for the Navy.”
I wondered if she’d been to any at all since she’d returned to the island. Or had that been something else she’d avoided? I’d always believed she’d come back to Hatterwick to reclaim the life her parents had ripped away, but I was coming to understand that, in her own way, she was still running from the trauma of that night.
She’d raked me over the coals for the guilt I’d carried all these years, but it was hard not to wonder how things might have been different if I hadn’t helped her sneak out for that party. I wanted to believe she wouldn’t have drowned, but she’d said she would have found another way. If she had, I wouldn’t have even been there, because I’d only come for her. If she’d snuck out on her own, we might have lost her entirely, along with Gwen. We probably wouldn’t be here now, and she almost certainly wouldn’t be my wife.
My gaze tracked back to where she danced in the waves, the dogs at her heels. “Why did she leave the beach?” I hadn’t intended to bring it up, but the question just spilled out.
Everyone’s attention zeroed in on me.
“What do you mean?” Jace asked.
“Willa is a rule follower. I gave her ground rules that night, one of which was not to leave without one of us. She wouldn’t have done it without a good reason.”
Daniel kicked back, crossing his legs at the ankles. “Really? I mean, she would’ve been… what? Sixteen? Hardly a child. And it’s not like this island is big. I expect she could’ve walked on home if she’d had a mind to.”
“Could have, yeah, but wouldn’t have,” Jace said. “Not by herself. She was… sheltered back then.”
“Ain’t that all the more reason she might’ve gone off on her own?” Daniel asked. “A li’l adventure?”
Gabi carefully rotated her marshmallow. “Willa was never the instigator. Unless it was something to do with an animal. Hell, she spent most of the party playing with somebody’s dog, like she’s doing now.”
We all looked out to where she was wrestling with Keeley, her smile so wide we could see it from here.
“So maybe she didn’t go off on her own. Maybe she went off with your other friend. The one who went missing.”
Gabi shook her head. “My brother was the last person to see Gwen alive. He didn’t see Willa with her.”
“Is he sure he saw Gwen? Or did he catch sight of a teenage gal with the same coloring and figure, dressed like every other girl at that party probably was, and jumped to conclusions? Musta been dark by then, yeah? Easy to be mistook. Maybe he saw what he ’spected to see. Wouldn’t be the first to make that kinda mistake.”
I wanted to dismiss the possibility. Rios had been so sure he’d seen her. He’d gone to Carson himself to report it, hoping they’d be able to find something that would help them find her. Instead, Carson had made him a scapegoat, and it had been enough that a huge chunk of the island bought into it, despite the total lack of evidence.
Bree circled a finger around the mouth of her longneck bottle. “Okay, I’m willing to play. Let’s follow that thought through. If Rios was wrong, and Gwen left the party earlier with Willa…”
“You’re suggesting that something happened to both of them?” Jace’s tone was flat.
Daniel lifted his palms. “Me, I’m just playin’ devil’s advocate. I’m the outsider who hasn’t been influenced by the stories everybody tells about what happened that night.”
My fingers tapped restlessly against my own bottle. “The remains were found less than fifty yards from where I pulled her out of the water that night.”
Gabi’s marshmallow dipped into the flames as her attention swung to me. “You think the two are connected?”
“I don’t know. The police haven’t said how long they’d been there. They may not even know yet. But this island isn’t that big. If speculation places Willa and Gwen out there together... And somehow Willa ends up in the water, Gwen disappears entirely, and some guy ends up with a bullet between the eyes, all in the same relative geographic area?”
Jace’s brows drew together. “She had a head wound.”
This was the first I’d heard of this. “What?”
“When we got her to the hospital, they just attributed it to her being bashed against the ocean floor or against a piece of driftwood while she was caught in the riptide. But what if it wasn’t that? What if someone struck her?”
My blood ran cold. I’d imagined countless scenarios, trying to make sense of how Willa had ended up in the water in the middle of that storm. But I’d never imagined this. “You think someone could’ve attacked them both?”
“I don’t know. This is all pure conjecture. But the tides were huge that night. You seeing Willa at all was a goddamned miracle. If somebody threw both of them into the water, that might explain why Gwen’s never been found.”
The idea of it made me physically ill. That maybe I’d missed seeing her, and she’d died because of it.
Gabi abandoned the charcoaled marshmallow. “If that’s the case… then who’s the dead guy?”
Daniel slid an arm around her shoulders. “Might could be related. Might not. Don’t matter which. Either way, there’da been somebody else there that night. It’s not likely either of the girls or the dead guy pulled the trigger.”
And if somebody else had been there, chances were, they were still walking around free, with no one the wiser.
I didn’t like the line of thought. I didn’t like it at all.
Realizing I no longer heard Willa laughing, I searched her out again. She stood shin-deep in the water, stock still, the ball clutched between three fingers. Even from here, I could see the odd, vacant expression on her face. As I watched, the color drained out of her cheeks.
“Something’s wrong.” I was out of my seat, running toward her before the ball in her hand dropped straight into the water.
She swayed, and I just made it to her before she toppled forward, sinking to her knees.
“Willa, what’s wrong?” I gripped her arms, holding her up.
Jace was right there. “Wills? Willa?”
Her eyes didn’t focus on either of us, instead seeming to stare at something over our shoulders. I glanced back and saw nothing on that stretch of beach. Her face twisted in absolute terror, and somehow I understood that she wasn’t actually here. That scared the shit out of me. I’d seen that kind of expression on the faces of men I’d met at Walter Reed, who’d been in the midst of PTSD flashbacks.
“Wren, baby, can you hear me? Wren?”
At the sound of my voice, her fingers dug into my forearms, gripping tight. “Don’t let go. Don’t let go. Don’t let go.”
I held on tighter. “Never. I’m here. I’m right here.”
Her breath went short and ragged, and she started to tremble. Roy barked, leaning against us both in the water. Keeley got in on the action from the other side. Nothing seemed to stem the rising tide of panic that had her in its grip.
“Get her out of the water,” Gabi ordered.
I scooped her up, and she cried out, her face twisting in pain. Shit, had something stung her? Whimpering, she curled into me as I hurried back to the beach.
“Willa, what’s going on?” Gabi reached for one of her wrists, but Willa only clung tighter to me, so Gabi slid two fingers against her throat. “Jesus, her pulse is racing.”
Tremors wracked her body.
Gabi whipped the phone from her pocket and turned on the flashlight. “This is going to suck for a second, but I need to check your eyes, hon.” She pried each of Willa’s eyes open. “Massively dilated.”
Willa turned her head away, whimpering.
“Get her back to the house. I can look her over better there.”
Back inside, I tried to settle her on the sofa in the den, but she wouldn’t let me go, so I just sat down myself. While Jace paced, Gabi checked her over more thoroughly, finding no signs of a jellyfish sting or any other external trigger for what was happening. The shaking had stopped, but I didn’t think it was over. Willa lay limp in my arms, but for the death grip she had on my shirt.
Gabi stroked the hair back from her face. “Willa, honey, does your head hurt?”
Not even a flicker of a response. Willa just continued to stare off into space, her gaze unfocused.
I’d seen her have a panic attack before, but it had been nothing like this. Whatever this was scared the shit out of me. I tightened my hold on her. “Wren, you’re scaring me, baby.”
With a little whimper, she turned her head into my shoulder, toward the sound of my voice.
“She’ll respond to you. Keep talking,” Gabi ordered.
“Do you have a headache, sweetheart?”
I felt the barest of nods against my chest.
“Do you want your migraine meds?”
Another nod.
“I’ll get it. Where are they?” Jace asked.
“Drawer to the left of the fridge.”
He was back in less than a minute. Gabi took the box from him and pressed the injection pen to Willa’s leg. She didn’t even flinch.
I kept up a running litany of reassurances, since the sound of my voice seemed to help, and we waited. Within ten minutes, her eyes drifted shut and the last of the tension drained from her body. She was sleeping.
With a shuddering breath, Gabi dropped onto the edge of the coffee table. “She should rest now.”
Daniel straightened from where he’d apparently been leaning against the wall. I hadn’t even realized he was in the room. “Bree, you wanna lend me a hand gettin’ the food together and makin’ sure that fire’s good and out?”
Obviously anxious herself, Bree stood. “Yeah. I can do that.”
Gabi waited until we all heard the kitchen door shut behind them. “Okay, what the actual fuck was that?”
Jace and I exchanged a look. This wasn’t ours to tell.
Gabi scowled. “Stonewall me all you want, but I’m not leaving until I get answers. If that means I need to sit here until she sleeps this off to get it direct from the horse’s mouth, I will. But something is wrong with my friend, and I’m going to help.”
I didn’t want to betray Willa’s trust. She was so very private about what had happened to her off-island. But maybe it was time we opened the circle of trust a little and let in some friends who could help.
“It has to be her choice. But we’ve got plenty of space. You might as well stay the night.”