Chapter 34
CHAPTER 34
SAWYER
I got home later than I’d planned, but it had been worth it to see a project all the way to finished. Especially as it had resulted in my picking up another job for next week. Carpentry was something I’d learned growing up, out of necessity. When you couldn’t afford to buy new, you learned how to fix things. Commercial fishing had been my summer job for years, but construction had been how I’d filled in during the school year. I’d picked up after-school jobs on various construction crews as soon as anybody’d been willing to let me swing a hammer. Paddy Floyd had broken some rules by allowing me on to his crew at fourteen and paying me off-book. But that income had helped keep a roof over my head during stretches when my dad hadn’t been able to function.
I wasn’t keen on the idea of working for someone else, but the idea of getting my contractor’s license, and maybe doing for others what Paddy had done for me, had been circling around in my head. It was a way I could give back to the community. Maybe all my time with Willa was rubbing off on me, or maybe it just felt like a way to slowly overwrite the long-held perceptions other locals held about me. The rumblings about me and Willa had died down in the past several weeks. Or at least, folks had been more careful not to voice their opinions in earshot of me. But I was past giving a damn what any of them thought. Willa and I knew our marriage was real, and that was the only thing that mattered.
Sliding out of my truck, I carefully knocked sand off my boots before heading toward the house. I wanted to kiss my wife, then grab a shower and a root beer. Or maybe a root beer in the shower. Then maybe we could watch a movie we’d already seen with dinner and make out on the sofa. If making out turned to more, well, we were newlyweds. Pleased with the idea of that itinerary, I let myself inside.
Something simmering on the stove scented the kitchen with tomatoes and spices. Taco soup maybe? Already salivating, I toed off my boots and went in search of Willa. Had she finished for the day, or just started supper and gone back to work? I found her in the den, hunched over her laptop. Roy curled up beside her with a Nylabone.
“Hey, beautiful.”
“Hey.” She looked up, and the expression on her face had the smile fading from mine.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Her cheeks were too pale, and her mouth was pinched. Had she had another panic attack? I closed the distance between us, kneeling beside her.
“The police have identified the body.”
Oh God. I hadn’t gone through the village before I came home, so I hadn’t heard anything myself. “Who is it?”
“A guy named Joe Anderson.”
Did I know a Joe Anderson? I tried to think.
“Here.” Willa turned the laptop in my direction and pointed to a picture.
I noted multiple tabs open to what appeared to be social media and a lot of Google searches. The guy on the screen looked familiar. “I used to work with him. Back in high school when I was fishing in the summers. He came on as a seasonal worker, I think. I haven’t seen him in years. I guess this is why.”
She knit her hands together. “The last time anyone saw him was the week before Gwen disappeared.”
Untangling her fingers, I laced them with mine. “Is that what’s got you upset? You think he had something to do with what happened to Gwen?”
Her throat worked as she swallowed, and her eyes took on a haunted edge. “I don’t know. But tell me why he’s showing up in my nightmares.”
Her words sent a shiver down my spine. “What are you talking about?”
“You remember, a couple months ago, that night I woke up screaming and said that I’d been back in the hospital being chased by zombies?”
She hadn’t said a whole lot about that nightmare, but that piece had stuck. “Yeah. Hard to forget.”
“He was one of the zombies. He was shuffling along with the pack of them, blood trailing down from his head, dripping onto the rest of his clothes.” Her fingers tightened on mine. “Why did I dream of this man bleeding from the head two months ago, before we ever found the remains? Sawyer, what if I saw him murdered? What if that’s something locked away in my head?”
The idea of that was utterly terrifying on multiple fronts. If she saw a man be killed right in front of her, that very well might be traumatic enough to cause the kinds of reactions she had. But more, if she’d seen the murder, then presumably she might have seen who’d pulled the trigger, and that person might believe she was a threat.
Willa took a deep breath. “I think I have to try. I think I have to push in a way I never have before.”
“No. Not only because it will hurt you, but because if any word leaks out that you’re starting to remember what happened that night, if whoever killed this man is still around, they could perceive you as a threat and come after you.” And how could I protect her when I had no idea what direction the danger might come from?
“They could come after me anyway, whether I remember or not. I don’t know why they haven’t before now.”
“Either because they’re no longer on-island at all, or because they’re close enough to know you’ve never remembered. Plus, there was no body, until recently. No one even knew Joe Anderson was missing until we stumbled on his remains. If his killer is still here, he’s gotta be sweating bullets, wondering if he’s gonna get caught. That makes whoever it is dangerous. We don’t need to do anything to draw attention to you.”
“I get that. But you were right in what you said when Jace was here. A part of me is still running. I haven’t completely taken back my island. There are whole chunks I avoid. I’ve done everything possible to stop myself from reacting. To not put myself in a position to get triggered. Because once I go down that rabbit hole, I can’t stop myself. And it usually involves pain and sickness and general horribleness.”
She tightened her hold on my hands. “This last time—yes, it was bad—but you kept me grounded. I knew you were there. Part of me did, anyway. I knew I was safe with you, even though I couldn’t stop all the reactions that were happening. And I think… if I hadn’t fought it so hard, if maybe I’d leaned into the fragments and flashes I was seeing instead of focusing on the terror, maybe I would’ve seen more.”
I didn’t like this. Any of it. “What are you saying?”
She framed my face in her hands and pressed her brow to mine. “I think I have to try to face this. I think I have to try to remember. And I want to do it with you there. To see if I can push through. If I know who killed this guy, or if this had something to do with what happened to Gwen, I owe it to her to try. And God, I owe it to myself. I’ve been living with this hole in my memories for years. And I’ve tried to tell myself that it’s okay that I can’t remember. But I don’t feel complete. I’m so aware, all the time, that there’s a piece missing. If I can do this, if I can get answers, I have to take the risk.”
I hated everything about this. I didn’t want her to do anything that would put her in danger or in pain. But she wasn’t wrong. If whoever was out there thought she was a material witness and believed she could remember, then she’d be inherently in danger for the rest of her life, whether she ever remembered or not.
Better that she try to excavate those memories on purpose, to potentially identify the killer, so that the police could do their job and get them off the street.
I eased back to look into her face. “I don’t like it, but I get it. And I’ll support you. We need to talk about this and make a careful plan for how to approach it in a controlled manner, so that you’re as safe as you can be.”
“I can agree to that.” She straightened. “I think we have to call the others.”