Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Scarlett
“Last call for the two o’clock wildlife tour.” Abel’s voice carries across the dock. “Slip five. Blue boat, white stripe.”
I’m already halfway up the gangway, my leather jacket pulled tight against the afternoon chill, blazer underneath for professional armor, notebook clutched against my chest. The recorder’s clipped to my lapel, red light blinking.
Ready. My list of questions about the Haven-Merrick feud is bulleted and color-coded inside the notebook, because I am nothing if not thorough, and because I don’t fully believe Malcolm Merrick’s version of history.
I want a counterweight, and Dean Kinsella will give it to me, whether he wants to or not.
My heels—different heels, my only other pair, sensible black pumps that cost less than the Pradas and will not, God willing, end up in the harbor—click against the wooden dock.
The boat sways gently at its mooring. Blue hull, white stripe, just like Abel said.
A white canvas cover stretches over the stern, sheltering a row of benches.
Six passengers are already aboard, chatting, settling into seats, pulling out phones.
The captain stands at the wheel.
Dean doesn’t look up when I step onto the deck. He checks something on the console, adjusts a dial, and only then does his gaze cut across the boat and land on me, full of the same irritation he had on the dock this morning. Only this time, he’d dialed back to maybe a seven instead of a nine.
Then he turns his back to me and faces the rest of the tourists.
“Welcome to Haven Tours,” he says, and his voice warms to a degree I didn’t think him capable of.
“I’m Dean. We’ll be out on the water for about two hours, following the shoreline north toward No Name Island.
You have life jackets accessible under your seats.
The head’s below deck on the port side.” He gestures to the stairs on his left.
“For those of you that don’t speak boat, that means the bathroom is down these stairs to your left. ”
That got him a few chuckles.
He’s… making jokes? And smiling, his eyes crinkling with it. Even seems to be enjoying himself as he chats with the tourists and guides the boat away from the dock with a low rumble of diesel.
I stare at his back.
How is this the same man that grunted at me all the way across the sound this morning?
I find a spot at the stern rail, notebook open, pen ready. The water is gray-green and choppier than this morning, whitecaps breaking against the hull, but I’m steady. I’m good. I’ve been on boats before. This is nothing.
Then we hit the open channel.
The first bad roll hits the port side, and the deck tilts under my feet. My stomach lurches. Not a gentle oh, we’re moving sensation. A full-body revolt that starts somewhere below my ribs and radiates outward in a cold, creeping wave.
I grip the rail.
The second roll is worse. The boat pitches into a trough, rises, and the horizon tilts, rotates, slides sideways. Salt spray hits my face. I blink it away, and my stomach lurches again, harder this time.
Cold sweat breaks along my hairline.
This is fine. I’m fine. I’ve interviewed senators and celebrities and once a man who was accused of killing three women, and I did not vomit on any of them.
I will not vomit on Dean Kinsella’s boat.
I look down at my notebook. Big mistake. The words swim. My color-coded bullet points blur into a nauseating smear of ink. I take a breath and focus on what Dean’s saying.
“To your right, you’ll see the old cannery pilings.” He’s standing at the wheel, one hand relaxed on the throttle, the other pointing toward a cluster of weathered wooden posts jutting from the water.
“…built in 1892 by Lemuel Merrick…”
The boat drops. My stomach goes with it.
“…burned down in 1938. The Merrick family claimed a Haven burned it down, but…”
I lose the rest. There’s a roaring in my ears that has nothing to do with the engine, and his words come to me in pieces— something about shoddy wiring and an electrification act, another year I don’t catch— while the other passengers lean in with their phones raised like he’s telling a ghost story instead of reciting local history.
He sounds like he loves this. He’s warm. Approachable. Knowledgeable. Completely unfazed by the boat’s movement. A man born on water.
He hasn’t looked at me once.
My knuckles are white on the rail. The cold sweat has migrated from my hairline to the back of my neck, tracing icy fingers down my spine beneath my blazer.
The salt spray stings my eyes every time I lift my head, which is less and less often because lifting my head makes the horizon do that thing again, that tilting, sliding thing that turns my stomach inside out.
A woman in a yellow rain jacket offers me a sympathetic smile. “First time on the water?”
“I’m from Los Angeles,” I say, which is not an answer but feels like one.
She pats my arm. “Try looking at the horizon. Fixed point.”
I try. The horizon bobs and weaves like it’s drunk. My fixed point is currently doing the cha-cha.
Dean’s voice continues, unhurried, painting pictures of the coastline.
He points out an eagle’s nest in a dead snag.
He tells a story about a sea lion that used to beg for fish from tourists until the Department of Fish and Wildlife made people stop feeding it.
The passengers laugh. I grip the rail and breathe through my nose.
The worst swell hits without warning. The boat drops hard, rises harder, and my stomach slams against my diaphragm. For one horrifying second, I think I’m going to lose it right here at the stern rail, in front of six strangers and one infuriatingly competent ferry captain.
I close my eyes. Breathe. Count backward from ten.
When I open them, Dean is still talking. Still hasn’t looked at me. Still hasn’t told me to sit down below where it’s stable, where people who can’t handle a little chop belong.
And something in me snaps.
I am not giving Dean Kinsella the satisfaction. I am not the woman in the viral clip, losing it over nothing. I am a professional journalist who has survived worse than a boat ride, and I will be damned if I let this man watch me fail at something this basic.
I straighten up. My legs feel like overcooked pasta, but I lock my knees and make them work.
I open my notebook to a fresh page. My handwriting is terrible—shaking, slanted, barely legible—but I don’t care.
I write the date. I write “Haven Tour - Dean Kinsella” and underline it twice with a line that wobbles like a seismograph during an earthquake.
Then I join the group at the rail. Not gripping it. Just standing there, notebook open, pen ready, like I’ve been fine this whole time.
Dean is describing the tidal currents around No Name Island when it happens.
He doesn’t break stride. Doesn’t slow down.
Doesn’t even look my way. But his hand reaches into a compartment beside the wheel, pulls out a sealed bottle of water and a small, foil-wrapped packet, and he sets both on the bench directly beside where I’m standing.
Then he walks away, back to the console, still talking about rip currents.
I stare at the ginger chew. The foil crinkles when I pick it up. I unwrap it slowly, pop it into my mouth, and the sharp, clean burn of ginger cuts through the nausea.
I don’t say thank you. He didn’t actually offer it to me. He set it down like he was leaving it for the next passenger, or for no one at all.
The water is cold. I drink half the bottle in one go, and my stomach settles another fraction.
Dean is pointing out something on the starboard side now, his back to me, his voice carrying that same easy warmth. For everyone else.
Not for me.
I take another sip of water and press the cool bottle against my forehead. The ginger works its magic, and the horizon, mercifully, stops dancing.
My stomach settles into something approximating normal function, and I spend the next twenty minutes watching Dean Kinsella do his job.
It’s infuriating how good he is at it.
A little girl in a pink raincoat tugs at his sleeve and asks why the water is green near the shore and blue farther out.
Dean crouches down to her eye level, his knees popping audibly, and explains phytoplankton and light refraction in terms a seven-year-old can understand.
He doesn’t condescend. He doesn’t rush. He just talks to her like she’s an adult.
I wait for a lull in the questions.
“The north shore you mentioned earlier—is that all Haven land?”
All that easy warmth cools by degrees when he glances at me. “Yes.”
“Has it been in the family since the original settlement?”
“Since 1893.” His voice is flat, and he gives no other information.
I try again. “Those cannery pilings—you said the Merricks claimed the Havens were responsible for the fire. Is that typical of the historical dynamic between the two families?”
“The feud’s been going on a long time.”
That’s it. That’s the entire answer. He says it the way someone might say the sky is blue, and then he’s pointing out a cormorant diving off the starboard bow, and the conversation is over.
I flip to a new page. Try a different angle.
“The geography of the island is fascinating. The north shore has those dramatic cliffs—are they sandstone? The color suggests—”
“Mostly basalt with sandstone overlays.” He adjusts the throttle. “Formed during the last glacial maximum.”
Helpful. Technical. Completely useless for the story I’m trying to tell.
I try coming at it sideways. “The town naming controversy—Port Haven versus Port Merrick—that must have been a significant moment in the island’s history. Do you know if there are any firsthand accounts from that period?”
“Historical society might.” He doesn’t look at me.
I press my lips together and write “Why so grumpy?” in my notebook, though the words swim slightly on the page. The ginger chew is helping, but the boat’s motion still sends my stomach into occasional rebellion.
“Thanks,” I say, keeping my voice light. “I’ll check it out.”