Chapter 15 #3
“Gus doesn’t forget anything.” He sits back. “So you’re asking me to let you onto private property based on a diary a hardware store owner has been sitting on since before you were born, for reasons he declined to give you.”
“When you put it that way.”
A smile touches his mouth. Not warm. Not friendly. But he didn’t see that move coming, and he isn’t going to pretend otherwise.
“Malcolm will send someone else,” I say. “If not me, then a crew. Or a historian. Or a treasure hunter with a metal detector and no respect for boundaries. The comment section on my posts is planning trips. They’re asking where to dig. Someone already flew a drone over your north pasture.”
“I know about the drone.”
“Then you know this is going to get worse.” I lean forward. “I can redirect the story. I can tell Malcolm the north shore is a dead end. I can point the narrative somewhere that doesn’t put your family’s land at risk. But I need to see that fissure first. I need to know if there’s anything there.”
Bodhi looks at the journal. At the coordinates on the hotel stationery. At me.
“Dean won’t like it.”
“Dean doesn’t have to like it. He has to drive the boat.”
“That’s not how it works with Dean.” Bodhi picks up his phone. Scrolls. Sets it down. “He doesn’t do things he doesn’t believe in. Never has. If he thinks this is a mistake, he’ll find a reason not to be available. Bad weather. Engine trouble. Doug ate the ignition key.”
“Then find another boat.”
“There is no other boat. Dean runs the tours. Dean runs the ferry. Dean is the only captain on this island who knows the water well enough to get to No Name without putting you at risk, and he knows it, and he’ll use it.
” Bodhi sighs. The sound carries the weight of a man who has been managing difficult people for longer than he should have had to. “I’ll talk to him.”
Relief washes through me, followed immediately by dread. Dean. I’ll have to face him. On a boat. In close quarters. With the memory of every word we’ve thrown at each other sitting between us like a third passenger.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Don’t thank me. This isn’t a favor.” Bodhi stands.
“You’re the least worst option. Malcolm’s crew would tear that island apart looking for camera angles.
A treasure hunter would dig holes and leave trash.
You, at least, will take notes and go home.
” He picks up the journal, flips through a few pages, sets it down.
“And if you find something that proves my great-great-grandfather didn’t murder a woman for her dowry, I wouldn’t hate knowing that. ”
He’s dismissing me, but I don’t move.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about the dock permits. Malcolm’s using them as leverage. It’s not fair.”
His expression closes down. The mask again, the one he wears when the weight shows. “Fair doesn’t enter into it. Nothing about this island has been fair for a hundred and thirty years.” He picks up his phone. “Colter will walk you out.”
Colter is waiting by the porch, Babuska leaning against his leg the way she leaned against mine.
Dot has vanished, back to whatever quiet corner of the barn she calls home.
The day has warmed. The fields stretch green to the water, and the harbor beyond is blue and still, and somewhere out there is a boat with a man on it who told me I don’t belong here and then walked away.
“Told you he’d say yes,” Colter says.
“You didn’t tell me he’d say yes. You told me he was in a mood.”
“Bodhi’s always in a mood. It’s his default setting.
Has been since he was eighteen and Mom died and somebody had to be the adult.
” Colter scratches Babuska behind the ears.
“He’ll talk to Dean. Might take a day. Dean doesn’t answer texts when he’s sulking.
You might have to go down there yourself. ”
“I’m not going down there.”
“Sure you’re not.” Colter grins. “That’s why you drove all the way out here to ask Bodhi instead of just calling him. Because you’re definitely avoiding the marina and definitely not thinking about my uncle every five minutes.”
Heat climbs my neck. “You’re worse than Piper.”
“Piper wishes she was this good. She overthinks everything. I just say it.” He claps me on the shoulder.
The touch is warm, easy, nothing like Dean’s---no electricity, no charge, just human contact offered without agenda.
“Come back for dinner. Wren’s making something involving blueberries that she won’t tell us about.
It’ll either be amazing or we’ll all need stomach pumps. Either way, it’s a story.”
I drive away with Evangeline’s journal in the passenger seat and Colter’s wave in the rearview and the certain knowledge that I have just become Bodhi Haven’s least worst option.
Not trusted. Not wanted. Just safer than the alternative.
The road back to town is empty. No tourists. No metal detectors. Just gravel and trees and the water to my right, blue and indifferent, and somewhere out there, a boat, and a man on it who can’t protect everyone but tried to protect himself from me, and failed.