Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Scarlett
We walk back to the B&B in silence.
The treasure hunters have overrun the town. They’re everywhere. The sidewalks, the doorways, the benches that used to belong to old men with newspapers and teenagers with skateboards. Now they belong to strangers with metal detectors and laminated maps.
I have ruined something precious, and I don’t know how to fix it.
Dean walks beside me, close enough that our shoulders brush with each step.
His jaw hasn’t unclenched since we left the square.
His hand found the small of my back after Jasper melted away, and it hasn’t left, his fingers pressing into the wool of my sweater like he’s afraid I might vanish if he lets go.
The road to the B&B curves past Saltbox Hardware, where Gus stands in the doorway with his arms crossed, watching the foot traffic with the flat gaze of a man who has seen enough to know better. He doesn’t wave. Doesn’t nod.
Half a mile out, the Haven B&B comes into view.
White clapboard, green shutters, the porch wrapped around three sides and the potted geraniums with their seasonal decorations.
As we start up the drive, we hear raised voices coming from the side yard.
Shea’s, pitched higher than I’ve ever heard it, sharp with a fury that doesn’t match the woman who folds towels into perfect squares.
Something’s wrong.
Dean’s hand leaves my back, and his stride lengthens, closing the distance between us and the house in long, ground-devouring steps. I follow. The voices get louder.
“—private property. This is my home. Get off my lawn. Now.” Shea stands in the yard, a garden trowel gripped in one hand like she’s considering more creative uses for it. Her hair has come loose from its ponytail. Dirt streaks her forearms.
Three people in matching windbreakers stand in a flower bed with shovels.
Or what used to be a flower bed.
Fresh holes gouge the soil where tulips were pushing through last week. A metal detector lies abandoned beside a trowel. A shovel leans against the porch rail, its blade caked with wet earth. Someone has dug a trench along the foundation of the house, deep enough to expose the fieldstone footing.
Shea sees us. Her eyes find mine for half a second, and the look in them is worse than anger. It’s betrayal, quick and raw, before she locks it down and turns back to the trespassers.
“You have exactly ten seconds to collect your equipment and leave before I call the police.”
The tallest of the three, a man with a sunburn and the entitlement of someone who has never been told no, steps forward. “Ma’am, we have every right to search public—”
“This isn’t public.” Dean’s voice cuts across the yard. He positions himself between the man and Shea, his body angled to block, his height leveraged to its full advantage. “This is private property. You’re trespassing, and you’ve caused criminal damage. Those are facts, not opinions.”
The man blinks and his confidence wavers now that he’s facing a tall, muscular man rather than a petite woman. “The map says—W-we didn’t know this wasn’t public property—”
“Bullshit.” Dean pulls out his phone and snaps a picture of each of them. “Get out of here now, or I call Police Chief McNamara, give him your pictures, and let him decide what happens next. Fair warning, he won’t be as friendly as I am. Your choice.”
The trespassers exchange glances. The sunburned man motions to the others to pack up.
I stand at the edge of the ruined garden and count the holes. Eight. Maybe nine. Each one a violation. Tulip bulbs lie scattered on the grass, their papery skins split, the pale shoots inside exposed to air they weren’t ready for.
Shea picks one up and cradles it like a loved one, her shoulders curving around it as if she could save it with her body heat.
This is her home. Not just a business. Not a set piece for tourists.
She built this place with her hands. She tends these gardens.
She folds those towels. She makes beds with corners so tight even the toughest drill sergeant would be pleased, and she does it because the work matters to her, because taking care of things is how Shea Haven moves through the world.
And now strangers have dug a trench through her flower bed because they think a treasure might be buried under her home.
Because of me.
The trespassers gather their equipment. They mutter. They glance at the house. One of them—a woman with the righteousness of the truly convinced—looks at the foundation one last time like she’s mentally bookmarking it for later.
Their truck kicks up gravel as it pulls onto the main road.
Silence settles over the yard.
Shea stands. She brushes her hands on her jeans and looks at the damage with the expression of someone doing mental math on repair costs and coming up short.
“I’ll fix it,” Dean says.
She shakes her head. “I’ve got it.”
“Shea—”
“I said I’ve got it.” She picks up the abandoned shovel and drives it into the soil with more force than necessary. “You should get her inside.”
She means me. She doesn’t look at me when she says it.
Dean seemed torn between comforting his niece and taking care of me, so I make the decision for him.
I turn away and go inside, climbing up to my room on autopilot.
The stairs creak under my weight. Room three’s door stands open.
The brass bed. The quilt. The window that looks out over the back garden where, until this morning, flowers and vegetables grew in neat rows.
I sit on the edge of the bed, stare at the wall, and replay every moment of the last few weeks in my mind.
I see Piper’s bookstore window, spray-painted with grammatically incorrect insults. I see the rag in her hand, scrubbing, the pink water running down her arm.
I see Shea’s flower bed, dug up by strangers who thought they had a right.
I see the drones over No Name. The treasure hunters in the dinghy. Dean and everyone on the island with a boat searching the water for them.
Jasper’s hand on the tree beside my head. His breath in my face. The certainty in his eyes when he told me I wouldn’t leave the island in one piece if I didn’t give them the journal.
Malcolm’s smile. The gentle, paternal pressure of his hand on my shoulder as he explained that the story matters more than the truth.
I need to fix this.
I stand up. Open the closet. Pull my suitcase from the shelf and set it on the bed. The zipper rasps. The interior smells like my apartment in Los Angeles, a smell I haven’t missed because I’ve been too busy falling in love with this island.
I begin to pack. Jeans folded into thirds. Sweaters rolled. The laptop goes into its case. The chargers coil into neat loops.
I’ll write a post as I make a graceful exit. A new destination. Somewhere warm, maybe. Somewhere more beautiful than drizzly Port Haven. Somewhere better equipped to handle an influx of tourists. My followers will follow. They always do. The treasure frenzy will redirect. The island will go quiet.
The Havens can repair their flower beds. Piper can wash her windows. Dean can go back to running his ferry and tours without drones overhead and strangers on his boat asking about a treasure that was never buried because it was never stolen.
It’s the right thing to do.
It’s a lie, and I know it’s a lie even as I try to convince myself otherwise.
I’m not leaving because it’s right. I’m leaving because I’m afraid of what happens when they realize how thoroughly I’ve failed them.
Piper already knows. The look she gave me in the square said everything.
Shea knows. The set of her shoulders in the ruined garden said more than words ever could.
Dean will figure it out eventually. He’s already halfway there. The man reads water the way other people read books. He’s been reading me since that first morning on the ferry, and sooner or later, he’s going to finish the story and close the cover and decide I’m not worth the shelf space.
Better to leave before he does. Better to be the one who walks away. I’ve had practice.
I pack my toiletries from the bathroom. Toothbrush. Face wash. The scar cream I still use, though the surgeon said I didn’t need to.
In my hurry to pack, my purse has tipped over on the bed, spilling Evangeline’s journal onto the mattress.
I pick it up. The leather is soft under my fingers.
I open it to the March entry, the one that changed everything, and read the line I’ve memorized: He held me down on my mother’s settee, and he violated me.
I close it. Set it on top of the clothes in the suitcase. I can’t leave it behind. I will get it authenticated, then send it back to Dean. He can do whatever he wants with it from there.
The door opens without a knock.
Dean stands in the frame. His hair is a mess like he’s been dragging his hands through it. His eyes find the suitcase, then my face, and his expression shutters. “What are you doing?”
I zip the side pocket. “Packing.”
“I can see that.” He steps into the room. Closes the door and leans against it with his arms crossed, and the casualness of the pose is such an obvious performance I almost call him on it. “Why?”
“I think that’s pretty obvious, Dean.”
“Humor me.”
I can’t look at him. Shame burns in my cheeks. “Look outside. Look at what’s happening to this town. To your family.” My voice cracks. I steady it. “I did that. I turned your home into a circus, and every time I try to fix it, I make it worse.”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just watches me with those gray-blue eyes that see too much.
“Malcolm manipulated me. He knew about the journal. He’s known the whole time.
Charles Fairchild raped Evangeline. Thomas Haven loved her.
The treasure was a bride price her father accepted for her body, and she took it back.
That’s the truth. Malcolm buried it because the truth doesn’t sell tickets.
The truth doesn’t keep the feud alive. The truth doesn’t put the Merricks on morning news segments. ”