20. Chapter 20
Kara
Bluefin Marina looks exactly the same, but today nothing is the same. Flags snap in the wind. Boats sit bright and polished under the sun. Gulls cry overhead like the world has not split open and spilled every ugly truth at my feet.
People move along the docks with coolers and beach bags. A little boy runs ahead of his father, laughing. Somewhere, music plays from a boat speaker, low and cheerful. Everything looks normal. Nothing is.
Cole parks two rows back from the south slips, angled so the SUV faces the water. His hand goes to the gear shift, but he doesn’t turn off the engine.
“Stay in the vehicle unless Sloane says otherwise,” he says.
“I know.”
“If I tell you down—”
“I get down.”
“If I tell you to move—”
“I move.”
“If I tell you to run—”
“I run.”
His jaw tightens. “Good.”
I look through the windshield at the docks. My hands are cold. Strange, since the afternoon sun is glaring through the glass and heat is gathering inside the SUV. But my fingers feel dipped in ice.
“Cole?”
His eyes stay on the marina. “Yeah?”
“If I freeze, don’t be gentle.”
That gets his attention. He looks at me then, and the expression on his face is not pity or fear. It’s something harder and softer at the same time.
“I’ll get you moving,” he says.
I nod. Because I believe him. He’s the only thing in the world that feels solid right now.
Sloane appears near the hood of our SUV, sunglasses on, one hand on his ear. Cole lowers the window.
“South slips,” he says. “Rafi has her phone stationary near Dock C. Eli has two deputies covering the marina exit. Harbor patrol is blocking water exit without making it obvious.”
“Visual?” Cole asks.
“Not yet.”
That changes one second later. A voice comes through Sloane’s earpiece, tinny and urgent. His head turns toward the docks.
Then I see her. Vanessa.
For a moment, my mind refuses to understand the shape of her in this place.
She is not supposed to belong here, standing near the end of Dock C in a pale sundress and a ball cap, oversized sunglasses hiding half her face.
Her red-brown hair is tucked back in a messy knot. A tote bag hangs from one shoulder.
She looks like any woman heading out for an afternoon boat ride. She looks like my best friend. My lungs forget how to work.
“There,” I whisper.
Cole sees her too. Everything about him changes. He becomes more still, more focused and dangerous. His body has narrowed down to one purpose, and I realize with a sharp, painful clarity that Vanessa was right about one thing.
Cole is dangerous. Just not to me.
Sloane moves first, crossing the lot at an angle that looks casual until Eli appears at the far end of the dock and one of the harbor patrol officers steps out near the fuel station.
Her body goes rigid. Then her gaze snaps to the windshield … to me. Even through her sunglasses, I feel the impact.
My phone is not in my hands. My real phone is still sealed in evidence. Cole’s phone is in his pocket. Sloane’s people are everywhere. There is no open line between Vanessa and me anymore.
So she lifts her hand and waves. It’s a small, familiar motion, like she is waiting outside a restaurant, and I’m late for lunch.
I reach for the door handle.
Cole turns instantly. “No.”
“She sees me.”
“That doesn’t mean you go to her.”
“She’s going to run.”
“She’s surrounded.”
Vanessa steps backward onto the dock. Then another step. Her hand drops into the tote bag.
Cole’s face hardens. “Down.”
I duck before I even think. Sloane’s voice cuts across the lot, calm and carrying.
“Vanessa Moreau. Keep your hands where we can see them.”
I hear Vanessa laugh. It is not the laugh I know. It is too high. Too thin. A pretty thing stretched until it tears.
“You brought an audience,” she calls.
Kara, I tell myself. Stay down and breathe. Move when Cole says move. Live through this.
Sloane shouts again in a deep, authoritative tone. “Take your hand out of the bag.”
“Kara,” she calls. “Honey. Get out of the car.”
I grip the edge of the seat.
Sloane says, “Vanessa, look at me.”
“No.” Vanessa’s voice cracks. “No, I am done looking at everyone except her. Everyone always gets between us. Professors. Producers. Publicists. Therapists. Now him.”
“He gets two days, and you’re hooked on him, Kara?” she says, louder now. “I had years.”
Vanessa notices. Her hand tightens inside the tote.
Cole’s voice is low, meant for me. “Stay down.”
“No,” I whisper.
“Kara.”
“If she only talks to me, let me talk.”
“No.”
“If she runs, this gets worse.”
“She has a weapon.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know.”
The certainty in his voice turns my stomach.
“Kara, you must stay down.”
Something in his voice empties the world of everything except obedience and breath. I fold forward as far as the seat belt allows, my cheek near my knees, the dashboard above me, my pulse hammering so hard I can hear it.
Cole starts the engine but cracks his window a bit. Outside, Sloane’s voice cuts across the lot.
“Vanessa Moreau. Take your hand out of the bag slowly.”
Vanessa laughs. It is not the laugh I know. It is too high. Too thin. A pretty thing stretched until it tears.
“You don’t get to drive away with her,” she calls.
Cole’s hand lands on the back of my neck, firm and warm, keeping me low. “Stay down.”
“I am.”
“No matter what you hear.”
My stomach turns cold.
“Cole …”
“No matter what.”
Sloane shouts, “Vanessa, stop.”
A second later, the world cracks open. The gunshot is louder than I expect. Not like television.
It rips through the air and turns the inside of the SUV into a small, hot box of terror. I scream before I can stop myself. Glass bursts somewhere behind us. Cole’s body moves over mine for one brutal second, his shoulder forcing me lower as the SUV lurches forward.
“Down!” he roars.
Then another shot, but it’s different.
Cole accelerates hard enough that my body jerks against the seat belt. Tires spit gravel. The SUV swings left, and I hear voices exploding behind us, Sloane shouting, Eli shouting, someone screaming.
“Cole?” I gasp. “Cole, are you hit?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
His voice is clipped and focused. He sounds terrifyingly calm.
We tear across the parking lot, my head still down, his hand still pressing me low even as he drives. The SUV’s speakers crackle, and Sloane’s voice cuts through them, hard and controlled.
“Suspect down. Leg wound. Weapon secured. Keep moving.”
My brain catches each phrase and refuses to assemble them into sense.
“Vanessa?” I whisper.
Cole does not slow.
“Alive,” he says.
The word hits me strangely. It’s a mixture of relief, horror and grief. All of it at once. My whole body starts shaking violently now. It’s uncontrollable. Cole keeps one hand on the wheel and the other at the back of my neck, his palm anchoring me to this world while the old one burns behind us.
“She shot at us,” I say.
“I know.”
“She could have killed you.”
“She didn’t.”
That is such a Cole answer that a broken sound comes out of me. It might be a laugh. It might be a sob. It is probably both.
Sloane’s voice comes through again.
“Eli has her in custody. Ambulance en route. Knife recovered from her bag too.”
The knife. The gun. Both.
My best friend came carrying every version of harm. I close my eyes.
For most of my adult life, Vanessa saying my name would have been enough to pull me back. The voice I trusted.
But behind us, sirens rise near Bluefin Marina, and Cole keeps driving, putting distance between me and the woman who loved me like a cage and called it shelter.
This time, I let her voice be only a sound. Not a summons.