Chapter Five Nic
Chapter Five
Nic
“Nothing!” Sara cries. The moon slips free of the clouds, showering us with light. Her hair curls wildly around her face, her eyes scared. “I was coming back… I wanted to talk to Mom, clear the air, apologize, but—”
I interrupt. “Since when do you apologize?”
She doesn’t answer. Just drops her forehead to her knees.
“Sara!” I bark. She doesn’t move.
I scramble to my feet, heart in my throat as I approach the figure. They’re face down, limbs splayed like a rag doll. The sand around them soaked red. A sickly sweet smell climbs into my nose.
Dead.
The word crashes into my mind.
No. They can’t be dead. I can save them.
I can save Sara from whatever this is.
I wrap my hands around their shoulders, pulling with all my strength, trying to get their face out of the sand. They need to breathe.
I pull and pull. Their limbs are floppy, heavy, but I finally get them on their side. An eye, open and unblinking, greets me. My stomach roils, and I let out a scream.
Someone appears on the porch of Harriet’s house. Then another and another. People run down the beach toward us.
It takes three people to finally roll the body all the way over.
It only registers then. Who it is, lying there, immobile.
George George. Harriet’s stepdad.
And he is dead. Absolutely, definitely dead.
I puke a stomach full of tea sandwiches into the cold Atlantic Ocean.
I’m shivering.
Chief Starkey is at work on George George’s lifeless form.
I think about getting up, asking him for an update, but I stay rooted to the sand.
Behind me, up on the porch, someone is screaming.
Something cool brushes against my arm, and I jump. Mom, pale beneath her olive skin. “What happened?”
My brain is mush. I push my palm against my forehead. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Mom studies my face. Then her eyes land on something over my shoulder, and her brow furrows. “Is that…” she asks.
I turn. Sara, still curled in a ball on the sand.
I haven’t said anything to anyone about what I saw.
“Sara?” Mom calls, walking to her.
Sara stands, waving her arms wildly as she talks. She’s drawing attention to herself. She needs to stop.
Mom waves me over. “I’m going to see what’s going on. You stay with your sister,” she says once I join them.
When she’s out of earshot, I grab Sara’s arm. “What did you do?”
She yanks away. “Ow, Nic—stop! I didn’t do anything! I swear to god. After I left, I wandered the sidewalks for a while. It started pouring, so I waited it out in a little alcove. While I was in there, I started thinking maybe I should come back. Apologize to Mom. And to the guy I argued with too.”
I frown.
She throws up her hands. “You don’t believe me, fine, but I’m not an idiot.
I know I need this job. So once the rain let up, I walked back.
Came in through the back gate since they gave us the code for load-in.
I was hoping I could sneak inside without anyone seeing, but then I saw something down here.
Something big. I thought it was an animal!
A beached whale. But I… It wasn’t…it was… it was…him. Is he…”
“It didn’t look good. The blood…” I swallow. “But I’m not a doctor,” I add weakly.
“Shit,” Sara whispers. “I shouldn’t have—”
She’s cut off by a commotion near Harriet’s house. EMTs spill through the gate, equipment in hand. One of them is my best friend, Martin Patel.
“Make some room!” he calls, and the crowd parts. Chief Sharkey gives them a rundown of the situation before stepping back.
“No breathing, no pulse,” the EMT at George’s head says a moment later.
Silence falls. Martin drops to his knees, a pair of shears in hand. With one swift motion, he cuts open George’s shirt and peels it back, revealing a jagged stab wound in the center of his chest.
Gasps ripple through the crowd, but Martin doesn’t blink. One EMT bags George while another carefully sticks cardiac monitor pads around the wound.
Martin starts compressions as the monitor powers on.
A minute drags by as we hold our collective breaths. Then the EMT says, “Flatline.”
“Fuck,” Martin mutters. “We need to call—”
He’s interrupted by a piercing voice. Mrs. George bursts from the crowd, eyes wild.
“What do you mean? What do you mean?” she screeches, clutching Martin’s shirt.
“Mom!” Harriet appears behind her. “Mother! Stop it!”
“There’s blood.” Mrs. George’s voice pitches so high that a dog howls somewhere in the distance. “Why is there so much blood? Why is he just lying there? Why aren’t you doing something?”
Martin flinches back from her assault. “Ma’am, please. I can’t do my job when—”
“Mrs. George, can I help?” Chief Sharkey is back, gently taking Mrs. George’s arm and steering her away.
“I don’t… He isn’t…” Harriet’s mom stammers.
“Ma’am, Mrs. George,” Sharkey says. “I’m so sorry. You have my word—we will figure out who did this to your husband.”
Next to me, Sara lets out a whimper. “It wasn’t me,” she mumbles, face stark white. “I swear to god, Nic. I didn’t do it.”
“Sara—”
“They’re going to blame me for this. I know it. I need to go.”
“No, Sara. Wait—” If she runs off now, she’ll look even more suspicious.
But she’s already heading for the gate.
Mrs. George clocks her immediately. “You!” she cries, jerking away from the cop. “You’re that chef! The one who was so rude to George! What are you doing here? You were supposed to leave and—ohmygod.” Her mouth falls open. “You did this, didn’t you? You killed my George!”
The officers start moving toward my sister. “Excuse me?” one of them calls. “Miss? We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Sara’s pace quickens, and my heart sinks. She’s going to make this so much worse for herself.
“Somebody stop her! She’s getting away!” Mrs. George screams.
The officers close in, and Sara makes a decision. A bad one, like so many of hers are.
She runs.
“We have a runner!” Sharkey calls, pointing. A cop races by me, hand on his holster, heading after her. The crowd freezes, watching as the chase unfolds.
Sara’s still fit from years of sports, and for a moment, I think she’s going to make it. She’s almost to the gate—
Then her foot snags on something in the sand and she goes flying. She lands hard a few feet away, face-first. The cops are on her immediately, one driving a knee into her back, pinning her arms behind her.
“Arrest her!” Mrs. George shouts as she rushes toward them.
The officer hauls Sara to her feet.
“I didn’t do anything!” she shrieks, twisting as the officer grips her arms. Sand flies.
With some difficulty, the officer unhooks cuffs from her belt and snaps them onto my sister’s wrists.
“What are you doing? Are you arresting her?” Mom runs up, Sharkey on her heels.
He steps in front of her. “Ma’am, you’re going to need to back up.”
My mom jabs a finger into his face. “Tell your people to back off.”
My heart sinks. If she keeps this up, she’s going to wind up in cuffs too.
I jog over. “Mom! Stop.”
She whips around, eyes blazing. “Stop? You want me to stop, Nico? Don’t you see what they’re doing to your sister?” She starts muttering under her breath in Italian, and I catch the words “stupido ragazzo.” Stupid boy. Right. I’m the stupid one here. “You can’t do this!” she says again.
“Actually, we can.” Chief Sharkey adjusts his belt. “Your daughter tried to evade police questioning, which is both illegal and suspicious. She’s coming down to the station, and I can guarantee you she’ll be spending the night. It’s in her—and your—best interest to cooperate from here on out.”
My mom’s lips press into an angry line, but she stays quiet as they lead Sara away.
Sara, on the other hand, does not.
“This is bullshit,” she screams, going limp in their arms like she’s some sort of political prisoner.
“Jesus,” Sharkey mutters. He hustles over to help his officers haul Sara off the ground.
“Sara, cooperate,” I call, though I’m sure it’s a waste of breath. She’s always dramatic, but this is over the top, even for her.
Why the hell did she come back tonight? To apologize? Or for something else?
“Chief Sharkey?” Martin calls up the beach. His voice has an edge to it that makes my blood run cold. Martin’s been a paramedic for six years. He’s pretty much unflappable.
For his voice to sound like that…something must be very wrong.
I turn slowly.
He’s pointing at the sand. A glint of silver catches my eye as he nudges it with his boot.
“You’re gonna want to see this.”
Sharkey jogs over, and I follow without thinking. When Martin sees me coming, horror flickers across his face.
Sharkey crouches next to him and lets out a low whistle.
“Good lookin’,” he says, clapping Martin on the back. “This is huge.”
I lean in, peering over their shoulders. I need to see it. No matter how bad it is.
“Nic—” Martin looks up at me, voice tight. “Don’t—”
But it’s too late. The sight hits me like a punch to the gut.
Sara’s biggest job in New York was under a James Beard–nominated chef at a French restaurant named Pêne Dormant. On the one-year anniversary, he gifted her a set of knives, which she brings everywhere. A reminder of her former life, of what could have been.
They’re very expensive. Very unique.
And the pearly white handle of one is sticking out of the sand, right next to George’s dead body.