Chapter 18
Lila Logan Cameron
Call sign: Cassiopeia
Lila and Alejandro rushed across the deck. The prescription bottle rattled in her dress pocket. Too late to put it back now. Nico, who must have been the one to hit the horn, was leaned far over the side of the ship, shouting to someone in the water.
What could have happened? Lila found her sun hat and glasses so she could better squint at the glittering sea. We’re at anchor. Where’s the danger?
Alejandro rushed to his nephew’s side and appeared to comprehend the situation instantly. “Grab your fins and snorkel, sobrino,”
he ordered.
Both of them scattered and reappeared with flippers and masks in hand.
“What should I do?” Lila called out.
“Get ready to pull people out of the water,” Alejandro told her. He finished tugging on his fins and dove clean into the water,
Nico right on his heels.
Lila was left alone on deck, white hat flapping gently in the breeze. Only then did her knees wobble beneath her.
What if Tia was hurt? Or Francis?
Or, God forbid, Rylan?
Lila caught herself on the railing and mustered the courage to look down.
The water was calm, marred only by Alejandro and Nico who kicked quickly in the direction of the island. They were heading
toward a stream of bubbles that puckered the surface. The divers were still underwater.
They’re still breathing.
She simply had no choice but to wait. Lila certainly wasn’t going to do any good down there in the water with them. She paced.
She fussed with her hair. She stayed by the swim ladder in case one of her family members resurfaced—bleeding or broken—and
she needed to drag them onboard.
Mostly, she watched the sea. The two snorkelers shrank into specks. No . . . Three snorkelers.
Lila tilted down her sunglasses, then removed them from her face altogether. Yes, there were definitely three swimmers out
there. Two were Nico and Alejandro, identifiable by their respective sets of purple and green flippers. The third was between
them as if they’d just appeared from underwater.
Lila abandoned her post at the swim ladder and rushed to the stern. Nico and Alejandro had turned back, toting the third swimmer.
Lila’s heart dropped so suddenly that she almost tripped over her peach Lululemon sandals.
The person was not swimming.
They were floating. Facedown in the water, legs akimbo, arms limp.
Lila shrieked. “Oh my God!” she screamed at no one in particular. “Help!”
This couldn’t be real. The sunlight, the sea, and the beautiful boat beneath her feet, those were real.
A body didn’t fit.
Please don’t be Tia. Please don’t be Rylan.
Was this what people meant when they said their entire lives flashed before their eyes?
Lila saw her twin babies swaddled in white and placed on her bare chest. She held her little boy’s hand while her little girl toddled wildly ahead.
She cradled her son in her arms and wondered if her daughter would ever let her hold her like that again.
Lila’s life wasn’t in danger, but if the body in the water was her child, she would already be dead.
Nico and Alejandro reached the ship. Nico flipped the body over in the water, and MJ, slack and dead, turned upward to face
the sun.
Lila released a horrible sob. “My babies, where are my babies?” She was clutching at her chest and her hair, anything to find
purchase and dig her acrylic nails into. That could have been Tia. That could have been Rylan.
“They are okay,” Alejandro shouted to be heard over her hysterics. “Nico, go get them.”
Nico and Alejandro exchanged a grim look before Nico swam out again.
“They can’t see this. They can’t,” Lila gasped for air.
But it was too late.
The twins had been out of sight, under the shadowy bow of the boat. Tia saw the body first and tore through the water.
“MJ!” Tia cried, and she fought off Nico to swim to the dead woman’s side.
Rylan bobbed in the water. He looked as though he’d sink if he weren’t wearing his inflated scuba belt.
Nico guided Rylan up the ladder as best he could, leaving Rylan’s gear in scattered pieces, floating in the sea. Lila enveloped
him the moment he was within reach, and she managed to slow his collapse to the deck.
“Get back on the boat, Tia,” Alejandro said sharply, blocking Tia’s path in the water.
Francis had caught up to her and hauled their daughter to the swim ladder. Lila stretched an arm out for her.
Lila held them both, tight and defensive, as Nico climbed on deck; as Francis and Alejandro pulled MJ’s body to the ladder;
as they passed it up to Nico and laid it to rest on the bench in the cockpit.
Rylan swiveled suddenly and vomited over the side of the boat.
Tia found her feet, but Lila stayed kneeling beside Rylan, keeping his hair out of his face as he heaved.
“What happened?” Lila asked them all. She couldn’t stop herself.
The twins didn’t say a word.
“An accident,” Francis said. “Rylan came to get help, but it was too late. He said she got sucked into a cave.”
Francis fumbled, unblinking, to remove his own tank. Nico stood as still as stone, his hands trembling at his sides. Alejandro
had his eyes screwed shut as he knelt by the corpse.
MJ’s corpse.
“My God . . .” Lila breathed. She ran her hand over Rylan’s wet hair.
“We need to . . . we need to collect ourselves. And clean up. As captain, I will handle this . . . this tragedy as best I
know how.” Francis smoothed a hand over his scratchy chin and looked around at what remained of them all.
Six, Lila thought, and she wondered if she might vomit herself. She held tighter to her children, wanting to absorb her shaking
son back into her body where he could be warm and still.
There are only six of us now.