CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 16
NESS SAT ON A BIG, SUN-WARMED ROCK, PARTIALLY SHADED BY A cluster of palm trees. Her fishing line dangled in the water. She bobbed the pole up and down every few seconds, reeled the line in, and recast.
She’d gone fishing with her dad a couple of times when she was a kid. For a while, he’d been seeing a woman who had a cabin on a sparkling lake surrounded by trees. There’d been a little strip of sandy beach, and Ness had spent hours there, playing with the kids from the house next door.
Some mornings, when the sun was barely peeking over the trees and the lake was shrouded in mist, her dad would wake her up, hand her a thermos of hot chocolate, and take her out in a little tin boat that putt-putted slowly across the water. They’d find a spot that seemed promising, drop the anchor, and spend the next hour quietly arguing about who was going to get the worms out of their little Styrofoam container, and giggling when the other person got their line hooked on an overhanging tree branch, or excitedly reeled in a tangle of weeds.
Ness never knew how to feel about those types of memories. They were sweet, and part of her wanted to enjoy them like a cat basking in a patch of sunlight. But she also wondered how far back the con went . . . if those moments were him planting seeds of love and trust that meant everything to her and little to him.
She wondered if he’d seen the news. If he knew she was missing.
If he cared.
“Any luck?”
Ness jumped, nearly dropping the fishing rod into the ocean.
“Sorry.” Hayes climbed up and sat beside her, his tanned legs hanging over the edge of the rock far enough that his toes grazed the surface of the water.
“No, it’s fine. My mind was . . . elsewhere.” She bobbed the line some more. “And no, no luck. I might need to relocate. See if the fish are hanging out around the corner. Or maybe they just hate jerky.”
“Who could hate jerky?”
“Right? Seemed foolproof. Though I’m going to be pretty disappointed if I’ve sunk my dinner into the sea for no reason.”
“I’ll share mine with you. There’s a tiny portion of a granola bar up there calling my name.”
She smiled at him. “How did we get so lucky?”
There was a moment, as the water lapped at the rock and the leaves rustled softly above them, when it was easy to imagine they were on a well-earned vacation. That they’d taken a different path all those years ago and ended up here, together, on purpose.
A gray cloud rolled in front of the sun, giving Ness’s eyes some relief from the constant glare of light reflecting off the water. She reeled in her line and stood.
“Not that a microscopic bite of granola isn’t everything I was hoping for in a well-rounded and nutritious meal, but . . . want to help me find a better fishing spot?”
* * *
They walked along the beach and around the tip of the island, trying to find something that screamed “Fish here!” Eventually they settled on the concrete dock that jutted out past the rest of the beach—the same one they’d nearly crashed into on arrival—hoping there was a reef or something in the deeper water that would draw the edible creatures in.
The wind had picked up and clouds were starting to gather. Ness hoped it wouldn’t rain. She really didn’t feel like being trapped in the house with the others. A flock of birds took off from the trees, soaring above them and away from the island. Show-offs.
Ness carefully threaded another chunk of jerky onto the hook and then wrapped long strands of grass around the metal, knotting them as tightly as she could, hoping the green tendrils would be attention-grabbers for those little fishy eyes. She plopped the whole mess into the top three inches of water and stared at it critically. The grass waved like alien tentacles around a salty, meaty center.
“Well. Let’s hope these fish are stupid and very hungry.”
Standing there with her bare feet burning on the sunbaked concrete, Ness prayed to the fishing gods, then the gods of rescue services, and finally to the gods of patience, forgiveness, and generally not being an ass to those around her.
Hayes was pacing slowly behind her on the beach, hands linked behind his back, looking for any washed-up bits of fish they could use for bait.
“Libby thinks I’m the camera culprit,” she blurted, instantly regretting it. The last thing she wanted to do was sow the seed of doubt in Hayes’s mind as well. Unless that’s why he’s here right now. Maybe he’s keeping an eye on you.
“Huh,” Hayes said. His shoes were in his backpack and his eyes were on the sand. He’d already stepped on one pointy shell and was clearly not interested in repeating the experience.
“That’s it? ‘Huh’?”
He looked at her. “Well, did you do it?”
“No!”
“Then don’t worry about it.”
Ness reeled in her line and cast again. “But I am worried about it. I’m a very skilled worrier. Being concerned about any and all things is one of my key attributes.” A small raindrop landed on her cheek.
“How’s that going for you this week?”
“Super great. There’s so much to fret about. I’m building new worry muscles I didn’t know I had. I’m going to try out for the stress Olympics when we get home.” She walked her line along the edge of the dock from the end until she was standing in the middle of the long side, where she could see Hayes without craning her neck.
One side of his mouth quirked up in a half smile.
“There’s some positive thinking, but I think I might have you beat.” He turned his head, looking out at the endless waves. His broad shoulders slumped ever so slightly.
“You holding up okay?” she asked.
“Yup!” he answered quickly, and with a very suspect level of cheer.
“Because it’s been a wild twenty-four hours. It would be very normal for you to have concerns.”
He nibbled at his thumbnail, seemingly lost in thought, and Ness decided not to push, at least not yet.
The clouds broke open just as something tugged tentatively on her hook. She froze, water dripping down her face, and gave the fishing rod a gentle pull toward her. There it was again.
“I have a nibble,” she breathed, terrified that any noise, any movement, might scare off whatever was dumb enough to want what she had to offer.
Hayes jogged to her side and stared into the water as though he was thinking about jumping in and grabbing the fish—Ness really hoped it was a fish and not someone’s shoe or an inedible creature of the deep. This actually raised a good question.
“How will we know if we can eat it?” she whispered.
“If it’s not an old tire or spewing poison from its eyes, we’ll eat it.”
“Fair.”
Feeling more movement on her line, she took a deep breath, gave the rod a jerk, and started reeling. Her clothes were already soaked through. She blinked water out of her eyes and quickly wiped her face with one hand.
Hayes was beside her, body tensed and ready to pounce.
She’d caught something. It was still there, pulling against the hook, dragging through the water. Ness’s stomach danced with anticipation.
Don’t get too excited, she cautioned herself, even as her mouth started to water at the thought of freshly cooked fish. Almost there.
The water was pitted by raindrops and she squinted, leaning forward, trying to get a glimpse of her catch.
And then, there it was, dangling at the end of her line. A fish.
Hayes charged forward, flinging salty spray at her face as he grabbed the poor thing by the tail, took a running leap to a nearby rock, and thwacked it, hard, against the surface. The fish lay still.
“Whoa,” Ness breathed, staring at her catch. Its scales shimmered in the gray light, silvery pink with a yellow stripe running along its side to fan out into a bright yellow tail. It was a bit longer than her forearm.
A grin spread across her face, mirroring the one Hayes was sporting.
“You did it!” he cried, wrapping his arms around her waist and twirling her through the air.
“I did it!” Ness’s hands grasped his shoulders and she turned her face up to the rain, laughing. The spinning slowed, and Hayes lowered her slowly to the ground, their bodies still pressed together.
He looked down at her, wiping a strand of wet hair from her cheek. His thumb brushed across her lower lip, and his hand moved down to rest at the base of her neck, stroking her jawline as he went.
Ness’s eyes were locked on his, one of her hands on his chest, the other resting on his hip. She hooked a finger through a belt loop and tugged him to her, then reached around the back of his neck and pulled him down until her lips could reach his. She sighed against his mouth. He growled and pulled her closer. Ness forgot about her fish.
Part of her had hoped it would be lackluster. Maybe she’d built him up into such a mythical lost love in her mind that the reality couldn’t possibly compare.
Turned out, the reality was like being blasted to the moon.
Hayes kissed like he lived his life, gently, but with passion and dedication to the subject at hand. Speaking of hands . . . one of his had crept up her back to wrap in her hair while the other danced over the space between her shirt and jeans, scorching the bare skin of her lower back.
Ness’s arms were draped around his neck as she pressed her entire body against his. His stubble scraped her cheek as he changed angles and dove back in. Her knees threatened to give out.
Finally, Ness convinced herself to separate her lips from Hayes’s. Blood was rushing in her ears. She saw stars. They stood for a moment, her forehead resting on his, both with their eyes closed as they came back to earth.
Thunder rumbled and they broke apart, panting. Lightning shot across the sky, sending jagged streaks of light into the gray sea.
Out of the corner of her eye, Ness caught the movement of silver against the rocks. She turned her head just in time to see her fish, her beautiful, path-to-forgiveness-and-acceptance fish, being snapped up in the beak of one of the white-and-gray birds from the snake shack. The fish’s tail flopped as the bird launched itself into the air and flapped away, heading inland. Ness watched it disappear from sight.
She looked from the rock, to the inner island, to Hayes, whose lips were parted in surprise as he processed what had happened.
“Well,” Ness said, feeling the relief and hope of moments ago replaced by a heavy weight on her chest, “I guess we should head back.” She hesitated for a moment before stepping out of Hayes’s arms, giving him the chance to pull her back to him.
The rain fell harder and thunder boomed.
She looked back to where Hayes was still standing, glasses pushed up onto the top of his head, brow crinkled as though he was deep in thought.
“You good?” she called out, a myriad of questions within those two words. Was that a mistake? Did you feel the same things I did? Why do you look like you’re trying to do advanced physics in your head? What do we do now?
He gave his head a little shake, sending water droplets tumbling from his hair down his face and neck. “Yeah.” He smiled, but Ness wasn’t convinced. Something in her stomach fluttered nervously. “Yeah, I’m good.”
He picked up the fishing rod and started walking toward the house.
* * *
If they’d been on edge earlier, by their third day as castaways the residents of Ginger Cay were balancing on a precipice. Blindfolded.With a strong wind at their backs.
Where previously they’d naturally gathered, finding comfort in the presence of others—even if those others were often incredibly obnoxious—that afternoon Ness noticed everyone spreading out, wedging themselves into the farthest reaches of the house to find some privacy.
The last of the food had disappeared while Ness was out, and she bade a sad farewell to the idea of that granola bar.
Tyler, in a spurt of industriousness, had put as many open-topped containers as he could find outside to collect rainwater, and then he hung his wet shirt and shorts to dry in the kitchen. They dangled, reminiscent of an unstuffed scarecrow, from cabinet handles while Tyler, wrapped cocoon-like in a blanket on one of the barstools, scribbled notes in the margins of magazine pages, mumbling to himself.
“We’ll have so much to do once they find us. Somebody has to be addressing the potential for a gargantuan time overrun on the back end of filming because of this snafu, but heaven knows it will need adjustment.” He looked at Ness. “How many recovery days do you think you’ll need before resuming work? Two?” Not waiting for an answer, he bent his head to the page, close enough that his nose nearly touched the paper, and continued his frenzied scrawling, forehead scrunched in squinty concentration.
At some point, Ian had awoken from his forced slumber and relocated to the velvet couch. He was sitting cross-legged, playing solitaire and, Ness thought, looking at least marginally better, though the cards still shook in his hand and the circles under his eyes rivaled her own, which was really saying something.
Hayes had positioned himself on the floor, back against the daybed, and was reading a script he’d pulled from his backpack, steadfastly pretending Ness didn’t exist. Meanwhile, Ness pretended she wasn’t watching him, waiting for some secret signal that things were, in fact, good.
He studied the pages with increasing intensity before taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. The bound stack of paper fell to the floor with a thwap, and he bent to pick it up, slid his glasses back on, and flipped through, finding his page again.
The rain started to slow. Ness stood at the window feeling restless. Rivulets of water ran down the glass, distorting the view of the trees and ocean into something abstract and eerie.
She told herself she wasn’t watching for the boat.
Maybe it was only the heavy atmosphere of the rain, but the tension in the house felt palpable. It was just past five o’clock. The sun would set in a couple of hours, and they, Ness was sure, would still be here. Once the rain stopped, she vowed, she’d head to the beach and start a fire—a big one—even if they had to sacrifice some of the precious generator gas to get it started.
A sliver of pinkish-orange sun appeared, pushing its way through the cloud cover. Ness felt a tiny lightening of the pressure in her chest and was suddenly aware just how on edge she’d been, trapped in the house with so many flesh-and-blood ghosts of her past. She’d known it would be hard, coming back into the fray, but, their setting aside, she hadn’t anticipated how difficult it would be to reengage on so many separate fronts.
There was, of course, the overarching theme of Ness Needs to Apologize, but beneath that ran currents of emotion that were hard to track and address in a way that felt both effective and true. Perhaps she’d played it all out so many times in her mind that the reality of it felt . . . off.
They’d left the kitchen door to the balcony open, the entry protected by an overhang that kept the water out but allowed the marginally cooler breeze to flow through. Ness walked outside, enjoying the feeling of the wet cement beneath her bare feet. The rain stopped, leaving a hazy mist resting atop the trees below. The clouds were already parting and making way for the sunset.
She closed her eyes and breathed in the wet air. It smelled of salt and loam and that special something found only in tropical air that she’d always associated with the vague promise of relaxation and easily found moments of joy. Her eyelids fluttered open and she looked across Ginger Cay, wondering if she’d ever feel the same about island vacations.
Thoroughly dejected, Ness retreated to the relative comfort of a plastic lounger, wiped it dry with a spare bedsheet, and watched the sun sink into the waves. One by one the others emerged from their various hidey-holes, until they were all standing at the railing like sentinels, holding phones up to the sky just in case service had suddenly begun to exist. It had not.
However, their positioning meant they were in a great spot to witness Daisy striding across the lawn just before full dark hit with a trio of large, very dead iguanas slung over her shoulder.
The balcony observers turned, speechless, as she climbed the steps and dropped her bounty at their feet. She put down what appeared to be the handle of a pool skimmer threaded with looped wire and stretched her arms over her head, rolling her head from side to side.
Ness could practically see the cartoon hearts forming in everybody’s eyes. Well, not Tyler’s.
“What’s she got?” he demanded, squinting as he leaned in. “I can’t see!” He sidled closer and knelt down, then scurried backward when he realized he wasn’t nose to nose with a bag of chips or an innocent-looking fish.
“I need to rinse off before dinner,” Daisy announced, as if this were all totally normal. As if they should all have been fully aware of her lizard hunting prowess and not dumbly agog.
She nudged one of the iguanas gently with the toe of her shoe. The reptile was the length of Ness’s thigh and had very pointy teeth.
“Someone else needs to clean them up,” Daisy said apologetically. “I’m excellent with a snare, but I can’t bear to butcher the poor things.”
Ian found his voice first. “Who are you?” he croaked.
“A child of Florida, of course,” she drawled, winking at him, before sashaying away into the deepening purple dusk. Ness pretended she didn’t hear Coco’s lusty sigh.
Once they’d collected themselves, they stood in a ragged circle around the iguanas, looking from the deceased lizards to each other. It seemed the prospect of food could, at least temporarily, override the dark creep of suspicion that had been simmering below the surface of every conversation since they’d found the cameras.
Coco slid away quickly, saying, “I’ll go see if I can find some salt and pepper.”
“I’ll start getting some wood together for a fire,” Hayes said. He popped inside, grabbed the hand-crank lantern, and set off for the beach path.
Tyler scurried to catch up. “I’ll come along!”
Libby, her expression a study in indifference, went back inside without saying a word.
Ian’s eyes jittered between Ness and Bradley. He swayed lightly on his feet as he tried to pick a direction to run in . . . or maybe it was a residual effect of whatever Libby had slipped him.
“Phew! It got dark so fast!” He started edging away, skin tinged green as he avoided looking directly at their dinner. “I’ll go start the generator for you, Ness.”
Ness glared at him. “Oh, I really don’t mind—”
“No no! I can take a turn. It’s no trouble!” He bounded away, breathing heavily and not bothering with a light source. Ness and Bradley winced in unison as they heard him crash into something heavy and, judging by the sound of it crashing to the ground, metallic.
A faint “I’m okay!” drifted back to them.
“This seems like just the job for you,” Ness tried, wishing she could turn back time and give Bradley all the protein bars in the world. “Survival skills! Yay!”
His mouth quirked into an evil smile, made more ominous by his four-day growth of dark, patchy facial hair. She realized she’d never seen him with a beard, and now understood why. He had the coverage of a nineteen-year-old.
He shook his head. “Tsk-tsk, Ness. You of all people should know the value of learning a new life skill. What kind of teacher would I be if I did this for you? Giving you a fish instead of shoving you into the river . . . Isn’t that how the saying goes?”
He started down to the beach path, the last light of the day creating a silhouette of his broad shoulders and tiny hips against the dark-orange sky. Wispy clouds drifted across the sliver of remaining sun. His hair glistened, and, aside from the rabid squirrel pelt sprouting from his cheeks, Ness could see why he was such a hit with the ladies. It still took the dregs of her willpower not to push him down the stairs.
* * *
When Ness got down to the beach, flashlight in hand and dinner still whole, she was met with a pile of wood that was distinctly lacking in flames.
Choosing a place beside a large rock with a relatively flat top, she set down her flashlight and the cooler she’d chosen for iguana transport. She delicately flipped back the towel she’d draped over it so she could better ignore what she was carrying and wrinkled her nose at the contents. After casting a hopeful look around the beach and finding everyone studiously avoiding eye contact, she resigned herself to her fate and, trying not to gag, extracted the first lizard and the single semi-sharp knife she’d found in the kitchen.
A much sharper, wicked-looking knife appeared next to it.
“Here,” said Daisy. “Use mine.”
Ness eyed the black-handled weapon uneasily but had to admit it would be much more effective than what she’d brought with her.
“Thanks. And thanks for the, uh, bounty.” She nodded at the lizard on the rock, grimacing only slightly. “I didn’t know you were into hunting.”
“It’s more like fishing.” Daisy shrugged. “We grew up snaring iguanas near our house. They put up a real ruckus about getting caught, more than any fish I’ve seen, but they make for a decent meal.” She picked up a handful of sand and let it run through her fingers.
“I’m out of practice. Took me longer than it should have to get these ones. But I feel terrible about the boat. This feels like at least I’m doing something useful.”
Up the hill, Ness heard the rumble of the generator, and the house lights suddenly blazed to life. She looked back to Daisy.
“No one blames you, you know. It’ll all work out. You’ve managed to get stuck with seven people with extremely diverse skill sets.” She looked at the knife in her hand and scrunched her nose in consternation. “Not a lot of useful skills, it seems, but hey, we’ll figure it out. How did you get this on the plane?”
“It’s terrifying what a smile and a selfie will do these days.” Daisy smiled miserably. Still beautifully, but miserably nonetheless.
From the direction of the wood pile, Ness heard Tyler’s reedy warble of a voice, indistinct, followed by Bradley’s decidedly terse grumbling.
“What’s up with the fire?” Ness asked as she worked herself up to dissecting the first iguana. With only the single, underwhelming beam of the flashlight to work by, she felt like a tropical Victor Frankenstein.
“Ah.” Daisy lowered herself to sit cross-legged in the sand and waved a hand in front of her face, batting ineffectually at the cloud of mosquitoes that was gathering around them. “Well, none of us had any matches or a lighter, so Tyler asked Bradley to show us the fire-saw method used by the Indigenous Australian population. I guess he mentioned it earlier? Anyway, it doesn’t seem to be going very well.”
Bradley’s head popped up from behind the wood pile, lit by the hand-crank lantern. He’d tied his hair back into a messy bun and held a small stick between his teeth. He spat the stick into his hand, brandishing it like a tiny weapon.
“It’s going fine.The wood here is very wet, which is, as I’m sure you can imagine, quite different from the fire-starting materials found in the Outback.”
Ness thought of the remaining matches tucked safely in her back pocket, but she held her tongue. She appreciated the distraction from her truly disgusting work. Her stomach grumbled audibly, reminding her that there were worse things than butchering dinner. Like not having dinner at all.
“I’ve heard the fire-saw works better with two people,” Tyler suggested, moving into the circle of light and bending down beside Bradley.
Ness braced herself and cut a line down the iguana’s belly, holding her breath. She kept listening to the men as she plunged her fingers into the now accessible body cavity and started removing various unidentifiable organs.
Bradley stood and glared down at Tyler. “If you’re the expert, why don’t you do it, then?”
Tyler held up his hands. “I’m just trying to help.”
“It would be helpful if you could all work to be a bit more self-sufficient.” Bradley dropped the sticks in his hands to the ground and stood, brushing sand from his knees. “If you think you can do a better job, then you go right ahead.” He rolled an arm in invitation and glared at everyone in turn.
Coco cleared her throat. “We don’t know how, Bradley. You, apparently, do, so can you please stop whinging and light the damn fire so we can eat?” She looked over to the gruesome scene in front of Ness and shuddered. “It looks delicious,” she said with a grimace. “Can’t wait.”
Bradley walked to the far side of the wood pile and stared out to sea. The water frothed as it washed up onto the sand, lapping over his feet. In the far, far distance, Ness thought she could see tiny dots of light, revealing the location of large ships. Man, what she could have done to an all-you-can-eat buffet right now.
“It seems, perhaps, my skills aren’t as transferable as I had hoped,” Bradley said, barely audible over the gentle lapping of the waves.
Ness skewered the first iguana with a stick, kindly pre-sharpened by Daisy with alarmingly casual knife skills, and moved on to the second lizard, hoping she wouldn’t accidentally remove her own digits. Butchering in the dark—butchering at all, really—was not a skill she’d spent time honing, aside from a weekend getaway with friends a few years before where they’d attended a cooking class and tipsily prepared a grouse. She swiped the knife decisively, removing the iguana’s tail, and pondered whether she hated plucking feathers more or less than this.
“In two months with MacKenzie, he didn’t maybe teach you more than one way to start a fire?” Daisy asked hopefully.
Ness was about to offer up her last couple of matches, or suggest someone go get Ian’s lighter, when Bradley turned back to them.
“No. He didn’t. It turned out . . .” He let out a frustrated growl, pulled the elastic from his hair, shook like a wet dog, and bundled it all back up, hunching his shoulders. “Listen, I didn’t spend months with the guy. He’s cool, and, um, we made a deal. A mutually beneficial arrangement. So I can’t help with this, okay?”
“What did you do for those two months, Bradley?” Libby asked in a flat voice that promised danger was almost certainly lurking up ahead.
Bradley shifted nervously and let his eyes travel everywhere but toward Libby. “I took the time for personal reflection and growth, which, if you think about it, was in the spirit of the original exercise. The studio didn’t need to know. Wolf still got paid, and I got some time to decompress.” He looked beseechingly at Libby. “You know how hard I’ve been working for the last few years. I needed something for me, just for a while.”
“So you hid out for two months?” Tyler interjected. “By yourself? Man, that sounds great. Where did you stay?”
“In Cairns. I, er, wasn’t entirely alone, of course.” Bradley’s face screwed up as if he was in pain.
If looks could kill, they’d have all been dead under Libby’s nuclear stare. Ness added the second iguana to the sharpened stick. She was getting the hang of this.
Ian walked onto the beach, a flaming torch in hand. It appeared to be made of an ax handle wrapped in a towel. He seemed vastly improved, largely because, as Daisy had quickly reported to Ness, he’d raided Libby’s personal pharmacy while Daisy was in the bathroom, and he was now riding a wave of Xanax-induced mellowness.
Daisy was not impressed and had spent a solid five minutes letting Ness know all the reasons why this was unacceptable. When Ness suggested she give the feedback to Ian, though, Daisy had looked affronted. “He’s suffering! We need to support him.”
Now, skin glowing in the light of his precarious torch, Ian looked a bit wan, but well removed from acute suffering.
“Why are y’all sitting here in the dark? I figured you’d have those things cooked up by now.” He leaned down, touching the torch to the dry grass and small sticks Hayes had positioned as kindling. He blew gently on the tiny flames, watching them grow.
Backing up to survey his work, Ian looked around the group, finally noticing the tension.
“What’d I miss?”
“Bradley may have overstated the depth of his survival training,” Tyler said with unabashed cheer when no one jumped at the chance to answer. He coughed and rearranged his expression into something more somber.
“Oh, yeah, I figured.”
All heads swiveled as one to look at Ian.
“What?” He spread his arms. “I saw him in Cairns when there was all that press about him disappearing into the desert with what’s his face. You were with, uhhh”—he snapped his fingers a couple of times—“Kimberley! That’s her name.”
Ian looked at Hayes. “You know Kimberley.”
Hayes’s eyebrows rose. “I do?”
“Yeah, of course. She’s a location manager for Paradox Studios. Yea tall.” Ian put his hand level with his chest. “Brunette, green eyes, yells at people a lot but also hugs them after? Wears that bright-pink lipstick?” He looked at Hayes expectantly but got nothing, and so he went back to addressing Bradley.
“No? Okay. Well, anyway, I tried to catch up with you guys, but you dodged me somehow, and then I had to get back on set. You didn’t answer my texts, either, which was rude, but I figured you were deep in something new . . .” He trailed off, finally catching sight of Libby’s face, which had gone from angry to carefully blank.
“I’m going to bed,” she said, standing quickly. She stumbled a little as her ankle turned in the sand, but caught herself. She grabbed the lantern and made for the path.
There was an awkward silence as Bradley watched her go, a pained look on his face.
“Libby!” he called, springing forward. “Wait!”
Ness brought her stick of lizard parts over to the fire and handed it to Hayes, who reluctantly accepted the offering.
“Your turn,” she said, and headed to the water to rinse the gore from her hands, wondering about the probability of a shark relieving her of her blood-covered arms as she submerged them in the shallow water.
Ian watched Bradley and Libby go. “More for us, I guess,” he said, and took the salt from Coco.
* * *
After a surprisingly not-disgusting meal of lightly charred iguana, Hayes said he would stay by the fire a while longer. Admittedly, even with the mosquitoes and sand fleas, the infinitely fresher air on the beach made it preferable to the musty, sneeze-inducing house. Maybe Ness wouldn’t mind having to sleep down there as much as she’d thought.
She went up to grab blankets and fill the water jugs while the generator ran. They were perilously close to the end of the gas supply, and she’d been filling every hole-free vessel she could find with fresh water, boiling it—which took eons in the single usable pot they’d scavenged—and setting it aside. Once the generator died, so would their access to the contents of the water tank, which would be, well . . . it would be a real problem if they were still on the island. She tried to brush the concern aside. They’d be gone before it was an issue. They had to be, right?
Ness had a habit of assuming the worst in most situations, which was probably why she wasn’t surprised by the fact that their rescue was still pending. But she was, what? Disappointed? Frustrated? Increasingly perplexed by the creeping scope of concerning island goings-on? None of those felt big enough. She felt as if she was keeping her panic locked away behind a flimsy door that could give way at any moment, sending her into hysterics from which she might never emerge.
Ness hefted a container of water onto the kitchen counter and tried to decide if she should fill the bathtub as well. Worst case, they could boil it over the fire. And worst, worst case, they’d drink it straight up, bacteria and all.
The lights dimmed for a second before coming back to full strength, a sign the generator was hitting the end of its fuel. Yup, fill the bathtub.
She stifled a yawn and went down the hall to the purple bathroom. In the back corner opposite the shower sat a black-bodied, gold-footed clawfoot tub. It was filled with dust and debris from the crumbling ceiling. Ness scooped out the bigger pieces, then splashed in some seawater from the bucket beside the toilet and swiped it around before running a bit of water to rinse any remaining mess.
Upon closer inspection, the golden feet were actually cloven hooves.
“This place is so weird,” she muttered.
The dirt hadn’t shifted with the addition of water. She went to the wardrobe and opened the bottom drawers, hoping to find a cloth they’d overlooked earlier. No dice. She opened the door to the larger compartment that led to the viewing room, thinking she might have seen a towel bunched in a corner. She shuddered at the thought of touching something so certainly contaminated with a bounty of biohazards, but these were desperate times.
Through the open space at the back of the wardrobe, Ness saw that Libby and Bradley were in the next bedroom. Libby sat on the bed, her face buried in her hands. Bradley knelt on the floor at her feet. His hands rested on her delicate ankles.
Ness couldn’t hear them and hoped that meant they also couldn’t hear her. She spotted the pile of fabric she was looking for and made a hasty grab for it, anxious to leave them in privacy.
As she pulled the fabric—a Fall Out Boy concert T-shirt from 2006, as it turned out—it caught on the chipboard panel that had once concealed the opening, now leaning precariously in the empty wardrobe space. Before Ness could catch it, the whole thing fell through the opening, knocking into the camera tripod someone had put back in there (sans camera), and sending the mess of wood and metal crashing into the back of the mirror. Not hard enough to break it, but certainly with enough force to announce her presence.
Libby’s head snapped up, her cheeks mottled red and tearstained. Bradley was on his feet and out of the room before Ness could fully extricate herself from the wardrobe.
By the time she had both feet on the tiled floor, he was looming over her, fists clenched at his sides. His mouth opened and closed, but he couldn’t seem to form words through his rage.
“It’s not what you think,” Ness said quickly, edging as far away from him as she could in the tight confines of the room. She lifted the dirty T-shirt. “I was just looking for something to clean the tub with. The board in there fell and I tried to catch it, but it knocked over the tripod and then that hit the mirror . . .” Not helping.
She started again. “The generator is almost out of gas. I wanted to fill the tub with water for when the pump stops working and we can’t get more.” Again, she held up the shirt as evidence. “I didn’t mean to intrude, and I didn’t hear anything.”
Libby came to the door. “Why am I not surprised?”
“I was explaining that I was here for water—”
“Right. Of course. And you just happened to choose the bathroom with the peephole? Like you just happened to find the cameras?” Libby leaned in and crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t care what kind of fucked-up childhood you had, Ness, or that you’re struggling now. I don’t care why you’re here or what you think you can accomplish. I just want you out of my life forever.”
She turned on her heel and walked quickly away, leaving Ness with Bradley.
“I just wanted water,” Ness repeated quietly.
“And I just wanted to be happy,” Bradley said, dropping his chin to his chest in resignation.
Ness drew in a shaky breath and sat on the edge of the tub.
He studied her for a moment before stepping out of the room.
“Be careful, Ness. Everyone’s got a lot at stake here. Make sure what you’re doing is worth it.”
He walked away before she could argue her innocence. Not that she thought it would have done much good.
To:Agnes Larkin
From: Bethany Overholden
Subject: Deficiencies, Delinquincies, and Notice
Dear Ms. Larkin,
I understand this is a trying time for you; however, it is important that you understand how recent events are impacting the lives of your tenants. Some more than others.
Since your unfortunate misplacement, the phone calls and highly inappropriate, unscheduled visits from media have been nearly constant. When renting a property from you, I did know you had links to the entertainment industry, but at no point was I warned that this distant historical connection would affect my day-to-day life. You can imagine how challenging this is for me, especially during what should be restful evenings after days spent forming the young minds of the next generation.
At this time, my only reasonable course of action is to provide you with the requisite one month’s notice that I will be vacating my unit. I expect a formal acknowledgement at your earliest convenience.
I would also add it that it is unprofessional and negligent that I have not been provided with an alternate contact who can deal with these issues in your stead.
Regards,
Bethany Overholden