CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 24
THEY SETTLED NEAR THE BASE OF THE STAIRS TO EAT THEIR KIWI oatmeal pea protein cookies and regale each other with all of the moments they should have known Tyler was up to no good.
“Why didn’t we catch on when he kept going off on his own?” Ness said, marveling at the total lack of flavor the cookie offered.
Bradley cleared his throat, trying to force the crumbs down. “Probably because it was so nice when he went.”
“All this time I thought he was just an aggravating guy, but he was purposely provoking us? Ugh! As if there wasn’t enough going on. I hate him.” She took a final, angry bite, finishing her portion, and immediately wished for another.
“The thing he said about you making people turn on you?”
Ness’s cheeks grew warm at the memory. “Yeah?”
“Garbage. You came back to this thing ready to own the past and build new bridges, and it was working.” Bradley’s big hand awkwardly patted her shoulder.
She tried to thank him, but dry crumbs stuck in her already parched throat.
In a fit of desperation, Ness tried scooping a handful of water from the pool, only to spit the salty liquid out onto her feet. She then went back to fetch the hamster water bottle from the other room.Whatever was in it, at least it was water, and they were out of options. Watching Bradley’s Adam’s apple bob up and down while he tried and failed to swallow the flavorless dust lodged in his throat, Ness took the tiniest sip she could and passed the bottle over. Bradley chugged a quarter of the contents and handed it back to her. She looked at him, aghast.
“Did you not tell me this stuff is drugged? Why are you slamming it like a frat boy at dollar shot night?”
He shrugged and slumped back against the wall. “If I’m going to be trapped down here, I’d rather not be conscious.”
Before Ness could launch into the litany of reasons why that was both asinine and selfish, his eyes got bleary. A few minutes later he was passed out.
Ness, feeling a bit woozy herself, turned off the flashlight and sat in silence. She listened for clues as to what was happening above them, occasionally elbowing Bradley sharply in the ribs, but he stayed deeply asleep.
* * *
After some time spent watching Bradley snooze and questioning every single one of her life choices, Ness found something new to worry about. Cool water started to lap at her calves where they pressed against the cold, hard ground. She fumbled for the flashlight, which had rolled from her grip while she was lamenting her fate. In the darkness, she fought back the heavy panic wrapping itself around her chest. Why is there water on the floor?
Beside her, Bradley grunted, shifted closer into the corner, his back against one wall, head lolling against the other, and let out a gentle snore.
With soggy shorts and an even less pleasant outlook, Ness’s clammy hand bashed against the wall and floor until finally closing around the flashlight. She drew in a shaky breath and clicked it on.
She groaned quietly, not quite believing her eyes.
The water in their dungeon or cavern or whatever was rising. It had sloshed out of the pool and spread across the room, filling natural depressions in the rock, and it was creeping toward the outer walls. Ness moved closer to the edge of the pool, eyeing the gray water that seemed to glow despite the lack of electricity to power the submerged lights.
Her foot plunged into a puddle that came to mid-shin, sending her staggering backward. The flashlight tumbled to the floor and rolled into the puddle, casting a flickering, watery beam onto Ness like an underpowered-yet-emotive spotlight.
She snatched the light and shook it back and forth to get rid of as much water as possible. Bradley continued to snore as she perched on the stairs and clicked the light off to avoid any short-circuiting. The pool was the brightest point in the room, and Ness considered how long the tunnel to the outside might be and whether there were any larger, more toothy creatures than the fish she’d seen lurking in the depths. It would be just her luck to have a shark wash up into their prison.
She listed sideways, feeling the cool wall press against her temple, and closed her eyes, exhausted by her own fear. Hopelessness rose up to meet her almost faster than the water.
She’d started this whole adventure to prove to herself that she was a better, stronger person now. She’d wanted to make amends. To hop back onto the shooting star of fate before it fizzled entirely. She sat up straight, jaw clenched, as Bradley muttered something incoherent about a macro imbalance.
Ness clicked on the light and pointed it at his ruggedly handsome face. The water was rising, now nearly covering his legs. She couldn’t believe he was still asleep. What had Tyler put in that bottle?
She’d be damned if she was going to drown in a sex dungeon with Bradley, of all people. She had things to do, money to make, tenuous reconnections to nurture, and drop-dead-gorgeous movie stars to get reacquainted with in the biblical sense. Things that were much more important than being buried in a watery grave before she’d even really got started.
“Bradley.”
Nothing. She tromped back down the stairs and into the water, splashing over to him.
“Bradley!” She flicked water at his face and was rewarded with nothing more than a teensy flinch.
Ness knelt, wedging the flashlight into her armpit, and cupped her hands to scoop water from the ground. She dumped it over his head, and quickly repeated the motion. It felt . . . cathartic.
“Huh? What the—”
“Brad! For the love of Botox and burpees, will you wake up!”
He groaned, wincing, and forced his eyelids open, holding up a hand to block the light from his face.
“What?” He shifted uneasily, feeling the water around him. “How much water did you pour on me? I feel like I’m in a hangover bath.” He grimaced. “Did you call me Brad?”
In response, she rotated, pointing the flashlight at the overflowing pool. The gentle burbles of ingress had increased to a constant stream.
“Oh. Fuck.” Reflexively, he drew his knees up, eyes widening as the dregs of sleep washed away.
Ness felt an unsettlingly warm spark of satisfaction as his eyes grew big with surprise and he hopped onto the panic bus with her.
“Yeah. You think you could finish up with your snooze now?”
“This isn’t good.”
“Understatement.”
He stared at her, face pale, eyelids at half-mast.
“What are we going to do?”
Ness’s grip on the flashlight tightened. She gritted her teeth.
“How should I know? Why is it up to me? What do you think we should do?” She crossed her arms over her goosebump-covered stomach and waited.
Bradley pulled his shirt over his head and held it out, gaze averted.
“Here.”
Ness chewed on her lower lip, feeling like a jerk. She reached out her free hand to accept the offering. She passed Bradley the light while she pulled the shirt over her head. It smelled like sweat and laundry that had been left in the washing machine too long, but even damp it was a drastic improvement over her bra-only situation.
“There. Modesty preserved and hypothermia staved off. Can we escape now?”
Bradley held the flashlight at belly-button height, directing the beam upward so shadows fell between every chiseled ab and pronounced pec.
“With your decent problem-solving abilities and these muscles? Nothing can stop us.”
* * *
It turned out something could, in fact, stop them.
“Bradley I-forget-your-middle-name Isaksson. We’re swimming out of here.” Ness’s hands rested on her knees and water lapped at her shins as she bent over to peer into the pool. The fish were long gone and no shark snout was visible in the terrifying dim light that passed through the water from the other side. The outside.
He groaned and laced his fingers behind his head. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, chest rising and falling three times before he spoke.
“I can’t.”
“Ha! Yes! But actually you can do it. Upsy-daisy!”
Bradley crouched against the wall, feet and ankles submerged. An intimidatingly sized glittery pink phallus bobbed by his knees like a penis-shaped toy boat.
“Please shut up.”
“I know you don’t want to do it. I’m not exactly thrilled either. But look, it’s literally the only option.”
“No, I literally cannot.”
“That’s not the can-do attitude we need right now.”
Bradley looked at her. “My attitude has nothing to do with it.”
“Whatever. Fine. Revel in your negativity if that’s what lights a fire for you. But please, Bradley, I’d really rather not find out what else Tyler has planned.”
“You don’t understand.” Bradley’s voice, though quiet, carried easily to her ears, bouncing off the walls of the cave. “I can’t swim.”
Ness started to say that was ridiculous. Of course he could swim. He was Bradley Isaksson, domestic star of many police procedurals and medical dramas of middling success. Bradley Isaksson, whose confidence cup overfloweth.
Then she saw how his shoulders drooped. His fists were clenched in his lap.
“Oh.”
She tried to conceal her disappointment but was probably failing miserably. Luckily, the lighting was so poor and Bradley’s self-loathing so resolute that he wasn’t really paying much attention to her facial expressions.
“Okay, no worries. We’ll figure something else out.” Her eyes darted from point to point in the dark room as her mind struggled to come up with a Plan B.
All she could hear was the rushing of blood in her ears and the whooshing of water around them as it continued sluicing in through the pool.The problem-solving portion of her brain had given up, it seemed.
“Alright.” She clapped her hands together cheerily with the can-do energy they were sorely lacking and crouched in front of Bradley. “I’m going to swim out, then circle back through the house and set you free. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Should hardly take any time at all if I’m right about where this thing is going to spit me out.” She tried to keep her face neutral. She had zero idea where the tunnel led. It was entirely possible she was about to swim directly into death’s briny arms.
Bradley slowly raised his head and reached out, wrapping his hands around hers.
“This is completely unhinged behavior.”
She forced a smile while her heart threatened to beat its way out of her chest.
“Probably. But I’ve always wanted to go scuba diving. I bet this is really similar.”
His grip tightened, gently squeezing her fingers before releasing them.
“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to do this alone.”
“Bradley? Most of my life has been spent avoiding risks and trying to keep myself insulated from anything that might hurt me. Being the world’s okay-est landlord is cool and all, but I want a chance to do more. To make up for some of the time I’ve lost playing it safe. And you don’t even have to worry. I played a competitive swimmer in that Law Order episode, remember?”
“Didn’t she get murdered before the opening credits?”
“You do pay attention to my career!”
She pushed herself to standing and stretched her arms from side to side over her head, then jumped up and down a few times to get some warmth into her limbs. Bradley sputtered as her calisthenics launched water into his face.
She tried to visualize success but saw only hungry snakes and carrion-eating birds. Do better, she ordered herself, and she summoned an image of pepperoni pizza and a pitcher of beer. A smiling Hayes. Libby issuing a dramatic apology worthy of a Daytime Emmy. These were things worth living for. She could do this.
“Also,” Ness continued, rolling her shoulders backward and forward, “you’re going to have to name that baby after me once I save your life. I like Agnes for a girl and Angus if it’s a boy. Or Nestor.” She bobbed her head back and forth in thought, avoiding the moment she’d have to take the (literal) plunge. “We can discuss in more detail later, okay?”
Bradley shoved to his feet, sloshed over to her, and wrapped her in a stinky, moist hug.
“You’re the most capable of any of us. Always have been.” He spoke into her hair. “Don’t die, okay? Because my quads might be twice the size of Hayes’s, but he’ll kill me if anything happens to you.”
Not that she wanted anyone committing murders on her behalf, but the idea that Bradley thought Hayes cared so much about her was nice. More than nice.
Ness patted his back and he released her. She passed him the flashlight and edged to the precipice, her toes hanging over the edge of the pool. The water rushed past her knees as it pushed inward, the force of it enough to make her sway back. She really hoped the current would be gentler once she was below the surface. And that the tunnel was short. And that there wasn’t a grate or something blocking the other end. And that . . .
Bradley cleared his throat behind her.
“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered. “I’m going.”
And she jumped.
At first, the water shoved Ness back, pressing her to the wall and inciting a level of panic she hadn’t known existed. She forced her eyes open and ignored the sting of the salt. For a moment she was convinced she was upside down. Or sideways. Possibly inside out.
She focused on the dim circle of light in the distance, wedged her feet against the wall behind her and pushed. Her body was propelled forward, slicing through the water with shocking efficiency—right up until her shoulder slammed into the side of the tunnel.
Clamping her hand over her mouth as a forceful reminder not to scream or gasp, she clenched her teeth, wedged her fingernails into a tiny gap between the bricks that formed the tunnel, and heaved herself onward.
The flow of water into the cave tugged at her, but she dragged herself along, using the walls for leverage, scrabbling with bare toes and ragged fingers. Her shoulder throbbed. Her lungs burned. And she sent wild prayers into the ether, begging for the chance to take another breath. To feel the sun on her face. To eat something other than protein in bar or cookie form. To be wrapped in Hayes’s arms again.
The light grew brighter.
Is this it?Ness wondered, vision beginning to darken around the edges. The light at the end of the tunnel? How ironic.
Her feet shoved off in one final, weak kick to freedom. Her mouth opened involuntarily, body desperate to breathe despite the obvious lack of available oxygen.
Ness choked as salty water invaded her mouth, trickling down her throat.
Reaching out blindly, her fingers gripped a rocky ledge and she pulled, feeling another layer of skin scraped from her hand.
This is the absolute dumbest way to die, she thought, letting her eyes stay closed. She drifted gently as her body heaved, fighting for its right to access air. And then, softly, her face broke the surface, where it was immediately pummeled by a torrent of rain.
Coughing and sputtering and flailing, Ness shoved at the mask of wet hair that plastered her face, threatening to suffocate her all over again.
“Ohmigod,” she wheezed as rain pelted her head and shoulders. She tried to fling a strand of seaweed from her wrist and watched as the howling wind caught it and shoved it back toward her. The water was the color of steel, pocked by a million raindrops and ruffled into frothy waves by the air swirling around its surface.
Ness rolled onto her back and floated, trying to steady her breathing. Her entire body hurt. She shifted her arm experimentally, sending shooting pains from her shoulder down to her elbow. She hissed a breath out through her teeth.
Above, the sky was a mass of sinister gray clouds. A few mosquitoes, brave or stupid enough to be out in this weather, buzzed around Ness’s head. Groaning, she got herself upright and treaded water, rotating in place, trying to get her bearings.
She was in the murky lagoon—the one that, up close, appeared to be an ideal home for saltwater crocodiles and deadly water snakes—and about fifty feet from shore.The house loomed above and to her left, the uppermost level visible over the trees. Mangroves surrounded the water and made space for the inlet that fed the lagoon from the east side of the island.
Paddling closer to land, Ness squinted through the rain, searching for a sign of a path. The water had risen considerably, creeping farther back into the surrounding greenery and obfuscating any sign of a readily available point of egress. Her feet hit slimy but largely firm ground as she got closer to land—or where she hoped land would eventually reveal itself—and she nearly collapsed with relief. Her toes caught on various water weeds, and at one point something terrifyingly solid bounced off her thigh, but she pressed on, feeling like a human sponge or a particularly well-stewed raisin.
She glanced left, confirming that she hadn’t gotten off course and the house was still where she expected it to be. It was. Excellent. She would cut through this small piece of jungle, scoot up the hill, and shazam! Bradley would be free and forever in her debt, and she would never, ever let him forget it.
Reaching out to grab a convenient mangrove root, Ness pulled herself free from the water and stepped up onto a grouping of rocks. The rain continued to douse her, but it felt so nice not to be even partially submerged that she took a second to bask and catch her breath. Swiping water from the end of her nose, she looked at the nonexistent path through the trees and wished she had her shoes.
She was about to hop down and continue on her merry heroine way when her left foot slipped down the moss-covered side of the rock and she went sprawling, off balance. She was still half crouched, muttering creative curse words, when lightning hit the house.
Goodson Home Inspectors
Report #4538—Ginger Cay
Summary:
A detailed inspection of the single-family residence and associated outbuildings located on Ginger Cay has revealed a number of concerning structural weaknesses. It is the professional opinion of Goodson Home Inspectors that the main “castle” structure should be sold “as is” or, ideally, demolished ahead of the sale of the island.
The photos below illustrate the areas of greatest risk, including the roof, main staircase, and basement. While the condition of these sections is the most concerning, and these pose the largest safety risks, damage from prolonged exposure to moisture, poorly chosen building materials, and questionable customizations are also visible throughout the entire structure.