Unknown #2
“Okay,” I whispered.
Piney leaned slightly closer. “That good okay or creepy okay?”
“Both.”
“Great news,” he muttered.
We walked for another twenty minutes. I checked camera angles, watched how paths connected, and asked enough questions that Piney eventually declared he deserved hazard pay for escorting my brain around the island.
Push answered every question without complaint. That was new, or maybe I was just noticing it differently.
He didn’t dismiss me. Didn’t tell me I was overthinking. Didn’t act annoyed when I asked him to stand in a certain spot so I could see how visible he was from one camera to another.
He just did it. Big, quiet, tattooed man standing where I asked while I tried to solve his island murder nightmare.
Very convenient, also a little hot. Not the murder nightmare part. The listening part.
“Where’s the area where the ghost boat drops people off?” I asked finally.
Push pointed toward a path closer to the water. “They walk out there.”
I immediately started toward it.
Push caught my elbow before I made it three steps.
I looked down at his hand, then up at him. “Problem?”
“We can take the boat.”
Piney groaned dramatically. “Thank God. I was about to fake a hamstring injury.”
I stared at him. “From walking?”
“From emotional exhaustion.”
“You are a biker.”
“Who doesn’t need to think about my emotions. I’m interested in bikes, beer, titties, and money.”
Push shook his head and started toward the dock. “Boat’s faster.”
“Also less walking,” Piney added.
“You’re both very rugged,” I said.
“Damn right,” Piney replied.
The dock sat quiet in the afternoon sun.
Two double-decker ghost boats were tied up side by side, both painted dark with skulls and ghostly lettering along the sides.
They looked harmless in daylight, almost cheesy, but I could imagine them at night cutting across black water with fog rolling low and actors waiting in the ghost town.
Beside them was a smaller boat. Push stepped into it first and held out a hand to me.
I looked at his hand for maybe half a second too long before taking it.
His grip was warm, strong, and steady as I stepped down into the boat. It rocked slightly beneath me, and my free hand grabbed his forearm automatically.
He didn’t move until I was settled.
Piney hopped in behind us with far less grace than a man his size should have possessed and sprawled across the back seat with both arms stretched along the top.
“Wake me when we solve crime,” he said.
I sat in the passenger seat beside Push as he untied the boat and started the engine.
He handled it easily.
Of course he did.
The man apparently knew how to operate motorcycles, boats, underground tunnel systems, and my nervous system.
The engine rumbled beneath us, and Push guided the boat away from the dock with one hand on the wheel and the other adjusting something near the controls. His posture shifted as we moved onto the water, shoulders loose but focused, eyes scanning ahead.
In charge.
That was the only way to describe it.
Push didn’t make a big show of taking control. He just took it.
I was used to being on my own. Used to handling things myself.
Used to being the one who figured out where to go, what to do, who to call, and how to keep standing when everything fell apart.
But sitting beside Push while he steered us across the water, steady and capable, I felt something uncomfortable.
Relief.
It was nice having someone else take charge for a few minutes.
Not because I couldn’t, but because I was tired. And maybe because Push didn’t make me feel weaker for letting him.
I looked away toward the water before that thought got too loud.
The lake shimmered in the afternoon sun, little flashes of light dancing across the surface. The island stretched beside us, wooded and green and deceptively pretty. From the boat, Skull Island looked like a tourist postcard.
Come for the ghosts, stay because a biker president won’t let you leave.
I snorted softly.
Push glanced at me. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“I was just thinking your tourism slogan needs work.”
Piney lifted one hand from the back seat. “Our slogan is perfect.”
“You have a slogan?”
“Probably.”
“That means no.”
Push’s mouth twitched as he slowed near the far dock.
The ghost town area came into view as we approached.
Weathered storefronts lined a dirt path beyond the dock, all designed to look abandoned and haunted.
A fake jail. A saloon. A general store with one broken shutter hanging at an angle.
Wanted posters were nailed to posts and walls.
Barrels sat tipped over near a trough, and old wagon wheels leaned against the side of a building.
During the day, it looked like a movie set.
At night, with fog and actors and boats dropping tourists into the middle of it, I bet it was creepy as hell.
Push docked the boat smoothly and helped me out.
Piney climbed onto the dock behind us and stretched. “Exhausting voyage.”
“It took six minutes,” I said.
“Still.”
I stepped off the dock and onto the packed dirt path leading into the ghost town. “This is where they get off during the tour?”
Push nodded. “Boat drops them here. They walk through the ghost town trail, get some scares, then loop back to the haunted house area.”
I looked around slowly. “I need to see this when everything’s running.”
Push’s eyes came to me but he didn’t say anything.
I kept walking, pretending I hadn’t felt his gaze. “I came twice before, but I was too busy trying to find Erin to actually pay attention to anything else.”
“Maybe when all this is over, we’ll walk through the haunted house and do the ghost boat tour.”
The words landed softer than they should have.
When all this is over.
We’ll.
Like I would still be here. Like he expected there to be a version of us after the bodies and the footage and Erin being missing.
My chest tightened strangely.
I hadn’t stayed in one place for a long time. Not really. My work kept me moving. Next case. Next town. Next person who needed answers. My whole life fit into a duffle bag and a laptop case, and for years, that had felt efficient.
Free, even. Until Erin disappeared.
Then being able to move anywhere hadn’t felt like freedom. It had felt like having nowhere to belong.
The good thing about living minimal was that I had money saved. Enough to keep me going while I searched for Erin. Enough that I didn’t have to take another case right away.
And being stuck on Skull Island had one practical perk. I wasn’t spending much.
Except emotionally.
Apparently that bill was climbing fast.
“McKayla?”
I blinked and realized Push had stopped a few feet ahead of me.
“You good?”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Just thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
“I know. It’s been a real problem for everyone.”
Piney laughed from where he was inspecting the fake jail. “The jail door locks.”
Push looked over. “Don’t.”
“I wasn’t gonna but her in there.”
“You were.”
Piney shrugged. “I was thinking about it.”
“Don’t.”
Piney sighed. “Nobody lets me have fun.”
I walked deeper into the ghost town area while Push stayed close. I checked the sight lines, the fake alley between the saloon and general store, the space behind the jail. The whole area was full of places a person could hide, especially at night when tourists were being herded through in groups.
“Cameras?” I asked.
Push pointed them out.
One near the dock.
One high on the saloon.
One by the return path.
Not enough.
Or maybe plenty if the person you were looking for didn’t already know where they were.
I turned toward a large oak tree near the edge of the ghost town. Its branches spread wide over a weathered post covered in fake wanted posters.
Something caught my eye. Something familiar enough that my heart kicked once hard against my ribs.
Push followed my gaze. “It’s just fake wanted posters. They’re all over this place.”
I barely heard him.
I squinted and took a step closer. Then another. The world narrowed around the poster.
The paper was aged to look old, edges stained brown, corners curled slightly from weather. Big black letters across the top read WANTED. Beneath it was a grainy black-and-white photo made to look like some outlaw from the Old West.
Except it wasn’t an outlaw.
It wasn’t a random stock photo.
My heart started pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
Push was right beside me instantly. “What?”
Piney called from behind us, “What the hell are you doing?”
I couldn’t answer. My throat had closed, and I reached out with a shaking hand to touch the edge of the poster, like maybe if I felt the paper, my brain would tell me I was wrong.
I wasn’t wrong.
I knew that face.
I knew those eyes.
Even distorted by the poster effect, even made black and white and fake-old, I knew my sister.
“Erin,” I whispered.
Push went completely still beside me.
The air around us changed.
I turned slowly and looked at him. My voice barely worked, but the words came out anyway. “Why the hell is my sister’s picture on that wanted poster?”