Chapter 76
iris
The marina looks deserted when I arrive. I get out of the car to open the gate and notice a fresh set of tyre marks carving through the mud, leading down to the water.
I park out of sight behind Mac’s old office. It’s getting dark, and the sky is heavy with the threat of rain. In this half-gloom, it’s hard to see what lurks in the shadows.
Checking the blue dot on my iPad tracker, I skirt around the Portakabin. The dot jumps suddenly from the edge of the marina to the middle of the lake; it must have been frozen in place as I drove in and out of signal range.
For a moment, I’m confused.
And then I realise:
Jesse’s Chris-Craft is missing from its cradle.
Nicky knows how to lower a boat onto a trailer, how to reverse it into the water and launch it. He knows how to drive the Chris-Craft. His father owned this marina; he’s grown up around boats. It’d be child’s play for him, especially if Rose was helping.
I run as fast as I dare in the semi-darkness through the tangle of rusting boat trailers and rotting hulls towards the lake. There are recent tread marks from the wheels of a trailer in the damp gravelly sand by the water, and deep grooves, as if something – someone – has been dragged.
There’s a sudden clank behind me, the sound of metal on metal, and I swing around, my heart pounding.
‘Hello?’
Silence.
I take a couple of steps back towards the concrete boat repair pit where the noise seemed to come from, but I can’t see anything in the darkness. Seconds later, a skinny black cat darts across my path, and I chide myself for startling at shadows and turn back to the lake.
I gaze out across the water, trying to locate the Chris-Craft. The sky and the mountains and the lake all blend together in a hazy swirl of navy and indigo. It’s impossible to see more than a few hundred metres from the shore, but I know they’re out there.
The blue dot is moving further towards the middle of the lake.
Even if I had my phone, I wouldn’t call the emergency services. I have to get to Nicky and Rose myself before anyone discovers what they’ve done.
Before it’s too late to undo.
I cast about for something, anything, that’ll get me out onto the lake. A dinghy, even a goddamn rowboat.
And then I remember Jesse’s WaveRunners.
He bought the jet skis two years ago, ostensibly for Finn and Rose, though Mac and Jesse were the ones who really used them. The night before the accident, he suddenly announced he wanted to sell them; it was only later I worked out he was worried about the toxic shit Colt was dumping in the lake.
He never got rid of them. They’ve been rotting beneath a tarp here at the marina for the last fifteen months. I have no idea if either of them will start, but I’m out of options.
The plastic sheet is pooled with water and covered with leaves, and the knots holding it in place are impossibly tight. I try fruitlessly to undo them, but eventually one of the ropes rips out of the tarp, allowing me to yank it off.
Only then does it occur to me that I don’t have the keys to the jet skis, but it doesn’t matter: my careless husband has left them both in the ignition.
At first, neither will start. And then, just as I’m beginning to despair, the second jet ski coughs asthmatically to life.
I drag the trailer to the water’s edge, and push the WaveRunner into it.
Dusk has fallen now, and the gloom envelops me as I speed out onto the lake, praying I have enough gas to get back.
My hands are numb within five minutes as the icy water spray soaks me from head to foot.
It’s impossible to see far; I daren’t go too fast, in case I hit something.
I weave back and forth across the area I think I last saw the tracker on my iPad, but the truth is I have no idea if I’m in the right place. It’s like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.
The WaveRunner starts to sputter. I’m a long way from shore, with no phone and no way of attracting attention. I have a sudden flashback to that night on the lake, and I have to marshal all my self-control to stop the panic from overwhelming me.
And then suddenly I see something.
I coax the jet ski forward.
Jesse’s Chris-Craft is on its side, half the hull already beneath the waves. Splintered wood surrounds it.
I spot someone in the water just as the WaveRunner dies.
Kicking off my shoes, I plunge into the cold lake, and start swimming towards the wreckage. It’s further away than it looks, and I’m chilled to the marrow and already tiring by the time I reach the boat.
It’s my sister in the water. Amy is floating on her back just feet from the wreckage, and I can’t tell if she’s conscious or even alive.
And suddenly it doesn’t matter what happened that night on the Lady a thousand years ago. My beloved son is dead, and nothing will bring him back. I can’t bear to lose my sister, too.
In this moment, I know one simple truth.
However much I hate her, I love her more.
I call her name as I swim towards her, but she doesn’t respond.
I’m within a few strokes of her when the Chris-Craft abruptly lurches in the water, its stern rising high above us. The deadly blades of its twin Mercury outboard engines glint in the moonlight.
And then the boat pitches down again, the propeller shaft heading straight towards my sister.
I fling myself on top of her, pushing her down beneath me, beneath the water, as far from the lethal path of the engines’ propellers as I can.