Chasing Forever Down (Drenaline Surf Series) (16 page)

“
He left Dexter,” he says. The dog hurries over to Reed as he rounds the corner, leaving the mangled pink Frisbee at Vin’s feet.

“
He never leaves Dexter,” Reed says. He drops down and pets the dog, running his hands through the wet fur.

Dexter jumps up, wagging his tail and spinning around like he hasn
’t had human contact in ages. My thoughts smash together in a montage of moments – the party, the beach, the Frisbee, the jet skis – and all that time that I just assumed Dexter belonged to Alston.

“
He’s not here,” Vin confirms again. “And A.J. said there’s no sign of him on the beach. No one is out in this mess.”

“
Someone is,” I say. “The helicopters aren’t joy riding.” 

I want to kick myself for speaking up. I want to stay right here on
Colby’s back patio watching the rain flood his swimming pool while the wind and sand pierce my skin. I’ll never learn the secrets of the trade if I never see him again. I could wait right here with Dexter and fight the storm off with that hot pink Frisbee.

The air pops in the distance. Small black dots move across the sky and dip down toward the ocean. Helicopters.

“He’s going to be okay,” I say, nodding with as much confidence as I can. I’m probably not very convincing, though.

Vin runs his hand through his wet hair.
“He better be,” he says.

“
He’s not dead.” My voice sinks to a whisper.

Vin shakes his head.
“I could really give a damn less if he’s dead or alive. It’s not him I’m worried about.” His phone rings in his pocket before he elaborates.

“
Damn it,” he says. “What do you want?” he asks into the phone. He stands silently for about five seconds before he speaks again. “Topher, I don’t have time for this. I can’t talk right now.”

He ends the call before Topher can pull a West Coast Hooligan attitude with him
. Maybe Topher needed a mechanic or something since today isn’t the day for surfing. Mechanic work obviously falls second to keeping Colby’s secrets.

Vin
whistles for Dexter to follow. I want to ask Vin who or what he’s worried about. We’re chasing Colby all over Crescent Cove, yet Vin doesn’t give a damn if he’s alive or dead? He’s more complicated than the typical con artist should be.

The dog jumps into the backseat next to Vin, bringing
more sand and rain onto Reed’s seats. Gritty sand invades my flip flops, and I reclaim the passenger seat. I don’t think I could talk Reed and Vin into letting me stay here even if I begged and pleaded. Reed’s tires spin in the wet sand, and we retrace our tracks down the beach toward the old beach house. I glance back to look for a vehicle or person, but the beach house is quiet and lifeless.

Sirens blare and grow louder as they move toward us. Reed speeds through the broken barricade, but
an army of blue lights blocks our path. He parks along the roadside, and Vin jumps out of the Jeep.

“
Hey Pittman,” he shouts out. “Who are you looking for?”

A younger deputy meets Vin halfway between the
Jeep and police cars. Vin talks with his hands from a distance, but we can’t hear anything being said.

“That’s the cop who always locks A.J. up,” Reed tells me. “He doesn’t like Vin much either, but he can’t arrest Vin for being a hard ass. A.J., well, he brings it on himself.”

“Where do you think Colby is?” I have to ask before Vin gets back. I don’t think he plans on engaging in a lengthy conversation with the cop.

“Surfing,” Reed says. He’s certain of it. “He probably went down past the cove where the big cliffs are. The waves are insane coming off those rocks, especially in this weather. Or he went down to the lower area of Horn Island, but I doubt that since Topher didn’t mention him to Vin.”

Vin walks back to the
Jeep with good news. “They were looking for some kids who were fishing this morning. Boat turned up on the shore, but they bolted to a friend’s house to get out of the rain. Just got the call when I was talking to him. Search party is off,” he says.

But we still haven
’t found the surfer. And the water still isn’t safe. Worst of all, he’s out there catching waves in this mess.

The Strip is empty when we arrive to meet up with A.J., Alston, and Linzi. Vin skims the vacant beach and crashing waves, still hoping to see the surf star emerge from the waves and wash up on the shore. Alston’s car sits alone outside of the closed Drenaline Surf. Must be nice to have a vehicle with a top. A.J. pops out of the backseat and runs toward us in the mist from the rain. He’s probably been in misery, even if he was dry.

“Have you talked to him?” A.J. calls out.

Vin shakes his head.
“I’m calling him again now,” he says. He pulls his cell phone up to his ear. We wait. And the cursing begins.

“Where the hell have you been?” Vin shouts.

I so wish I could hear both sides of this phone call!

Vin jumps over the side of the Jeep and paces the sand-covered sidewalk. “Are you fucking crazy?...Yeah, it’s a huge deal... Don’t you ever do something that stupid again...Fuck you.”

H
e ends the call and looks directly toward me. “You better get out while you can, got it?” Then he flings his phone into Reed’s Jeep.

“
I’ll get it later, Strick,” he calls out. He starts down the sidewalk and the drizzling rain picks up. No one goes after him, but I think the rain will do him some good.

CHAPTER
13

Topher stretches out on his orange beach towel and pops a sugar cube into his mouth. Seven hours ago, this very sand
swirled through the air and created a tornado of salt water and beach particles. You’d never know by the looks of the sandcastles, surfers, and the scorching sun. I glance behind me for A.J. He left a few minutes ago to get bottled water and left me with the Hooligan. Apparently Topher has to surf in the cove due to the jellyfish clean up in Horn Island.

“
Taylor’s crazy, you know,” Topher says in between chews. “Going out in that storm to surf. He’s going to die for real doing that.”

He knows more than he lets on. Why else would he have called Vin this morning?
I’m beginning to doubt that he needed a mechanic. Still, I don’t press for any juicy tidbits. He’s not telling me anything I don’t already know. He tugs at the loose strands of his swimming trunks and readjusts his sunglasses before popping up as quickly as he would on a surfboard in the water. Miles waves at us from a distance, dragging two surfboards and leaving his mark through the sand. He looks less than thrilled to be here.

“
Will you be the keeper of my cubes?” Topher asks. He looks back down at me and shakes his bag of sugar cubes.

A.J. snatches the bag from over my head.
“Go on, surf star wannabe,” he says to Topher.

That
’s all it takes for Topher to jet off toward the water to meet Miles. A.J. drops down to the sand, stretches out on Topher’s towel, and hands me a thick roll of blue tickets, like the ones you get at high school basketball games.

“
Vin wants you to sell these,” he says. He twists the lid off of his water bottle.

I spin the tickets around and wonder how in the hell
I’ll be able to sell one thousand tickets before this weekend’s surf competition. The guys were talking about it last night, how Drenaline Surf is a sponsor. I’m pretty sure Vin is hoping I’ll be back in North Carolina before then. He’s probably protective of his dead best friend’s old store, even if I still don’t understand the hostility he has toward Colby. But there’s one thing I’m more curious about.

“
Vin? He actually wants my help?” I question. I can’t imagine him trusting me with anything Colby-related.

“
Damn it,” A.J. says. “Strick, not Vin. I just saw Vin. Sorry. But no, Strick – he wants you to sell them. A dollar a ticket for a chance to win a custom Drenaline Surf surfboard. We try to help Shark’s dad out as much as we can. Oh, and he said to tell you just to sell tickets to guys, no girls. Strick and Alston can take care of that.”

I shake my head and keep spinning the roll from its center with my index fingers.
“There’s no way,” I say.

“
He said you would have them sold in no time because you’re hot and guys will buy from you…but not to tell you he said that,” A.J. blurts out.

“
Reed said that?” I can’t imagine him actually thinking A.J. wouldn’t tell me.

“
Uh…yeah. Strick said it. Don’t tell him I told you.”

A.J.
’s stammers aren’t the truth, but I know he’s not going to tell me much more. The tickets fall in between our towels as I lie back and pull my shades over my eyes. When I talked to my mom mid-afternoon, she told me that a water pipe in the kitchen burst so they’d be in a hotel for a few days. She also said that Linzi and I needed to enjoy ourselves, so “take a few days away from this college search and sightsee, live a little.” Oh Mom. If you only knew.

But thanks to that ruptured pipe, I
’ll have plenty of time to sell raffle tickets and extend my trip long enough to see Colby Taylor compete on the waves just once, if nothing else. Maybe seeing him chasing his forever down and living his dream will be enough to motivate me.

“
I can help you, if you want,” A.J. offers, pulling me away from my thoughts.

“
What?” I ask. I prop up on my elbows to look at A.J.

“
With the tickets,” he says. “I can help you if you need me to.”

“
Right,” I say. I scan the water for Topher and Miles.

A.J. sits up next to me, but I don
’t face him. I see him watching me from the corner of my eye. He doesn’t know thanks to these cheap five-dollar sunglasses.

“
Alright Haley, what’s up?” he asks. He leans over, staring into me to the point that I can’t ignore him. The truth is there’s so much on my mind that I can’t even sort it out.

“
Can we walk?” I ask, nodding toward The Strip behind us.

A.J. is to his feet almost instantly, sliding his flip flops back on. I drop the blue tickets into my beach bag while A.J. throws both mine and Topher
’s towels over his shoulder. He pops a sugar cube into his mouth from Topher’s bag then chokes and spits it out.

“
I don’t know how in the hell he eats this shit. It’s like eating sand,” A.J. says when we reach the pavement.

I snatch the sugar cubes from him and secure them in my beach bag before A.J. finds a trash can to
toss them into. We stroll along past the fresh fruit stand, and I dread walking past the sunglasses rack that A.J. demolished the other day. He walks around me to avoid eye contact with the vendor as we pass. I watch the sidewalk and make shapes out of the sand that washed over the pavement from the storm.

The storm is what
’s bugging me. And Vin. I’ve never seen anyone so worked up over thunder, lightning, and rain. Sure, it was bad, and there was need to be concerned, but there’s more to this. Vin even said he wasn’t concerned with Colby’s life. If it’s not that, then what the hell was he worried about? He obviously cares about something – or someone.

“
Do you guys always panic like that?” I ask. “When it storms?” I add for clarification.

A.J. runs his hands through his hair and pulls his sunglasses away from his eyes. It
’s rare that he’s ever so serious. It’s actually scary.

“
Vin panics,” he says. “We used to, all of us, but Vin won’t sleep. He doesn’t do anything until he locates Colby. And then he flips the fuck out on him and they don’t speak for a few days until Strick or Alston smoothes it over.”

He continues along The Strip, kicking at clumps of sand and watching them burst apart as they come in contact with the toe of his flip flop. I replay last night in my head – Vin not leaving the couch. Vin watching the water. Vin standing up in the
Jeep because he had to have the perfect view. Vin’s unanswered phone calls. Vin flipping out on Topher for no apparent reason when he called. And Vin walking away in the rain, alone, after he said, ‘Fuck you,’ and threw his phone into Reed’s backseat. Why did he tell me to get out while I can? Out from what?

I take a deep breath.
“Is he scared something will happen like…like Shark?”

“
Kind of,” A.J. says. He steps off the sidewalk onto the sand and watches the ocean, wave after wave toppling over the sand and washing up toward the tourists and locals alike.

I wish I could pull the photo montage out of his mind and see it for myself, to know what A.J. is thinking about. Maybe he
’s remembering Shark’s memorial, everyone in a circle in the water on their surfboards with Shark’s dad speaking about his son’s love for the ocean and how he’d always be a part of it now. Or maybe he’s remembering Vin standing on the pier watching them pour Shark’s ashes into the sea, not stepping foot into the same water that claimed his best friend’s life. I feel like I can see it myself just from hearing Reed talk about it last night after we got back to the condo, while everyone else watched the weather.