Ten (12 page)

“Oh.” T.J. stood still for a moment, then walked over to the captain’s chair. “Right.”

Meg turned her back to him. She wanted to cry. Why couldn’t she at least wait to hear what he had to say? Why did she have to go and make a mess out of everything?

“That’s weird,” T.J. said.

Meg wiped a stray tear off her cheek. “What?”

“The radio’s gone.”

“What?” The tension between them was gone in an instant. Meg peered up to where T.J. pointed above the window.

“Gone. It’s been removed.”

SEVENTEEN

“SOMEONE TOOK THE RADIO OUT OF THE BOAT?”
Meg stared at a gaping hole in the boat’s console. “Why would anyone do that?”

T.J. shook his head. “No idea. But judging by the prints in the dust here”—he pointed at smudge marks on either side of the radio’s former location—“I’d guess it was removed fairly recently.”

“Is that normal?” Meg asked. She was grasping at straws, attempting to quell the uneasiness in her gut that threatened a full-scale panic. “Like for maintenance or something?”

“Nope.”

“Oh.”

They stood in silence. The idea that yet another hope for communication with the mainland had been purposefully removed was still sinking in, and while the reality of their situation weighed on her, Meg’s mind raced with possible solutions.

“What about the boat? Can we drive it to Roche Harbor?”

“No keys.”

“Oh.” Duh. Somehow she’d expected a more dynamic answer. “Can you hotwire it?”

T.J. tilted his head to look at her. “Do I look like I know how to hotwire a boat?”

“You don’t
look
like you’d know how to drive one, but apparently you do.”

“Good point.”

Now it was Meg’s turn to tilt her head. “So do you?”

“Do I what?”

What was this, twenty questions? Meg threw up her hands. “Do you know how to hotwire the boat?!?”

T.J. pursed his lips. His dimples sagged ever so slightly. “Yeah, no.”

Meg’s eyes roamed the wheelhouse. “Maybe they’re here somewhere? The keys?” That was logical, sort of. Why not keep the keys in the boat somewhere? It wasn’t exactly as if a boat-jacker was going to steal the thing way out there in the middle of nowhere.

“Honestly, Meg, I doubt it.”

“We should still check.”

T.J. sighed. “Fine.” He climbed down a short staircase that led belowdecks. “I’ll check the cabins, you look up here, okay?” He didn’t sound particularly optimistic.

“Okay.” Meg wasn’t about to let T.J.’s pessimism daunt her. She was going to find those keys, dammit.

The wheelhouse seemed to be the most logical place to keep a set of boat keys. She combed the control panel with her flashlight, hoping the gleam of the metallic keys would catch her eye amid the gears and gizmos. No dice. Then she rummaged through a few drawers and cabinets on either side of the steering wheel. She found charts, a tool box, a can of WD-40, a dusty compass, a Seattle Mariners baseball cap with a heavily creased brim, a battery-operated fan, dusty coffee mugs, and an array of adapters, plugs, and extension cords that didn’t appear to go with any specific electronics whatsoever.

Ugh.

There was a closet door on the back wall next to the stairs. Last chance. Meg crossed her fingers, held her breath, and opened the closet.

Not only were there no keys, but the space was oddly empty. No mops, no brooms, no coats, no anything. Weird. The rest of the wheelhouse compartments were stuffed with junk, but this one had been completely cleaned out.

She scanned its length from top to bottom, then paused as her flashlight beam caught something on the ground. It was a stain, a ring-shaped stain, of red paint.

“T.J.!” Meg called out. “Come here!”

The boat shifted as she heard T.J.’s footsteps pounding up the stairs. “What?” he asked as his head popped over the rail. “Did you find them?”

Meg shook her head. “Look.”

T.J.’s light joined hers on the red stain on the floor of the closet. He crouched down and dabbed at it with his finger. A smudge of red paint appeared on the tip of his middle finger.

Meg gasped. “It’s still wet?”

T.J. didn’t answer. He held his finger to his nose and sniffed a few times, then abruptly stood up. “I think …,” he started. “I’m pretty sure it’s the same paint that’s on the wall up at the house.”

Meg’s heart was racing. Missing radio, missing paint … “Someone took them both,” she said. “Recently.”

It wasn’t a question and T.J. didn’t respond. The unspoken “why” lingered in the air between them, but Meg was afraid to ask. Afraid of the answer.

“What do we do now?” she asked instead.

T.J. glanced from the closet to the missing radio bay, then to Meg. “We go back.”

It wasn’t raining nearly as hard as it had been thirty minutes ago, and the wind was no longer attempting to wipe the island clean of all its inhabitants, flora and fauna alike. But Meg still felt as if she were battling the elements as she slowly climbed back up the wooden walkways toward White Rock House.

T.J. led the way as before, but he didn’t hold her hand this time. Instead he was easily ten feet in front of her by the time they were halfway up the hill. He hadn’t turned around once to make sure she was okay.

Not only was their chance at contacting civilization gone but she’d managed to piss off the love of her life. Again. Awesome, Meg. Well done. Why don’t you just throw yourself off the side of the island right now and …

As she thought the words her eyes drifted off the walkway down the rocky hill. But instead of the jagged rocks and washed up driftwood she expected to find, she saw something else. A splash of neon yellow. An inflatable raft maybe? What would that be doing way out here? Meg squinted into the rain, blinking her eyes to try and get a better look. The shape, the size. Too small for a raft. It looked almost like …

Oh God.

“T.J.!” Meg yelled. She wasn’t sure if he could hear her. She called out again, her eyes still fixed on the rocks. “T.J., come he—”

“What’s wrong?” He was at her shoulder in an instant, but before Meg could even verbalize what she was staring at, he’d followed her gaze and seen it with his own eyes.

“Holy shit,” T.J. said. He vaulted over the handrail and started to pick his way down the side of the hill.

Meg didn’t hesitate. She shimmied under the rail and followed straight behind him. Her clunky rain boots made the climbing slow, and T.J. easily outpaced her as he half climbed, half slid down the muddy hillside. He was at the bottom a full minute before Meg made it down. When she stumbled up behind him, T.J. spun around and grabbed her.

“Don’t look,” he said, placing himself between her and whatever lay on the rocks.

“What?” she said. “What is it?”

T.J.’s face was pinched. Instead of answering he pulled her to him and hugged her so fiercely she could barely breathe. She could feel his hands shake as he slowly peeled himself away from her.

“There’s been an accident.”

“Is it Minnie?” Meg could barely control the panic in her voice.

T.J. shook his head.

She let out a breath. If Minnie had been injured trying to follow them down to the boathouse Meg would never have forgiven herself.

“Maybe you should go up to the house,” T.J. said.

“Let me see. I want to see what happened.” Meg sounded far braver than she felt, but somehow, in the midst of all the strange events of the last twenty-four hours, she needed to see.

T.J. didn’t protest. He merely stepped aside.

Behind him, lying on her back, was Vivian. Her eyes were wide open, frozen in fear and pain. She wore a yellow raincoat buttoned up over her sweater and silk pajamas. Blood trailed slowly down her arm, dripping off her fingers into the pooling water beneath her. A jagged piece of driftwood protruded from her chest; it had impaled her from behind.

“Is she …” Meg’s throat closed up.

“Yeah.”

“Oh my God.”

“Yeah.”

Meg had no idea what to think. Vivian must have followed them down to the boathouse. But how did this happen?

“She must have slipped on the walkway,” T.J. said, answering Meg’s unasked question. “If she came down behind us in that rain … I mean, it was pretty dangerous.”

Vivian’s eyes stared blank and unseeing at the rocky hillside Meg and T.J. had just traversed. Her head lolled off the edge of the log, her arms splayed out on either side of her body. Meg pictured Vivian hurrying after them, convinced they wouldn’t be able to find or operate a radio without her assistance. She was rushing and slipped on the wet walkways. She toppled head-over-heels down the hill and landed right on the jagged log, which literally stabbed her through the back. Her micromanaging was her undoing.

What were the odds? Two deaths in just a few hours? Meg shook off her fears. Lori’s was obviously a suicide, Vivian’s a horrific accident. Right?

The rain increased as Meg and T.J. stood beside Vivian’s body. Large drops hit her open eyes and caused the eyelids to flutter slightly, as if Vivian was trying to wink at them. Meg forced herself to look away before she was sick.

“What should we do?” she asked.

“There’s that tarp in the boathouse,” he said. “I’ll get it. We should cover the body but maybe not move her until …” His voice trailed off.

“Until Jessica comes?” Meg said. She couldn’t hide the sarcasm in her voice. “Or until the ferry comes back tomorrow? That seems a better chance at this point.”

T.J. looked down at her. His lips were pressed together so tightly they’d turned pink. “I’ll get the tarp,” he said, refusing to reply to her sarcasm. “You go back up to the house and tell them what happened.”

Meg and T.J. scrambled up the side of the hill. The rain made the ascent in waterlogged flannel pajamas and clunky rubber galoshes even more precarious, but by almost pure force of will, they managed to haul themselves back up on the nearest walkway. They sat panting for a moment—wet, muddy, mentally and physically exhausted. Meg couldn’t stop looking down at Vivian’s body. Just like Lori, her eyes were still open, empty and soulless. Meg couldn’t get either death mask out of her mind.

Without a word, T.J. stood up and lifted Meg to her feet. He gave her a short nod, then carefully made his way back down to the boathouse. Meg watched him go for a few moments before she reluctantly turned her eyes to White Rock House, just visible through the trees. She was going to have to tell a house full of already weirded-out people that there’d been another accident. Minnie … oh God, Minnie was going to completely freak. And without her meds.

Meg was just approaching the sharp turn in the walkway when she stopped dead. At exactly the point where she’d lost her footing and almost fallen down the hill, the railing was gone, broken clean away.

A lump rose in Meg’s throat. This must be the spot where Vivian had slipped, just as Meg had an hour earlier. And if T.J. hadn’t been there to catch her, it could easily have been her own body down there on the beach impaled on a log.

Meg didn’t want to think about it. She turned away and hurried up to the house, desperate to be inside. The storm picked up strength as Meg emerged from the trees. Never before had wind and rain felt so ominous, like it was mimicking the cold misery Meg felt inside. Vivian and Lori were dead. There was no radio in the boat. They were quickly running out of options.

To make matters worse, the back door to the patio was locked. Dammit. Vivian must have locked it when she left the house. God, this day just kept getting better and better. With her mood sinking faster than the
Titanic
, she made her way to the front of the house.

Meg took a deep breath. She could do this. There were eight of them at White Rock House. Strength in numbers. They’d just hunker down and get through the night. Monday morning the ferry would be back and this whole nightmarish weekend would be just a memory.

Okay. She had to be strong. Meg turned the handle and marched into the house.

But all her bravado, all her false courage and confidence died the second she stepped into the foyer.

On the wall, next to the first, was a freshly painted red slash.

EIGHTEEN

MEG WASN’T SURE HOW LONG SHE STOOD IN THE
foyer dripping muddy puddles on the floor. She hardly remembered why she was there. All she could focus on were the parallel slash marks on the wall. Two slashes. Two dead bodies. There was no way in hell it was a coincidence.

But what did it mean? Someone was messing with them, obviously. Trying to scare them. Freaking sick sense of humor. Probably just a practical joke that happened to come at the same time as Vivian’s accident. Or …

Meg’s stomach dropped. Or someone else knew that Vivian was dead.

“You okay?”

Meg snapped back to the present and found Nathan standing in the hall with a half-eaten turkey sandwich in his hand.

“Did you guys find a radio? Where’s T.J.? Do you want some of this sandwich? It’s pretty go—” Nathan stopped midword as his eyes found what Meg had already discovered.

“What is that?” he roared. His sandwich fell to the ground as he stormed across the foyer to the slash marks. “What the fuck did you do?”

“Me?” she said. What the hell was he talking about?

He swung around and got up in Meg’s face. “There was only one mark before, now there are two. Do you think this is funny or something? Trying to make them look like that stupid video we watched?”

Meg pulled away from him. “I didn’t do it.”

“Dudes!” Nathan crossed into the hallway and yelled again. “Everybody downstairs. Now!”

Kumiko and Gunner came first, then Kenny, all from the living room. Ben and Minnie leisurely strolled down the stairs.

“Why is everyone screaming?” Minnie said through a yawn.

“It’s her,” Nathan said, pointing a finger at Meg. “She did it.”

“Did what?” Kumiko asked.

Nathan nodded toward the wall and everyone filed into the foyer.

“I didn’t do anything,” Meg said. She felt six pairs of eyes on her and she wished desperately that T.J. had come with her. “I came into the house and saw it just before Nathan found me.”