The Leaving(61)

And watched.

And watched.

Down the beach a bit, there was some shouting, pointing.

“Two of them!” someone shouted. “Right over there!”

She panicked for a second. She’d seen on the news earlier that Adam and Sarah had been receiving death threats because they weren’t cooperating with the investigation. Had she and Kristen been recognized?

No.

Two dolphins.

She got up and walked toward the woman pointing, a woman in her forties with two small daughters. “Look that way and maybe we’ll see them again,” she said, bending to share the girls’ view.

“Wait for it,” the mom said.

“Wait . . .

“There!”

“I see them!” one daughter shouted, and the other, smaller one, said, “Where? Where?”

“Oh, you missed them, sweetie,” the mom said. “But we’ll try again later!”

“But I wanted to see the dolphins,” the girl cried.

Scarlett hadn’t seen them, either.

What was wrong with her?

She felt a sliver of her heart break off and d r i f t.

? ? ?

Back by the house, Tammy and Steve were standing on the beach, looking up and down, looking for her.

“We got your book ending for you!” Steve called out.

“What do you mean?”

“They found the guy, Scarlett,” Tammy said. “They found where you were.”

Then Tammy kept talking about the Everglades and how they’d all go there in the morning and how there were photos and evidence they’d been there—clothes and stuff—and Scarlett felt her body seize up at the thought of seeing him, confronting him.

Her nerve endings vibrated.

He’d have to explain.

He’d have to fix them.

So they could retrieve.

Everything.

Get eleven years back.

Then Tammy said, “He’s dead, Scarlett.”

Seagulls halted midair.

Waves stopped midcrash.

And a breath caught in Scarlett’s lungs and starting to congeal there. Her mother came up to hug her and she felt her body go limp,

accepting.





Lucas


He’d come alone.

Like in a dream state.

Hadn’t been able to sleep.

Hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Avery.

Had she been relieved that the body wasn’t Max’s? That it was a guy named John Norton?

Or was she disappointed?

They’d said they’d found evidence that they’d been here.

Photos of them as children.

But none of Max.

What did that mean?

He’d texted her.

She’d wished him good luck today.

Too late for good luck.

Scarlett had come with her mother.

Kristen with her parents.

Even Adam and Sarah and their parents had deigned to show up. Lucas couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact with either of them. But then Adam walked up to him and said, “It’s good to see you.”

“Get away from me,” Lucas said.

“Wow,” Adam said. “Sorry. Don’t know what I did to offend you.”

“I asked you to get away.”

“You told me. That’s different.”

“Listen, Adam. You let your parents turn you into a puppet and it’s obvious you don’t care about any of the rest of us at all. So seriously, get out of my face.”

Adam said, “You should get help for that.”

Lucas looked away. “Like you know anything.”

“Can we focus?” Chambers said; he’d been speaking with the boat’s captain.

Lucas nodded.

They were about an hour south of Fort Myers, standing on the dock of an airboat company—a business that John Norton’s family had owned but he’d sold years ago, with the provision that he be allowed to come and go and keep a house on the property. “So that explains how no one saw you or knew where you were,” Chambers had said on the phone. “This is twenty acres of private swampland.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Lucas asked.

John Norton was dead, single gunshot to the head, and they were heading to a small cluster of structures he’d maintained—accessible only by airboat.

The airboat held just ten passengers, so Chambers’s partner, Sarah’s mother, Kristen’s father, and Adam’s mother would all follow in a second boat.

Lucas sat in the same row—on the same bench—as Scarlett, but with her mother between them.

Hated the look of the back of Adam’s head.

The fan that powered the boat was as tall as Lucas and, when it turned on, louder than bombs.

The captain wore huge black padded earphones that surely blocked the sound.

Why hadn’t they all been given earplugs?

Or at least a warning?

The boat moved with shocking speed and surprising grace.

Just whizzed across the surface of the water effortlessly.

Birds—some bright pink, some white—lifted off, their long legs dangling in flight.

Lucas swore he could feel the eyes of alligators on him, could close his eyes and feel his stomach shift with the turns of the boat and see their jaws opening and snapping.