NINE
Bo appears behind me in the doorway just as the tolling bell from across the harbor begins to fade. “Another one?” he asks, hand lifted as if he could see out over the water all the way to the docks.
“Another one.”
He sidesteps around me, his shoulder grazing mine, then starts down the path.
“Where are you going?”
“Town,” he answers.
“You’re safer here,” I call after him, but he doesn’t stop. I have no choice but to follow—I can’t let him go alone. Marguerite is in the body of Olivia Greene. And this latest kill is likely Aurora’s. But I haven’t seen her yet—don’t yet know whose body she has stolen. So when Bo reaches the skiff, I climb in after him and start the motor.
A cluster of boats have gathered in the harbor just offshore from Coppers Beach.
I can’t see the body from this distance, but I know there must be one, newly discovered, floating, being pulled aboard one of the boats—so we motor over to the marina, Bo’s face hardened against the blustery wind.
We dock the skiff, and see that a crowd has already assembled on Ocean Avenue awaiting the return of the harbor police boats, cameras ready. There are signs at the top of the marina that read:DOCK MEMBERS ONLY, NO TOURISTS ALLOWED. But there are always people who ignore the signs and tromp down to the docks anyway, especially after the bell has been rung.
I push through the clot of tourists, past the stone bench facing the harbor, when someone grabs my arm. It’s Rose. Heath is standing beside her.
“There’s two of them,” she says with shaking breath, her blue eyes magnified. She still looks pale and weak, like she hasn’t yet shaken off the chill of falling into the water over a week ago, only inches from Gregory Dunn’s corpse.
“Two bodies?” Bo asks, stepping in beside me so the four of us form a tight circle on the sidewalk, our breath coming out in bursts of steamy white.
Rose nods her head.
Aurora, I think. She’s greedy and impulsive, can never decide, and so she will take two boys at once.
“That’s not all,” Heath says. “They saw one of the Swan sisters.”
“Who did?” I ask.
Heath and Rose exchange a look. “Lon Whittamer was out on his dad’s boat this morning, patrolling the harbor. He and Davis decided to take shifts, like vigilantes; they thought they could catch one of the sisters in the act. Apparently, Lon was the first to spot the two bodies in the harbor. Then he saw something else: a girl swimming, her head just above the waterline. She was kicking frantically back to Coppers Beach.” Heath pauses and it feels like time stops, all of us holding our breath.
“Who did Lon see?” I press, my heartbeat rising into my throat, about to burst.
“Gigi Kline,” he answers in one swift exhale.
I blink, a cold spire of ice slipping down the length of my spine.
“Who’s Gigi Kline?” Bo asks.
“A girl from my school,” I answer, my voice a near hush. “She was at the Swan party on the beach.”
“Did she go in the water?”
“I’m not sure.”
I glance up Ocean Avenue, where the mass of people has grown larger, tourists pressed together, trying to get a better view of the docks where the bodies will be brought ashore.Thisis what they came for—to glimpse death, proof that the legend of the Swan sisters is real.
“Who knows about Gigi?” I ask, looking back at Heath.
“I don’t know. I saw Lon when he reached the docks, and he told me what he saw. Now he and Davis are searching for her.”
“Shit,” I mutter. If they find her, who knows what they’ll do.
“Do you think it’s true?” Rose asks. “Could Gigi be one of them?” Her expression seems tight and anxious. She’s never fully believed in the Swan sisters before—it scares her, I think, the idea that they could be real, that she could be taken and not even know it. It’s a survival mechanism for her, and I understand why she does it. But now the waver in her voice makes me think she’s not so sure what she believes anymore.
