Page 42 of Dearly Departed

“What radio?”

“This radio.” She races to the cabinets, opens the third one, and pulls out a black case. Catherine has it on the bed and open like she’s a kid at Christmas and this is the biggest wrapped gift. “This. See? I turned it on while you were—while you were asleep, but nobody answered.” She cranes her neck to look at the map. “I bet those codes are, like, radio channels. I bet we could use them to get help.”

I flip to the horoscope page in the laminated booklet. The second column is made up of two-digit numbers, so Catherine’s probably right about the radio channels. The code words are just bizarre.

“What if they don’t mean help? What if we get to the radio tower and go to channel 21 for Gemini and say keystone and it means attack the island? Do we know who we’d be getting?”

Catherine narrows her eyes. “What do you mean, who we’d be getting?”

“Would we be getting Castor or Pollux in this metaphor?”

She gazes at the ceiling of the cabin. “I don’t know. Maybe Gemini doesn’t mean, like, literal twins. If they are, and if I had a choice, I guess I’d pick the one who does the murder instead of the one who gets murdered.”

“Kitten! I never knew you were into Greek myths.”

“I had to do something after Egyptology. And I went to an all-girl’s school. Everyone was into Greek myths when we weren’t trying to get boyfriends.”

“You’d really choose Pollux if it came down to it?”

“I’d pick whoever can get rid of Raymond Harris. And whoever had a boat so we could leave this island and go home.”

“What, and cut our luxurious honeymoon short?”

“You’re not very funny, Jacob.”

“I make up for it by being incredibly handsome.”

Catherine laughs at me, her cheeks going prettily pink. Until I knew Raymond Harris was our pilot, I’d never imagined we’d be trapped on an island together with a murderer out for revenge. If I had imagined it, I’d have been so wrong. Catherine Bettencourt—excuse me, Catherine Chambers, my fucking wife—is the most resilient person I have ever met.

The delight on her face sharpens. Catherine looks out at the driving rain. Water droplets on the window reflect in her eyes.

“I need to get to that tower.”

I take her hand and kiss her knuckles. “We need to get to that tower.”

“You can’t.” Her honey eyes lock on mine. “You can’t, Jacob. You’re not strong enough. You need to stay here, where it’s safe. I’ll go see if our theory about the radio tower is right. If I get someone on the radio, then I’ll come back and tell you. If I don’t, same plan. We should at least see if it works.”

“I’m not letting you go out into this weather by yourself when Raymond Harris is out there, too.”

Catherine lifts a hand like she’s offering me the idea of a lifetime. “Wouldn’t it be safer in this weather?”

A distant roll of thunder echoes down into our clearing. “No.”

“I’m serious. He’d have a harder time seeing me. And storms like this never last very long. It’ll probably be over by the time I get to the tower, and then I can use the radio, and we’ll be home in time for tea.”

The idea of drinking tea turns my stomach. So does the idea of eating a biscuit.

“See?” Catherine strokes the corner of my mouth with a fingertip. “You don’t feel well. If something happens while we’re out there, I won’t be able to carry you back, and we need, like, shelter. I need you to be in the shelter while I go see what’s up with that tower.”

“You are not going to see what’s up with the tower.”

She draws herself up tall, eyes flashing. “I’m your wife, not your property. You can’t actually stop me from going.”

“I can come with you.”

“No, you can’t!”

We have the worst fight of our marriage over the excursion to the radio tower. Catherine argues with a quiet voice that cuts to the bone. I argue with a quiet voice that I inject more and more charm into until we’re both wielding razor-sharp words. She dresses me down for thinking she’s incapable of walking to a radio tower. I remind her there’s a murderer stalking the island and at least one creature with claws to scratch at the doors. We fight for so long that the day ends and the long, rainy night begins, and then we fight in faux-candlelight. My eyes hurt horrendously. If I had anything in my stomach to throw up, I’d have no choice but to eject it.