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There was a lot about this night that wasn’t adding up. The more I tried to deny it, the more I got that sinking feeling in my gut. I didn’t want to give in to what my instincts were already telling me. I’d always doubted the legitimacy of the legend, but facts mattered, and the ones proving me wrong just kept stacking up on top of each other.
“No one’s tried to reach me.” Finn leaned against one of the iron lampposts. “But good to know I’m not going crazy. I was starting to wonder.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I’m not even on call tonight, but after the ground started shaking and the walls of my house damn near folded in on me, I went over to the fire department to see if they needed help. They were all sleeping.”
“No shit?” A bad feeling crept up the back of my neck. Granted, Finn’s house was on the opposite side of the island, on the high cliffs where few people lived, but if it shook his house like that, then it hadn’t just been confined to the woods.
“They had no idea what I was talking about. Then I came down here, and every building in town is in pristine shape. Not so much as a pebble out of place. Afterward, I felt…” He stared at his open palm as if he expected something to appear there. “I’m not sure how to describe it. I felt whole. Complete. Like I found something I didn’t know I’d been missing.”
“Yeah, I get that.” I’d experienced the same damn thing, except I thought it had been because I had Audrey in my arms—though I knew I’d been missing her.
There had to be a logical explanation for all this. I didn’t know shit about fault lines. As far as I knew, it could’ve been normal for an earthquake to only affect small, select areas. I didn’t like how quiet things were, though. Finn lived on the thinly populated side of the island, but he still had some neighbors. Why hadn’t any of them alerted the fire department?
“How did it start at your place?” I asked.
“I was drinking a beer on my back porch when my house started to shake. I thought it was a landslide.” Finn had built his house on the edge of a cliff that had a steep drop into the ocean. A landslide over there had the potential to cost him his life. “After the earth stopped moving, I got that feeling I told you about.” He curled his fingers against his palm and out again like he was stretching the muscles. “Maybe I just hit my head or something. Rattled my brain.”
I needed to know if Finn’s hand had glowed, and if he’d created any changes in the weather, but I didn’t know how to bring it up without making it sound like I’d lost my damn mind. “Did something else happen? Like, did you see some kind of light?”
“What are you talking about?” He narrowed his eyes. “Explain.”
I should’ve known he wouldn’t buy my attempt to edge around it. Not much got past Finn. Before Hank and Darla Wilder adopted him and brought him to Zodiac Cove, he spent years in and out of the foster care system, surviving on the streets of Boston by running cons and stealing whatever he couldn’t scam out of people. He regularly cleaned my ass out in poker.
“I wish I could explain it.” I gave him a rundown of everything that had happened from the earthquake on, leaving out the part where Audrey rubbed her pussy against me until I came damn close to embarrassing myself. “Maybe a rare fungus got into that hot spring, and the steam coming off of it made the two of us hallucinate.”
“Or maybe Audrey has been right about magic this whole time.”
“Or that.”
Why was I fighting this explanation so hard? While I had a healthy dose of skepticism, I tended to accept the things that were right in front of my face, and most everyone who lived here had at least a small shred of belief. Our island’s history was steeped in magic. It wasn’t any more far-fetched than sharing a hallucination with Finn, who’d been miles away.
“It’s a good thing you were there to save her from that branch.” His lips twitched. “Who knows what would’ve happened if you hadn’t been creeping around her place.”
“I wasn’t creeping, for fuck’s sake.” I scowled. “She doesn’t talk to me. How was I supposed to know she’d be out there in the middle of the night without any clothes on?”
“She was naked?” He rubbed his hands together. “This just keeps getting better.”
“Not really,” I grumbled. “She still has Seth’s shirt.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.” It had been four years since Seth left the island, but it wouldn’t matter if it had been a hundred. I fucked up by stepping over a line that I shouldn’t have crossed, and she’d never forgive me for it. The fact that she still kept and wore his shirt should’ve told me all I needed to know. More than ready to change the subject, I nodded toward the dock. “Did your dad make a late run to the mainland?”
“A favor for the Chases, though why he’s still willing to do shit for them is beyond me.” Finn’s mouth pinched down to a tight line. To say he had issues with the mayor would’ve been an understatement. “Wouldn’t tell me what it was when I stopped by my parents’ house to check on them. He must’ve left the lights on by accident.”
“Did he say anything about the earthquake?”
“He didn’t feel it. Neither did my mom.”
That sense of unease gripped me again. Depending on when Hank brought the ferry in, it was possible he could’ve missed the earthquake. But Darla should’ve felt it. She was a criminally light sleeper. Finn had never been able to sneak out during his rowdier teen years, despite the solid effort he put forth.
Wonky fault lines or not, this couldn’t be explained away.
We both turned at the sound of footfalls coming up the road. My youngest brother, Donovan, approached with his chocolate lab, Sandy, trotting beside him. He lived in a three-bedroom house with an honest-to-God white picket fence. Much like Seth, he liked to travel and had left the island right after high school. But last year, he came home, got himself a dog, and spent his mornings playing checkers with the old men at the park. Like he’d aged forty years in the time he’d been gone.
Mom had high hopes he’d be the first of us to finally bless her with the grandchildren she’d been harping on about since Cole graduated from college nine years ago.
