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“Sienna Lassiter,” Freya answers. “She was one of the first girls Kaos ever sponsored. Brilliant surfer. I knew her quite well, actually.”
Ivy glances over at Freya. “What do you know about her?”
Freya shrugs. “Good kid, shitty home life. Parents were deadbeat druggies who lived off Millcreek, back when it was just a dirt road through the woods. Sienna would work odd jobs for us occasionally. Damien Roark, the previous owner, took her under his wing. He gave her a board, taught her to surf, and sent her into tournaments. She was good. See that one,” Freya steps closer, pointing toward a framed photo on the far side. “When she won the regional championship in Jacksonville, she made the cover of Surfer Teen Magazine. She was only seventeen there.” Freya taps the photo.
The girl in the photo is young, blonde, sliding down the face of a wave in a bright green Kaos rash guard. I’ve looked at that photo hundreds of times over the years as I passed through the shop, but I’ve never looked at it like Ivy is. She runs her fingertip over the image, brow furrowed in confusion, like a puzzle she can’t figure out.
“Does she still live around here?” Ivy asks, carefully setting the photo back on the wall.
Freya shakes her head. “She died a few months after that photo was taken.”
Ivy’s head jerks back to Freya. “Died?”
Freya nods. “She and her boyfriend both died in thefire at the Pier. Such a shame. She was on track to really be an amazing role model for young women.”
Ivy sits back on Ava’s desk, her gaze drifting off. “Where was the Pier?” She asks.
“Cyrus Jacobson owned Pier 34 back when it was a seafood distributor,” I answer, watching her carefully. “When it burned down, he bought the Sandbar and moved operations over there. Then he built the Aurora in the ashes of the Pier.”
Ivy’s gaze meets mine. “Did anyone ever figure out what happened?”
I shake my head. “No. Not really.”
“Dylan Knight, her boyfriend, was a deckhand for Cyrus. He got back late from a night charter, and Sienna came to pick him up,” Freya adds. “Somehow, a fire broke out on the deck and ignited the propane tanks. The whole thing blew up. Took out two of Cyrus’s boats tied to the dock, and rocked the whole block. They had to tear down several neighboring businesses afterward for structural damage.”
Ivy shakes her head in disbelief, standing from the desk.
“I have to go,” she says suddenly. “I forgot about this thing.” She moves toward the exit. “It was nice to meet you both,” she says, then slips through the swinging doors.
I glance over at Freya, who shrugs. When the bell rings above the front door, I run after her. I don’t stop until I’m outside, spinning in a circle in the parking lot, looking for her. But she’s gone.
I curse, scratching my head. I literally have no idea what just happened.
Chapter 18
Ivy
Ican’t breathe. I run, needing distance between myself and Kaos and everything I just heard in that room. Weaving around groups of tourists meandering down Beach Drive, I leap over curbs and dodge cars as they pull into parking garages. I finally slow as the Aurora comes into view up ahead, struggling to catch my breath.
There is no question in my mind. The woman they call Sienna Lassiter is also Sarah Matthews.
My mother.
It doesn’t make any sense. For one, my mother didn’t die when she was seventeen. I was born nearly four years later, and Paige three years after that. But I know the look in her eyes, the curve of her lips, the slender set of her shoulders, because they match mine. I see it every time I look in the mirror.
I lost my parents when I was six years old, but I still remember her. Flashes of her. She cleaned rooms at a motel, like me. She surfed, like me. She loved my father and her kids, and ifthey hadn’t died, our whole life would have been different. The idea that she once lived here, with a family I never knew, and a past she never divulged, hits hard.
Part of me wonders if she had a sister. Maybe even identical. But Freya didn’t mention any siblings. I pause, panting. My mother lived here. There was a fire, and she faked her own death? What about the other guy? Dylan? I have more questions. Generations of questions, with a side of what-the-fuck.
Then there’s Paige, opting to spend the summer in Florida on a whim. She had plans for an internship this summer that she bailed on. Plans that she spent years preparing for. I shake my head. She fucking knew. She knew and didn’t tell me. And I don’t know why.
Walking past the Aurora, I find myself searching for ghosts. A hint of the building it used to be, back when it was the Pier. Is the concrete old enough to be the same road my mother walked on? Did she walk down this sidewalk? Stand beneath that tree? She felt the same breeze that washes over that stretch of beach. Touched the same sand.
I walk past it, turning onto the road that curves behind Danny’s Grocery. As I approach the store, I see cars parked in the grass, and filling every available space. A crowd gathers close around the front of the building for some sort of event.
I shove my hands into my pockets and blend into the crowd, circling the outside to see what’s happening. A local news van is parked off to the side, and behind it, a familiar black Tahoe.
Evan is here.
