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Kit is able to talk first, and he adds to the instructions. Before long, I can feel all my body parts again, and I’m curled up with a hot cocoa and a plate of s’mores roasted on the woodstove fire, both of us being warmed enough for Madison to get the heat going.
“Bring more cocoa,” Madison calls to Garrett in the kitchen. “They need sugar.”
I’m not sure we needthatmuch sugar, but Kit winks at me and calls, “Allthe sugar.”
He’s at the other end of the couch. We’re both cocooned in blankets, having needed—as Madison correctly said—to get out of our wet clothing.
“Ready to tell us what the hell happened out there?” Jayla says. “I’m guessing the canoe flipped in the waves?”
I shake my head. “There is no canoe.”
I don’t mean to be that blunt, but I’m still mentally frozen.
“No canoe?” Garrett says, coming in with two more mugs of cocoa. “Did someone steal it?”
Jayla cuts in. “Please tell me you did not try heading to shore with the kayaks. Those damn things tipwithoutwaves.”
“The kayaks are gone, too,” Kit says.
“Then what…” Jayla stares at me. “You didnotgo out on that fucking paddleboard. A kayak is bad enough, but I don’t know how anyone rides a paddleboard and thinks it’s safe, much lessfun.”
“Laney paddled out a bit to check on something,” Kit says. “She had her life vest.”
“What the hell could be important enough to paddle out in a storm?”
“It’s not a storm yet,” Kit says, trying for patience. “She wouldn’t do that. It seemed fine and…” He glances my way. “It was important. She thought she saw…”
“Parts of the boat,” I say. “I noticed debris on the water earlier, and then I saw it again and remembered spotting it before falling into the crevice. This time it wasn’t far from shore. Yes, I shouldn’t have gone out. Yes, Kit trusted my judgment, and I took advantage of that. But I had to know.”
“It wasn’t…?” Madison begins.
“It wasn’t,” Jayla says firmly. “It couldn’t have been. But everyone’s on edge, and I get why your aunt had to be sure, even if I really wish she’d waited for it to wash to shore.”
“Laney?” Madison looks at me. “It wasn’t part of the boat, was it?”
“What I saw at first was garbage from the boat,” I say carefully. “Jayla’s coffee cup. Then the trash bag with the litter scattered.”
“Which you then tried to clean up and fell in,” Jayla grumbles. “First you fall into that crevice, then you nearly freeze to death cleaning up trash. You might love nature, Laney, but it clearly doesn’t love you back.”
“At least you’re both fine,” Garrett says. “Even if I do agree with Jayla. Mother Nature is a bitch. Does anyone else want cocoa? I’m going to make myself some.”
“You saidfirst,” Madison says, moving from her chair to sit on the edge of the couch. “You said that’s what you saw atfirst.”
I glance at Kit.
He opens his mouth.
“We found part of the boat,” I blurt, saving him from being the one to say it. “I grabbed it after a wave knocked me off the board.”
“Part of the boat?” Garrett frowns. “Something fell off it?”
Again, Kit and I exchange a look.
“No,” he says, beating me to it this time. “We found part of thecaptain’s chair. The top piece of material.” When Garrett’s mouth opens, Kit says, “It was undoubtedly from Laney’s boat. There was graffiti from a renter that she tried to scrub off.”
“I saw that,” Jayla says. “Some asshole— Wait. Part of the captain’s chair? The leather? How…?”
She trails off as realization hits.
