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There isn’t one. You know that.
I need one. I knowthat,too.
FIFTEEN
Once they’re gone, I get dressed. Then I come down to find Jayla in the great room.
“You’re still here,” I say.
“I thought no one should be alone. Is that a problem?”
I shake my head. “No, I was hoping you’d stayed.” I fold the blankets. “I saw something out there. Or I thought I did. That’s why I fell overboard—frantically going after it.”
“You saw part of the boat?”
“Worse. Now I need my most rational, no-bullshit friend to tell me I was imagining things.”
“You were imagining things.”
I give her a look as I sit on the couch.
“What?” she says. “I don’t even need to hear what it was. That’s how well I know you. If you’re questioning it, then you already realize it was that big ol’ imagination of yours at play.”
When I pull over a pillow, she says, “Well, tell me anyway. What was it? Alien? Shark? The Creature from the Black Lagoon?”
“Sadie,” I blurt.
She blinks. “What?”
“I thought I saw Sadie. Dead. Floating in the water.”
“Oh, Laney.” She moves to sit beside me. “That was flippant of me. So you saw parts of the boat floating around and it made you think you saw Sadie. That must have been awful.”
“I saw her before the boat parts. But Ihadseen the garbage, and Ihadseen what happened to the canoe and kayak, and Ihadheard Madison talking about the dead bodies at the bottom of the lake. In that moment, it really did seem to be Sadie’s body. Her face. Her hair. But then it disappeared. Which means I was imagining it. Right?”
She leans a shoulder against mine. “You might not have seen parts of the boat yet, but that’s what you expected to find. Even if you were making excuses for how the trash got out there, you knew it could mean that the boat sunk. I wouldn’t say you hallucinated her. Just that you saw something from the boat, and you mistook it for her.”
I nod. “That’s why I wasn’t going to mention it. Even to Kit.”
“Because it seems to confirm the possibility no one wants to hear.”
“That Sadie’s dead. That she was on that boat when it went down.” I gaze out the windows across the room. “We’re pretending that’s not what happened, but it is. Someone set off small bombs in the kayaks and the canoe. They missed the paddleboard in the rafters. Then they set a larger one on the motorboat. I don’t think they meant for us to be killed. They were just cutting off our exits to scare the shit out of us. The motorboat was supposed to explode in the middle of the night. Except Sadie was on it.”
“Maybe.”
At the doubt in her voice, my shoulders sag with relief. “You think it’s possible shewasn’ton it. That they pushed the boat out into the lake, where the bomb went off, and she’s holed up safe on the island.”
“Maybe.” Jayla folds her hands on her knee, gazes away from me. “Or maybe I was right the first time.”
I pause to figure out what she means. “That Sadie’s behind it?”
She looks over. “Doesn’t that make more sense than her hiding in the boathouse because she’s angry?”
Yes, but that dominoes back to everything else that’s happened.Would Sadie blow up all of our boats to trap us here? I want to laugh at the idea—she’s not Kit’s movie-style ex, cursing the world because I don’t have a bunny to boil. She’s also not a demolitions expert.
But she could find someone who was and charm him into getting what she needed. And if she didn’t intend for anyone to get hurt? Just wreak havoc?
“Jimmy Morton?” Jayla murmurs. “Bianca Ramos?”
