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She bites her lip and turns away.
“But you were in a vulnerable place,” I say. “I knew that, and I gave you space when I should have pushed.”
“You let me walk away without demanding an explanation?” she says, her gaze locked on mine now. “You presumed you’d done something wrong? Or the other person just changed their mind about you? Suddenly didn’t want to be with you when that made zero sense?”
We aren’t talking about us anymore. Oh, we are, but we’re also talking about my marriage, and when I duck her gaze she sighs.
“You need to stop giving other people so much credit, Laney,” she says. “Stop presuming they left for a valid reason, and not because humans are fucked-up individuals who make stupid mistakes, and sometimes, you’re not the only one who’s hanging back, presuming if the other party doesn’t try to mend the rift, it’s because they don’t want it mended.”
I look at her. “I do want to mend our friendship. And if you’re referring to anything else…”
“It’s none of my damn business,” she says. “I agree.”
“As for Sadie, the point is not what she might have done ten years ago, but what she might have done now. Yes, she can be petty, even cruel, but what’s the point here? Staging those scenes to drive me away from Hemlock Island? That’s clever revenge, if I do say so myself. She thinks I ‘stole’ Kit, and so she steals what I have left from him? Brilliant. But blowing up my boats? Trapping me on the islandwithKit. That’s like a freaking romance plot.”
She snorts. “That’s one fucked-upplot… if it includes being trapped with your estranged BFF, your teenage niece, and the bastard who—” She clears her throat. “Not a romance plot.”
“True. But you get my point. If Sadie’s still angry with me, still wants Kit, why trap me with him and then hide?”
“That supposes she does still want Kit. Or that she thinks she has a hope in hell of getting him.” She glances at the window and then back to me. “They had a fight last night. Did you hear it?”
“I heard them in his room and got the hell away as fast as I could.”
She stares at me. “Did you think—? Wait, isthatwhy you didn’t want to go in and ask him about the gun? You thought they were in bed together? In your house?” She waves a hand. “Staying out of it. Point is that they argued. Has he mentioned it to you?”
I shake my head. “You?”
“Nope,” she says. “He hasn’t mentioned it to anyone. Because I get the feeling that if Sadie took her revenge last night, it wasn’t just about you.”
“Bomb,” Garrett says as he strides into the house. He doesn’t hold the door for Kit and Madison. He doesn’t even pause to make sure they lock it once everyone’s inside. He has his answer, and because it’s a logical one, nothing else matters. It’s as if we’re at a crime scene back home and not trapped on an island, possibly with a killer.
“Someone blew up the boats,” he continues as he walks to the liquor cabinet. “Asshole move, but what do you expect? They’re trying to scare you off. That poor Nate kid died, and they used his body in their sick scheme. Then they blew up the boats, and now Sadie is sulking somewhere, waiting for us to come coax her out. She pulled shit like this as a kid. I thought she’d outgrown it but…” He shrugs and pours a finger of whiskey.
There. Everything neatly tied up. Logical explanation. Nothingscary happening. Nothing at all. He just feels like downing a shot of hard liquor at nine in the morning, that’s all.
I look at Kit. He’s got his thousand-yard stare on. Ignoring Garrett and thinking it through, though I can’t mistake that look on his face, the one that tells me he’s not buying this story Garrett is so desperate to sell.
“That wasn’t a bomb,” Madison says.
Garrett wheels on her. To her credit—God, I love this kid—she stands firm and lifts her chin. “Tell me what kind of bomb does that?”
“How the hell should I know?” he says. “I’m not on the bomb squad. That’s obviously what it was. Only thing that makes sense.”
“Not to me.”
“Because you’re a kid.” He downs the whiskey. “Okay, we need to find Sadie. It’s a pain in the ass, but whoever set those bombs could still be on the island, and I might want to let Sadie sulk it off, but we can’t take the chance she’ll get hurt. We need search parties. Comb the island. Find her. Bring her in.”
Jayla and I look at each other.
“That’s presuming—” Jayla begins.
“What about the storm?” Madison says at the same time, having not noticed Jayla speaking. “And the fact we don’t have a boat? Or a phone? Or any way of getting help?”
“We’ll figure all that out later,” Garrett says. “After we find Sadie.”
Jayla looks at me.
“We need to be careful,” I say. “Really careful. Not only could someone be on the island, but it’s possible Sadie hasn’t come back because she’s hurt. Maybe she was near the bombs. She could have hit her head. She might be confused, frightened, not thinking straight. Even if we see her, we must be careful.”
