*
Sometimes I think this island is a magnet for bad things, the center of it all. Like a black hole pulling us toward a fate we can’t prevent. And other times I think this island is the only thing keeping me sane, the only familiar thing I have left.
Or maybe it’s me that’s the black hole. And everyone around me can’t help but be swallowed up, drowned and trapped in my orbit. But I also know that there’s nothing I can do to change it. The island and I are the same.
I lead the way to Old Fisherman’s Cottage, Rose trailing behind me, then Gigi, and Bo bringing up the back. He wants to make sure Gigi doesn’t make a run for it.
The door is unlocked, and the interior is darker and damper and colder than Bo’s cottage. I flip on a light switch, but nothing happens. I walk across the living room, furnished with a single wood rocking chair and a burgundy upholstered ottoman that doesn’t match anything else in the room. I find a floor lamp, kneel down to plug it in, and it immediately blinks on.
But the light does little to brighten the appearance of the cottage.
“It’s only temporary,” Rose assures Gigi. But I’m not sure what Rose thinks will happen to change the current circumstances. Kidnapping Gigi from the boathouse will only make Davis and Lon more suspicious. They will assume one of the Swan sisters broke her out, and now they’ll be looking for her. And Rose and I will likely be their first suspects since both she and I were caught sneaking into the boathouse—and now I know why Rose was there. She was planning this all along.
“We’ll bring you wood for the fireplace,” I say to Gigi, but her eyes don’t lift from the floor. She’s staring at a corner of the living room rug, the edges frayed—probably chewed up by mice.
“And I’ll find you some new clothes,” Rose offers, looking down at Gigi’s stained shirt and jeans.
I tug at the only two windows in the cottage, seeing if they’ll slide up in their casings, but they don’t even budge—both are rusted shut. This cottage is much older than the one Bo is staying in. And these windows probably haven’t been opened in two decades. I walk back to the door, not wanting to be in the same room as Gigi any longer than I have to.
“You’re safe here,” I hear Rose tell her, and Bo steps through the doorway, shooting me a sideways glance. We both know what she really is, and I can tell Bo is itching to interrogate her.
“Can I have something to eat?” Gigi asks.
Rose nods. “Of course. We’ll bring you food too.” She has no idea who she has just invited to the island. “Try to get some rest, I’m sure you’re exhausted.”
Once Rose has stepped through the doorway, I shut the door and Bo drags over a warped wood board that had been stacked along the backside of the cottage. He jams it up under the doorknob, locking it in place.
“What are you doing?” Rose asks, making a move to grab the board. “She’s not a prisoner.”
“If you want me to hide her here, then this is how it has to be,” I explain.
“You don’t actually think she did anything wrong—that she’s one of them—do you?” Rose might not believe in the Swan sisters, but she knows that I do.
“You don’t have any reason to think she’s innocent,” I say. “So for now, she stays locked in there. At least it’s better than the boathouse.”
“Hardly,” Rose counters, but she crosses her arms and steps back from the door, reluctantly agreeing to our rules.
“Does Heath know what you did?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No. But I borrowed his parents’ boat, so I’ll probably have to tell him where I’ve been.”
“He can’t say anything to anyone about this.”
“He won’t.”
“And no one saw you take her?” Bo asks.
“It was dark, and Lon was completely passed out. He probably hasn’t even realized she’s gone yet.”
Again I’m struck by what a horrible idea this is. I’m not even sure if we’re hiding Gigi from Lon and Davis or if we’re holding her hostage just like they did. Whatever this is that we’re doing, I’m fairly certain it’s going to end catastrophically.
“Just be careful in town,” I say.
“I will.” And she presses her hands down deep into her coat pockets, as if she were fighting off a sudden chill. “Thank you,” she adds, just before she heads down the walkway back to the dock.
Bo and I look at each other once she’s out of sight. “Now what?” he asks.
*
Back at the house, I make two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for Gigi, wrap them in foil, then grab a blanket from the hall closet.
When I reach the door of Old Fisherman’s Cottage, the wood board has been removed and the door is slightly ajar. At first my heart jumps upward with panic—Gigi must have gotten out—but then I hear Bo’s voice inside. He went to collect logs to start a fire for her while I went to make food, and he’s returned before me.
I pause, listening to the crackling of flames in the fireplace.
“I know what you are,” I hear Bo say.
“Do you?” Gigi answers, her voice farther away, across the living room maybe, sitting in the only chair. I touch the doorknob with my fingers then pause. Maybe I owe him this: the chance to question her about his brother. So I wait before entering.
“You’re not Gigi Kline,” he says coolly, his voice measured and precise. “You’re something else.”
“And who told you that? Your girlfriend, Penny?”
I swallow down a jagged lump.
“Did you kill my brother?”
“Your brother?” Her voice changes, dips to an octave that is no longer Gigi’s but is Aurora’s. “You expect me to remember your brother, one boy from the thousands who’ve fallen in love with me?” She says it with a laugh, as if to fall in love is the first step toward death.
“It was last summer. June eleventh,” he tries, hoping this will jog her memory. But even if she did remember, she would never confess. Not to him.
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
I hear footsteps move across the room: Bo’s. And his voice is farther away now. “Did you drown anyone on June eleventh?”
“Hmm, let me think.” Her tone takes on an upswing, like she’s shifting between Gigi’s voice and Aurora’s, playing a game with Bo that he will lose. “Nope,” she finally concludes. “Pretty sure I took that day off. A girl gets tired with so many boys fawning over her.” I’m surprised she’s being so candid with him, even if her answers are still veiled by untruths. She must recognize that he’s not fooled by her little act. He sees right through Gigi Kline, even if he can’t actually see the thing inside her.
“I can make you tell me,” he says, his voice like a steel nail driving into wood, and I push open the door, unable to stay quiet any longer. Gigi isn’t sitting like I thought—she’s standing at the far wall beside one of the windows, leaning against it like she’s watching the ocean for a ship sailing into the harbor that might rescue her. And Bo is only a couple feet away, shoulders drawn back, hands halfway flexed at his sides like he’s about to reach forward and wrap them around her throat.