“Bo,” I hiss.
He doesn’t turn around right away. He stares at her, like maybe he’ll see a flicker of his brother in her eyes—of the moment right before he was killed. Gigi lifts a hand, smiling a little. “Poor boy,” she says in her smoothest, most condescending tone. “I can’t help you find your brother . . . but I can show you exactly what he felt.” Her fingers rise toward his face, her eyes piercing into his. “It won’t hurt, I promise. In fact, you’ll beg me for more.” The tips of her fingers are only an inch away, about to touch his cheekbone. “I can show you things your girlfriend, Penny, can’t. She’s too afraid to really love you.”
And just when her hand is almost to his jaw, he grabs her wrist, coiling his fingers around her skin. She winces slightly, and then he forces her arm away, where it falls to her side.
Her eyebrows rise in unison, and she glances over at me from across the room, like she wants to make sure I saw how close she was to making him hers. “I like the ones that play hard to get,” she says with a wink.
I drop the blanket and two sandwiches onto the small kitchen table with a thump then turn for the door. And Bo is suddenly right behind me.
“If you miss me, Bo,” she cajoles, smirking as she watches us leave, “you know where to find me.” But Bo slams the door shut then slides the board back into place.
“You were right,” he says. “She’s one of them.”
*
Bo and I walk the perimeter of the island like we’re surveying it, watchmen on duty, scanning the boundary for marauders—as if the Swan sisters were going to swim ashore by the thousands and take over our small island. I am on edge. Fidgety. Certain none of this will end well.
Gigi Kline is locked in the boathouse. People will be looking for her. Davis and Lon want her dead; the Sparrow police are trying to locate her and return her to her parents. And we are somehow right in the middle of it.
I’m still not entirely sure what we’re going to do with her.
“Do you want to come up to the house for dinner?” I ask Bo when the sun starts to set. We’ve spent most of our time in his cottage, alone, never in the main house.
He lifts his hat to brush a hand through his hair before placing it back on his head, lower this time, so it’s hard to see his eyes. “What about your mom?”
“She won’t mind. And it wasn’t really a request but a demand. I’m not about to leave you alone; you might decide to go for a swim again.” I say it with a grin, even though it’s not funny. He smirks, looking across the island to Old Fisherman’s Cottage, where Gigi is locked up. The wood board is still in place.
“All right,” he agrees.
I heat a can of tomato soup and make two grilled cheese sandwiches on the stove—a simple meal. There aren’t a lot of options anyway. I need to go into town for more supplies . . . eventually. But I’m not in a rush to leave the island.
We eat quickly, and then Bo follows me up the stairs. When we reach my bedroom, I can hear the fan blowing down the hall. Mom’s already in bed.
“Do you think your mom knows I’m here?” Bo asks once we’re inside my room.
“She knows. She senses when anyone is in the house or on the island.”
“What about Gigi?”
“I’m sure Mom knows she’s here too. But she won’t say anything. She hasn’t talked to anyone outside the island for a couple years. I don’t think she could muster the strength to call the cops about a missing girl even if she wanted to.”
“Is she like that because of your dad?”
I give a swift nod then sit down on the edge of the bed while he settles into the cushioned chair beside the window. “After he vanished three years ago, she sort of lost her mind.”
He nods understanding. “I’m sorry.”
A light rain has started to fall, sprinkling the glass and pattering against the roof. A chorus that soothes the eaves and sharp angles of the old house. “Apparently, love is the worst kind of madness.”
I go to the window and touch my palm to the glass. I can feel the coolness of the rain on the other side.
“Have you ever been in love before?” Bo braves to ask.
I look back at him, absorbing the drowsy slant of his eyes. “Once,” I confess, the four-letter word spilling out. It’s something I don’t like to talk about—with anyone.
“And?”
“It didn’t last. Circumstances beyond our control.”
“But you think about him still?” he asks.
“Only sometimes.”
“Are you afraid?”
“Of what?”
“To fall in love again?” His hands are resting on the arms of the chair, relaxed, but his gaze seems far more intent.
“No.” I swallow down the heartbeat climbing up inside my throat. Can he see what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling? That my heart is already pooling in my stomach, that my mind can hardly think of anything but him? That when we’re together, I almost believe nothing else matters? That maybe he could save me and I could save him? “I used to be afraid that I wouldn’t get another chance to.”
He stands up from the chair and walks to the window, pressing his shoulder against the wood frame, a hard line from his jaw up to his temple. “How did you know you were in love?”
His question makes my fingertips tingle with the need to touch his face, show him the feeling bursting from my seams. “It felt like sinking,” I say. I know it might be an odd way to describe it, considering the prevailing death in this town, but it’s how it comes out. “Like you’re drowning, but it doesn’t matter, because you don’t need air anymore, you just need the other person.”
His eyes flick to mine, searching them, looking to see if I’m drowning. And I am. The clock beside my bed ticks through the seconds; the rain keeps time.
“Penny,” he says softly, tilting his gaze on me. “I didn’t come here, to this town, expecting any of this.” He looks to the floor then back up again. “If I hadn’t met you, it probably would have been easier—less complicated. Maybe I would have left days ago.” I frown, and he clears his throat. His words break apart then reform. This is hard for him. “But now I know . . .” He lets out a breath, eyes looking through me—turned wild and unwavering. “I’m not leaving here without you. Even if it means I have to wait. I’ll wait. I’ll wait in this miserable place for as long as it takes. And if you want me to stay, then I’ll stay. I’ll fucking stay here forever if you ask me to.”
He shakes his head and opens his mouth like he’s going to continue, but I don’t let him. I take one swift step forward and crush my lips to his, pressing away his thoughts, his words. He tastes like a summer wind far away from here, like absolution, like a boy from a different life. Like we could make memories that belong only to us. Memories that have nothing to do with this place. A life, maybe. A real life.