Everafter

  “Well, it’s probably safer,” Bryan observed. “The currents at Lighthouse Beach are pretty wicked. Did you know people drown there?”

  “Really?” Ivy replied.

  He laughed.

  “You know that, Ivy,” Kelsey said. “That’s where Luke almost died.”

  “Almost,” Bryan echoed.

  Ivy hated these verbal games. She turned away, watching Max open and close compartments as he prepared to cast off. There were a lot of places to hide things, and all Bryan would have needed was a place to stow a syringe and a fresh change of clothes, in case his own got bloody. In one of the boat compartments, a pair of knives and a heavy wrench glinted among other useful tools. There was plenty of rope for tying someone up. The long pole on the floor would be handy for pushing a body away from the boat. Cleanup would be easy, and expected after an ocean outing, the dock hoses right there. In fact, Ivy began to wonder why all premeditated murders didn’t occur on boats.

  “Planning to get yourself one?” Bryan asked Ivy, and shot her a false smile.

  She turned her attention back to Max’s preparations. He was checking the weather radar. “How’s it look, Captain?”

  “Good for now,” Max replied. “But we’ll have to keep an eye out for squalls.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Finally! Here comes Dhanya.”

  Bryan turned around. “And Chase. You invited him?”

  “I invited Dhanya,” Max replied with a shrug.

  Kelsey grimaced. “I hope Chase is feeling better. If he gets seasick, I’m throwing him over.”

  “Allow me,” Bryan said, with a sly look at Ivy. “I’m good at it.”

  Ivy ignored the remark. Although she feared Bryan, as long as she didn’t let him separate her from the crowd, she’d be safe on this trip. The greater danger now, the threat to all of them, was the guy following Dhanya down the planks.

  How much control did Gregory have over Chase? If Gregory demanded from his host something insane or violent, would Chase have the inner strength to refuse?

  Chase was quiet as he stepped onboard, his face expressionless, his mouth almost slack beneath contoured sunglasses that hugged his cheekbones. When Ivy asked him how he was feeling, he answered with just one word, “fine,” then turned away.

  Dhanya and he chose two of the luxurious leather seats behind the cockpit. Bryan took Kelsey’s hand and pulled her toward the front of the speedboat. The windshield and console could be opened in the center, and the V-shaped area in front of the cockpit had padded leather benches where guests could enjoy plenty of sea spray when the boat was moving. For the next fifteen minutes, with Max standing at the helm and Ivy in the seat across from him, they roared through the channel. Then Max cut the engine and eased his craft into the shallow water near the end of South Beach, where they moored with five other boats.

  While Max dropped anchor, a water taxi puttered in and left off a handful of visitors. Three families beached on the west side by their boats. Others spread their blankets close to the ocean on the east side, which was a short walk via a path through the dunes. With Bryan carrying the ice chest on his shoulder, the six of them hiked to the ocean side.

  Kelsey dropped her towel and bag and ran for the water. Bryan was just a few steps behind. Ivy, Dhanya, and Max set up camp, spreading blankets and anchoring them with their boat shoes. Chase stood apart from them all, surveying the area. Finally settling on the beach blanket next to Dhanya, he lay back without saying a word. Ivy saw Dhanya look at him uncertainly, then take out a book to read.

  “Want to go for a walk?” Max asked Ivy. “The tide’s low. Good time to look for shells.”

  Ivy was reluctant to leave Dhanya with Chase. She was also watching the horseplay between Kelsey and Bryan in the surf. Every time Kelsey stayed underwater for more than five seconds, Ivy held her breath.

  “I don’t feel like walking far,” she said.

  “I’m always happy to be lazy,” Max replied.

  He was always happy to do what anybody wanted.

  “Can I tag along?” Dhanya asked. “Do you mind, Chase?”

  Chase’s response was to silently remove his T-shirt and sunglasses and lie back again on his towel. He draped the shirt over his face, shielding it from the sun—and them. Ivy studied him. Was this just Chase acting passive-aggressive? Or was Chase being muzzled while Gregory gathered his strength?

  For the next half hour Ivy, Dhanya, and Max scoured the ocean’s edge. Max reminded Ivy of Philip—maybe it was a guy thing—turning over dead horseshoe crabs and picking up anything slimy. Dhanya collected shiny stones, and Ivy a pile of shells. She told Max about the clam chowder they had made.

  Max grinned. “When I was little, I told my dad I wanted to be a clammer.”

  Dhanya glanced up and giggled. “What did he say?”

  “Great. But first I had to learn about retail clothing.”

  “If you could do anything you wanted, Max,” Ivy said, “and live anywhere you liked, what would you choose?”

  He didn’t have to think long. “I’d live in New Orleans and go to jazz clubs every night.”

  Ivy looked at him, surprised. “Great! I’d come visit you.” They talked for a long time about jazz, and Dhanya demonstrated the challenge of dancing to a syncopated rhythm. When she tried to teach Max a series of jazz steps, Ivy watched and applauded. For a while she was able to distance herself from the danger hovering nearby, then she glanced over her shoulder.

  She had seen Kelsey and Bryan come out of the water, but they were gone now from the beach. Ivy stood up quickly.

  “Everything okay?” Max asked.

  “I think so. Did anyone see where Kelsey went?”

  “Wherever Bryan went,” Dhanya answered innocently.

  Ivy started toward their blankets, her eyes sweeping the beach and water. Dhanya and Max followed.

  “Chase, do you know where Kelsey and Bryan are?” Ivy asked.

  He didn’t respond.

  Dhanya knelt next to him. “Chase?” She reached as if she was going to nudge him awake.

  Ivy caught Dhanya’s hand in midair. “I—I’d let him be,” Ivy said, worried about how Gregory would react if caught off guard.

  Dhanya studied him for a moment. “You’re probably right. He’s been a little . . . irritable.”

  Ivy, Dhanya, and Max played cards, with Ivy the first one out of every game, her concentration lost to watchfulness as she kept one eye out for Bryan and Kelsey and the other on Chase. After the third game, Max glanced at the sky, then walked back to the path between the dunes. He returned quickly.

  “There’s weather coming in from the west,” he told them. “We should get back.”

  “What about Kelsey and Bryan?” Ivy asked.

  Max stared up the beach, hands on his hips, frowning. The people thirty yards away from them were calling to their children and collecting their pails and shovels.

  “Chase?” Dhanya said. “Come on, sleepyhead.” When he didn’t respond, she laid her hand on his arm.

  Chase pulled away from her and turned over on his stomach, his face still hidden.

  Max was losing patience. “We have to get moving. I don’t want to be boating through a storm. Chase, wake up!” Max reached down and pulled the shirt off Chase’s head.

  Chase’s eyes flew open and he sat up. His face was calm and his motion deliberate, but when Ivy looked into his gray eyes, she felt as if she was seeing the gathering storm.

  “Do you know where Kelsey and Bryan are?” Max asked Chase.

  “They came in from the water,” Chase said, his voice a dark monotone, “picked up some beers, then went that direction.” He pointed north.

  “Max, why don’t you get the coolers and stuff to the boat,” Ivy suggested. “I’ll run up the beach.”

  “Let Chase—” Max began.

  “I’m faster.”

  With the strange, slow way Chase was reacting—only his eyes moving, searching the sky in the west—Ivy didn’t have to conv
ince Max further.

  “Stay with Max,” Ivy said to Dhanya. “Do whatever Max says.” Ivy took off.

  After the first three minutes of running, she wished she had a watch with her. Distances were deceiving at the beach when there were no landmarks, just mile after mile of sand. Running in sand was exhausting, and she couldn’t judge how far she’d gone by her body’s tiredness. She turned back once and saw a family standing in pairs. She turned back a second time and there was no one, but whether those people had left or she had run beyond their visibility, she wasn’t sure.

  Bryan wouldn’t hurt Kelsey, she told herself, pausing to catch her breath. He was too smart to shift the police’s attention from Luke to him. As long as he kept his emotions under control, as long as he wasn’t drunk and Kelsey didn’t tease too hard . . . Ivy continued running.

  She strained her eyes to see ahead. There was still blue sky to the east, but the sparkling Atlantic had dulled to a glimmer. Stopping again, she realized the ocean breeze had disappeared and the wind was coming in stronger over the dunes. Ivy had no desire to stand alone in the middle of a beach during a thunderstorm. She turned back, running, hoping that Bryan and Kelsey had crossed the dunes and walked back along the other side.

  When she finally reached Max, she shook her head, then leaned over, hands on her knees, breathing hard. “How soon?” she asked. “How soon till we’re safer staying here?”

  The other boats had pulled up anchor. Ivy watched the distinctive red and white of the water taxi shrinking to a dot as it hurried its passengers back to the marina. The clouds in the west were like a gray ocean, each wave rolling higher, trying to lick as high as the sun. Chase stood at the edge of the water, gazing toward the storm, Dhanya halfway between him and Max.

  “Here they come. Come on! Move it!” Max hollered to Kelsey and Bryan.

  As Ivy had hoped, they were returning by the west side of the dunes. They took their time. She let Max run to them and prod while she waded to the boat with Chase and Dhanya.

  The clouds had blotted out the sun, and the water suddenly felt colder. Ivy saw the goose bumps on Dhanya’s wet arms as they splashed their way to the boat. As soon as Ivy boarded, she started opening compartments, looking for life vests.

  She handed one to Dhanya, then Chase, who stood there, dangling it by his side. “Put it on,” Ivy ordered as she slipped her own arms through one and fastened the clasp. Dhanya did, but Chase simply stood there looking over the side of the boat at the water slapping against it.

  As soon as Kelsey climbed onboard, Ivy handed her a vest.

  “I can swim.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Ivy saw a vicious streak of lightning over North Monomoy.

  Chase murmured something. Ivy handed Bryan a vest.

  “Looking out for me?” he asked, sounding amused.

  “As you know,” Ivy snapped, “people who are knocked unconscious and fall overboard usually drown.”

  He laughed, and Ivy smelled the alcohol on his breath. She quickly turned to Max, who had slipped his arms through the vest she had tossed to him.

  “Everyone sit down and hold on,” he said.

  Ivy fastened Max’s vest for him while he started the engine. Kelsey and Bryan pushed past her to sit in the speedboat’s open bow.

  “No,” Max barked at them. “Stay behind me for this ride.”

  “Oh, issit going to be exciting?” Kelsey asked, slurring her words.

  “A little too exciting,” he said, and flicked his head toward the stern of the boat.

  But Kelsey and Bryan didn’t move. Ivy felt the first drops of rain on her shoulders. Max’s hand hovered over the throttle.

  “Give me five seconds,” she said to Max, and moved forward, picking up the life vest Kelsey had tossed onto the boat floor, then reaching for one of Kelsey’s arms and forcing it through the hole. Kelsey laughed and lay back as limp as a rag doll. They didn’t have time for games. Ivy yanked the vest around her back, then shoved her other arm through.

  Bryan watched, grinning. “Me next?”

  “No, you can handle it. Come on, Kelsey, let’s sit with Dhanya.”

  “I sip wi’ Dhanya al’time.”

  Ivy tried to pull her roommate to her feet, but she was dead weight.

  Chase stood up, watching these events with interest, and moved forward to stand on the passenger side of the cockpit.

  “I’ve got to start, Ivy,” Max said, raising his voice above the wind and the marine radio. It crackled with squall warnings. “Come on back.”

  “In a sec.” Ivy fastened Kelsey’s life vest, then grabbed hold of the windshield, lurching through the cockpit divide as the boat moved forward in the rough water. Dropping down in the seat next to Dhanya, facing the stern, she watched the turgid green and gray wake spume out behind the boat.

  Chase was talking to Max, but as the wind picked up, most of his words were blown away. “Go faster,” Ivy heard Chase shout. She turned around, hugging the seat, trying to see what was ahead.

  “Faster!”

  “Can’t,” Max shouted back. “We’re already bucking.”

  Ivy saw a channel marker go by. The frenzied waves grew higher. The boat rode each peak coming at it, pitching its nose upward, then smacking down.

  “Rid’em cowboy!” Bryan shouted.

  “Yee-haw!” Kelsey started to stand up, then fell over on Bryan, laughing wildly.

  “Stay down, Kelsey!” Ivy cried.

  Lightning forked, ripping a seam in the sky.

  “Please, Max, go faster,” Dhanya begged.

  “Have to hold a steady course.”

  “Not even fifty knots,” Chase complained. “Let me drive.”

  “And flip us over?” Standing at the wheel, Max somehow kept his balance and forged ahead. Ivy wondered how he could see where he was going. Angels, guide him, she prayed.

  Rain blew sideways. A wave broke over the side and washed backward to the stern.

  Kelsey shrieked with laughter.

  “Everybody okay?” Max shouted.

  “We’re fine,” Ivy called back, trying to sound calm as thunder pounded and rolled over other volleys of thunder. But more than the lightning and water, it was the darkness that scared her, the speed with which an ember of late afternoon could be plunged into a black vortex. It felt demonic.

  Clinging to the back of her seat, she watched Chase. Had Gregory suddenly amassed that kind of power? But it didn’t matter whether he had stirred up the storm. Once before, Gregory had created a single bolt of lightning. When the moment was right, he would strike again, killing them all.

  How could she stop him? If she dove overboard, would he pursue her and leave the others alone? Ivy pushed up from her seat. But a half second too late she saw that she had guessed the wrong plan. Chase grabbed Max’s arm with unnatural strength and turned the wheel. Stretching across Max, he shoved the throttle all the way down.

  The boat jerked and climbed a wave at an impossible angle. It hung up there as if snagged on a jagged piece of lightning, then began to roll. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion: Kelsey screaming, Dhanya sliding past Ivy’s hands, moments of being suspended in midair, shielded from the rain by the frame of the boat, then falling into the hungry sea.

  The sea and its terrible darkness—Ivy couldn’t see, couldn’t move, couldn’t fight her way to the surface. She felt the heavy water swirling around her and struggled to find her way up.

  I’m under the boat—trapped beneath, she realized. She pushed off with her feet, then kicked and pulled with her arms, swimming sideways, not up, holding the last gasp of oxygen in her lungs until it was unbearable. Angels!

  Lighter—it was lighter over there. She swam for the gray area. Surfacing, she opened her mouth to drink up air. Rain poured down her face.

  “Who’s there?” Ivy cried out. “Anyone?”

  “Here!”

  It was Dhanya, floating in her life vest, several feet away. Wh
ite foam hissed down the sides of the waves between them. Ivy swam toward her.

  “Dhanya? Ivy?” Max called out.

  “Over here!”

  “Keep together!” he shouted.

  “Help me! Somebody help me! I can’t hold him.”

  “Kelsey!” Ivy called back to her.

  The sea’s sickening heave continually shifted her horizon. Then she saw Kelsey struggling to hold on to Bryan, who was slumped in her arms, unconscious. Ivy swam to her. It took forever, the waves pushing her back. “Put one arm around me, so we can keep him between us,” Ivy said.

  “Where’s Chase?” Max shouted.

  “Chase!” Dhanya cried out. “Oh God, he’s gone.”

  “Stay with Ivy,” Max ordered her, then took off swimming, stopping every few feet to call Chase’s name. “Found him!” he yelled at last.

  Ivy couldn’t see either guy. With the rough seas, it was all the three girls could do to keep Bryan’s head above water.

  “Turn him on his back,” Ivy said, “so his body will float.”

  They did, and Ivy gasped. There was a long, bloody gash on Bryan’s temple. His green eyes were wide open, his mouth slack, his body limp. He’s dead, she thought. A queer feeling passed over her—horror but relief. Bryan was dead.

  Then his body convulsed and he started spitting up seawater.

  “Hold tight!” Kelsey begged the others.

  Bryan coughed in violent spasms. When his body finally grew quiet again, he closed his eyes. The second time he opened them, it was still raining, but the worst of the storm had passed. Max had towed Chase, semiconscious to where the others were floating and holding on to one another, half in shock.

  Suddenly, Bryan pushed away from them. Treading water, he grinned, as if glorying in the strength of his arms and legs. He raised one fist above the sea. “Alive!” he shouted, then threw back his head and laughed up at the stormy heavens.

  “Bryan, stay close,” Max warned.

  “Yes, Captain,” Bryan replied cheerfully, and swam close to Ivy. Holding on to her life vest, he whispered in her ear, “Vengeance is mine.”

  Nine

  AUNT CINDY STRODE TOWARD THEM. “MY HAIR’S going to be snow white by the end of this summer,” she said, pushing back a swath of it that showed just a few silver strands. She looked from Ivy to Kelsey to Dhanya, who were sitting three abreast in the ER waiting room. Beth and Will had rushed in behind her.