Page 20 of The Engagement Party

Alex

Cut off on an island. Bad weather looming. A hidden dead body. Phones useless. No way to call for help. The combination played on repeat in Alex’s head. He took the pieces apart and put them together again and still the journey from his regular life to now didn’t line up. He worked. He made dinner. Read to Zara. Took out the trash. All normal. This convoluted mess of old secrets and new death? Almost too unbelievable to be real.

He had to find a way through this for Zara. Being her dad grounded him. Gave him purpose. One look at that little scrunched up, ticked off face when she was born, and he fell. He hadn’t known it was possible to love that much. He’d give up anything for her. People threw that kind of language around, but he lived it by slowly surrendering who he was and what he wanted from life to ensure her security.

He needed off this island and waiting for low tide so they could use the causeway would take too long. That meant finding a boat or a working phone or staying awake and taking the risk of swimming away at first light. With morning still hours away, he focused on what he could accomplish right now. “We need to search the house.”

“We’re all going to go hunt down a killer who has a vendetta against Mitch?” Will asked.

Mitch leaned against the back of the sectional and stared at everyone huddled in the kitchen. “Thanks, man.”

Alex fought for patience. Losing it now would send the room into a tailspin and they didn’t have time for that sort of emotional baggage unloading. “We’re looking for the jamming device. Find it and destroy it. That’s the plan.”

“Three of you already searched the house,” Sierra said.

“Not for any sort of device.” Will tapped on his phone then froze before dumping the useless thing on the counter. “Since I can’t exactly look it up, what would this jamming thing look like?”

“Some are handheld and sort of look like a phone or a walkie-talkie.” Cassie used her hands to show the size as she talked. “Some are bigger, like a box with a bunch of antennas sticking out of them. Just look for anything suspicious or out of the ordinary.”

Alex saw the skeptical expressions and tried to head off further discussion by keeping them all moving. “We’ll split up and meet back here in a half hour. Call out if you find anything or have trouble.”

Sierra frowned. “This is how people in horror movies die.”

“Sitting around doing nothing is how they die,” Mitch said.

Ruthie let out a groan. “Could we stop using the worddie?”

That sounded like good advice, so Alex jumped over all the tension and anxiety and stuck to issuing orders. “There are three floors. Each couple takes one. No one is alone. Okay?”

“I’m not going upstairs and risk getting trapped up there.” Ruthie grabbed Will’s hand and pulled him closer to the kitchen sink as she made that pronouncement.

Alex decided not to argue. “Fine. We’ll take the bedrooms and do a loop around the immediate outside of the house. Not the island, just a ring around it to check windows and such. Everyone be careful and quick.”

Cassie’s natural tendency was to handle this sort of thing—to manipulate and mold everything just how she wanted it—but she wasn’t operating at full speed right now. The mini showdown with Ruthie had resulted in uncharacteristic silence. Quiet meant plotting and Alex planned to ask her about that when they were alone.

Mitch looked at Sierra as he gestured toward the stairs. “I guess we get the third floor.”

Five minutes later they’d spread out to their assigned search areas. Cassie didn’t say a word as she checked the desk and area around it on the second-floor landing. She opened drawers and got on the floor to look at the underside of the furniture, shifting and moving without taking breath.

She stepped into the first bedroom and flicked on the overhead light to reveal an untouched space. Alex stared at the queen-sized bed and Shaker furniture and wondered if they were wasting time.

“I hate this.” Cassie didn’t break stride as she looked behind the photos of Nantucket hanging on the wall. “I want to go home. I actually miss taking Zara to tumbling class.”

Finally. They’d been together a long time. Long enough for Alex to know his wife needed a few minutes to think through every angle of a problem before she could talk, and he’d been waiting.

Alex shut the door with a soft click. “What the hell is going on?”

She tossed the throw pillows off the bed and started strippingdown the sheets. “How would I know? I’ve never met this Tyler guy.”

Tension, panic—something—had her wound tight. Did she really think whatever was happening on this island related only to Mitch and not to graduation weekend? “Cas, come on.”

Her arms fell to her sides. She looked as if all the energy had drained out of her. “Don’t.”

He didn’t have to spell it out. The shake in her voice signaled that she knew what had him worried. “It’s too much of a coincidence, Cas. What if someone figured out what really happened? What we did back then?”

“We?”

Neither of them moved for a few seconds. He was about to reach for her when she turned to him with that determined expression that warned him of the fight to come.

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