Page 39 of The Engagement Party

He turned his head without thinking, hoping to get a good look at her face, but the surge of pain stopped him.

She sighed. “You’re going to do real damage if you don’t stay still.”

She had to understand how dire the situation was, right? “Jake cutting off contact. The revenge. Emily. All of it goes back to that night.”

She hated talking about graduation. She claimed it only took a few words to mentally take her back to that place. Thewe were too young to know betterexcuse, already dubious as college students, lost all potency as time ticked by. Shock, confusion, alcohol might explain the immediate aftermath but not the ongoing lies needed for the cover-up.

Hell, he’d tried for more than a decade to block out the images. Nothing worked. Not sex or work. Not Zara or exercise. The memory would recede, slip into a dark corner, and sit there so long as he didn’t poke at it. But then, without warning, it pounced. Crept up and played in such vivid color in his mind that he felt twenty-one and helpless again.

“I still think Ruthie is the director of this horror show.” Cassie sounded firm.

But he knew his wife. They’d been together long enough that he could read her tells. The way her gaze shifted slightly to the left and her voice deepened but lacked emotion. She was trying to convince him, maybe convince herself, about a line she didn’t quite believe.

“Where would Ruthie fit in?” He wanted to be careful with the words he chose because he’d picked up on Cassie’s underlying distrust of Ruthie. The whole house had because Cassie didn’t hide it. “Emily had brothers and we’ve watched them. From afar, sure, but the one on the West Coast doesn’t seem to be looking for revenge for his dead sister. Same with the onein North Carolina, who just got married. Emily’s family thinks Brendan killed her. Most people do.”

“Okay, but—”

“Jake knows the truth.” They couldn’t outtalk or outrun that fact.

“I need to think.” Cassie stood up again. With a hand on her head and her mind clearly elsewhere, she walked around in a circle.

“If he’s on this island—”

She stopped and did that thing where she held up a hand in front of him. “Don’t.”

Alex couldn’t back away from this topic. Not this time. “If he’s here, he’s looking to take us all down. We need to be ready.”

“How?”

Even without the head injury Alex had no idea. He tried to come up with something—anything—then he heard a shrieking sound. High-pitched and loud enough to carry over the storm.

He glanced at Cassie again. “That was a scream.”

Chapter Thirty

Ruthie

So much blood. Ruthie stopped screaming when Will put an arm around her. She could hear the noise and feel it vibrate through her, but until his touch she’d blamed the screeching sound on the wind.

“It’s okay. There’s an explanation,” he said.

She almost lashed out at her useless fiancé and his useless platitudes. She might have if she hadn’t seen Sierra’s face. All of the color drained from her cheeks, leaving her ghostly pale in the flashlight’s beam. Then Sierra bent over. Her body shook and bucked as she gagged. Mitch rubbed her back while scanning the area, likely readying for the next attack. Ruthie turned away because seeing someone else lose it like that would set her off.

The acrid smell wiped out the scent of rain. Ruthie held a hand to her nose as she stepped back. Will’s body blocked her. He stood right where she planned to run.

“Is that from an animal?” Will asked.

Ruthie’s mind had jumped to a much darker place. She grabbed on to his hopefulness now.Please let it be an animal.

“I can’t see a damn thing.” Mitch reached up and pulled on the cord hanging in the open doorway of the shed.

Will scoffed. “That’s not going to—”

Fluorescent lights buzzed to life, highlighting the blood puddled at the doorway and streaked across the shed floor.

The unexpected blast had them all blinking. Ruthie glanced back at the house. No lights there or anywhere else on the property. Just the shed.

“Wait, did a breaker blow? Is that why these are on here but not elsewhere?” Such a simple answer. Why had none of them thought of that? They hadn’t even checked. The tension had them flailing and skipping over reasonable explanations in search of dangerous ones.

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