Page 63 of Dead of Summer
Orla looks on in disbelief as he reaches his hand toward Faith.
But Faith is staring at David as though they’ve never met. “Henry Wright brought me here. Turns out he’s not the villain in all this. But you know that already, don’t you? That poor man. All this time I thought you were protecting your father but you’re in on it all too. How many girls have you recruited for him? Was it just Gemma and Alice or were there more?”
“You have to give me a chance to explain. Because what you are suggesting is just wrong.” David’s voice rises sharply. He takes a step toward her. The floor creaks dangerously. “The girl, Gemma, she needed help. Please, I need you to believe me.”
“You’re right, she did need help.” Faith’s lip quivers. She stands there a moment looking between them all, trying to decide what to do. Her shoulders finally drop and she stretches her hand toward him.
“Thank you,” he breathes. “I promise I can explain everything.”
But as David starts toward her, Faith moves to the side of him and it becomes clear it isn’t his hand she is reaching for. Alice steps around David and her fingers entwine with Faith’s.
“Elena,” Faith breathes, pulling her into an embrace. “I was so worried.”
Orla watches from the corner of the room, stunned. “You two are friends?”
“Best friends,” Alice says, giving her a sly smile. Orla draws back, wounded. How could those words hurt her still? Like she was fifteen again.
David’s lips part at Faith in outrage. “You little traitorous bitch. After all I did for you,” he sputters, turning to Alice. “Andyou, you didn’t even know how good you had it. I’m going to bury you for good this time.”
David begins to stomp toward the door. He has almost reached Orla when a violent crack rattles the floor. He wobbles for a moment, his face contorting in a spectrum of shock and disbelief as the floor begins to splinter below him. David looks at Orla and his mouth opens in surprise. Everything has always gone his way until now. There was nothing his father couldn’t fix. Except this.
A scream rips from Orla’s throat as the floor gives way, crumbling below them. There is a deafening crack followed by a burst of dust as the center of the house collapses and swallows them up.
FAITH
Faith shines the light from her phone into the empty space where only seconds before David and Orla had stood, but it can’t penetrate the tangle of debris and boards below.
“David? Orla?” Elena calls out into the chasm. There is no reply, only the creaks and moans of the house settling.
“I’m Alice Gallo,” Elena had admitted to Faith finally, the week before the engagement. She had told her the whole story the moment she’d found out about Gemma’s disappearance, explaining how Geoffrey’s men had searched until they found Alice, alone in the dark treading water. “I think they wished I had died. It would have been so much less messy. So much cheaper.”
They took her back to the yacht, where Geoffrey had held her against her will until Alice signed the NDA. The payment would be enough to keep her very comfortable in the city she’d always wanted to live in. Her only stipulation was that her mother be able to come too. “She’d been through so much with my dad, I could never have let her think I was dead.”
After a respectable amount of time had passed, her mother followed her to the city, and the two of them severed all ties to the island. “But I could never fully move on. Of course I couldn’t. You can never truly escape the place you came from. Especially when your new friend starts dating the son of your kidnapper.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about David?” Faith had said, hurt.
“I signed an NDA, remember? What if you had lived happily ever after? I couldn’t risk blowing up my entire life. And my mother’s.” She paused. “And I was curious, I suppose. I wanted David to have grown up, to have changed.”
“It would seem he didn’t,” Faith said bitterly, still processing the information.
“No. He is still his father’s son. He never changed like he wanted to.”
Faith had begun to panic once she heard what he was capable of.
“I’m all alone here. And Geoffrey knows that I know something. I’m sure of it. He’s been dropping hints.”
There had been a long pause on the other side. “You’re not alone. I’m here. I thought if I could keep a close enough eye on you—” She’d broken off. “I’ve been staying in the house.”
Faith was stunned. “The abandoned one? You’ve been there all alone?”
“I wanted to be close, in case something happened. But listen to me, Faith. You should leave now. Go back to New York on the next ferry. You can forget this whole thing ever happened. I’m sorry. I didn’t want you involved in all this. It wasn’t fair of me.”
“No,” Faith had said, surprising herself. “I need to stay and find Gemma. I could never forgive myself if something happened to her now after everything I know.”
“I’ll help you,” Elena had said right away, and they’d spent the next hours carefully devising a plan.
“What if David sees you, or Geoffrey?” Faith had asked right before they hung up. Elena, now Alice, had snorted derisively. “I might be the only person on the planet who is not afraid of Geoffrey Clarke.”
