Page 54 of Dead of Summer
“Really? Well, his friends certainly are. Maybe he’s just a fucking creepy middleman. But whatever it is, if he weren’t Geoffrey Clarke, he would have to pay for what he did to her.”
“Fuck you, Orla.” David spins back, his eyes flashing.
“Oh, big Clarke man anger coming out there,” Orla spits. “Can pretend to be so civilized, but you can’t hide from it, can you? Maybe Alice saw you for what you really were. Maybe that’s why she wanted to leave.”
“I never wanted to be like him. You know that,” David says. “I always thought I would do something different. But it wasn’t that easy in the end.”
She ignores him. “I messed up. In so many ways. We should have helped her. We lied, and I feel like I will pay for it forever.” She thinks she sees a little boat out there, tossing around on the waves.
“What is your point?”
“I’m going to tell the police I lied.” She’d been turning it over in her mind since the night of David’s visit to her house.
“What would be the point of that?” He snorts.
“I can’t hurt Henry more than I already have. It’s messed up. He’s going to take the fall for another girl. But you probably knew that already, didn’t you?”
“No.” His hand clamps onto her wrist. “You can’t do that. I’ll ruin you.”
“How?” She laughs. “My career is shit. I see a dead girl everywhere.” She tugs away from him. “I’ll do whatever the fuck I want. Your father already ruined my life. Pathetic how you can’t even see that he’s ruined yours.”
“No, Orla. You won’t. You signed an NDA, remember?”
The NDA had arrived the morning after her betrayal. It was delivered personally by a lawyer who stood just inside her front door as she took the pages into her hands. Orla had looked at it queasily. It was a written promise not to divulge any of the details from the night of the party. But what did it matter anymore? Alice was gone. She’d signed it silently and handed it back, watching it disappear with the car down the drive, unsure of what she had done.
“None of it matters, don’t you understand?”
“You might not have anything to protect, but I do. I’m not aboutto let you go and fuck things up for me, you selfish—” His hand drops from her arm.
“What. The. Fuck?” A look of horror has transformed his face, dropping his jaw. David raises his hand and points past her shoulder.
Far past the beach to where the shore curves around. Orla follows the line of his finger down the shoreline. Just past the peak of Orla’s own house through a tangle of trees is Alice Gallo’s house, a light flickering in the upstairs window.
“What is happening?” He clutches his head with his hands, stunned.
Her heart thumps. Orla squints as it blinks in and out.Come over. Emergency.But before Orla can process it, David starts running toward Alice’s house.
HENRY
The gall of them to have a party after what happened.He hears Margie’s voice behind him. It slips in and out like a breeze. He grimaces into the dark. If he doesn’t turn around, he can pretend that the voice is real, that she is still there. He imagines what she’d say next.You remember last time?
“Of course. How could I forget?”
That day was frozen in time because it was the last day they ever had that way, the last time Margie and he had taken the boat into Hadley just for fun. They’d spent the afternoon wandering around Port Mary. Had stopped into the Salty Crab for a quick drink and to see Jean. It had been busy, it being the Fourth. Their last stop had been to the little fish store down on the pier, where they’d bought a whole pound of scallops. Back home, Henry had cooked while Margie nursed another glass of wine and watched the sun begin to set. When they finally sat down to dinner, it was nearly dark.
“Aren’t you going to look?” she’d asked, a glint in her eyes. She was in an unusually chipper mood.
“I thought you hated my spying,” he’d admonished playfully.
“It’s not really spying if it’s a party, is it? Besides, the whole island was invited. We could have gone if we’d really wanted to, I’m sure.”
He’d gone to the telescope. At some point during the time he was watching the Clarkes’ party, theOpheliahad pushed out into the open water, sitting between the Rock and the shore. It was close enough to see the men who had come on board.
Margie stood behind him. “What’s happening?” she asked eagerly.
“Give me that, I want a look.” She had playfully bumped Henry aside and lowered her eye to the lens.
“My god. Who are those men?”
