Page 19 of Wayward
I move closer to Easton.
“For a minute. We’re alive for a minute. You think the second Z gets whatever Zane knows out of him he isn’t going to kill every last one of us? They went to a lot of trouble to come and find Easton,” I say. And I still don’t get it. But then, maybe the elder Z was told we were alive, and he figured it was only a matter of time before someone found us. And he didn’t trust the pirates with the diamond or the kill. I’m not sure which, but I’m thinking it’s most likely the kill, as I’ve seen how much it is to fuel up a yacht like the Rosewood. Taking a ship like this halfway around the world? Fucking expensive. This isn’t something you do for the fun of it. There’s a really good reason.
“And the diamond,” Easton says.
“Right, the diamond.” Dante’s eyes are still focused on mine.
But Easton’s cupping something between his hands. Like a baby bird. A small crack in his hands, too small to see anything from a camera. “Though the diamond is just extra. They wanted me dead. That’s the big reward. It has to be. The bastard billionaire bending every detail to his will. And you know how he’s going to do it?”
Dante shakes his head at Easton. I’m pretending to have lost it, but there’s genius in the flash of Easton’s wild eyes. It draws me over to him. He’s not making sense. His head bows to his cupped hands again. And I look in. The Pink Phoenix is a dark speck?well, a frigging huge speck?inside his dark flipper hands.
“Fifty-fifty,” he says with a shrug and swipes his hand behind his back and then flutters both like some weirdo magician. “Nothing to see.”
How the heck did he swipe the diamond from Z? Or . . . did he find a way to separate the true diamond from the fake and take one back on the island when he dug it up with Haley? Damn.
“You live with a guy for a year and you think you know him. When did you learn the tricks? You know what, never mind.” Dante’s got the same look on his face that I do. He crosses the room to the porthole.
“You talk enough about the Russian. You must have seen things. Calvin’s right. It would have—” Easton says.
“We’ll never know now. And no, I didn’t see a lot of things working for the Russian. I worked hard not to. Stayed in the galley or my cabin. But what happened on the aft deck? That’s all you have to know. Maybe we’ll see Haley and Zane again before they drag us out back. I hope they shoot me before they drop us over the side.”
“Dante,” Sam growls, cocking his head at one of the microphones we know about.
“Fuck it. I’ve had it with note passing and finger painting. This is just like when I came back from the other side of the island and immediately told you all about the orchards and huts?” Lies you can understand, you dumb jock. I see him take in what I’m saying. Dante too. Because no, I don’t think we can take over the boat. And yes, I do think trying to overpower themis suicide. “So we go with Sam’s idea and join them.” We need to fight.
Dante’s eyes are slits. “You know, Green, I’ve never really liked you all that much.” And now I’m not sure if he’s acting or not. But I suppose it doesn’t matter. You can hate family. As long as he’s good to Haley and stays mostly out of my way, he can go on truly hating me or fake hating me. I don’t care which it is.
Easton’s looking over my shoulder like the answer’s going to come out of the ether. The door opens, and Haley’s shoved in. She stumbles a few feet and lands in my arms. Her eyes are clear blue, the color they get when she’s been crying. Though they’re not red and puffy. Her hair’s out of her ponytail. I help her up and scan the rest of her. Clothing intact, no marks on her skin.
“What the hell, Sassy? Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
We surround her.
“No.” Her lip quivers. There’s more to that no. I want to rip it out of her. Fuck that, I want to strangle Z and rip it out of him.
“Zane?” Sam asks.
“He’s okay.” But her tone says he might not be for long.
“What did he tell Z?”
“Honestly, not much more than he’d already said on the deck. There’s a passage about an Ed. Rocky wrote that he figured out the quarterly figures weren’t what they should have been. Enormous sums of money going in and out. Then there’s a passage about him hiring a second forensic accountant, one that no one in the company knew about. Another where he questions if this Ed caused the stock price to artificially inflate. That the company’s evaluation is off. But Rocky couldn’t pinpoint where. And his accountant was still working on it when they boarded the Rock Candy. There’s a line where he thought about postponing the wedding trip until he had answers. But Candy didn’t want to wait.”
“Did Candy know?” Easton asks.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure if it says. If it does, Zane didn’t translate that part.”
“Right.” Easton takes Haley’s hand.
“There’s more, but Zane didn’t give it to Z. Said he’d have to recreate the cipher key. That there are sections where the code is off. Like Rocky changed it enough to make it different. That there are more specifics about who was involved and why. But it seemed like Rocky was finding it out in real time in the diary. That he’d only really pieced together the last bits over the final few weeks before the trip. Zane also came out and told Z that he hadn’t translated the whole thing. That’s when Z got mad and had me brought back here.”
Chapter 9
Standing By
Easton
“Shit,” I say under my breath.
