Page 89 of The Words We Lost

Joel

You couldn’t have seen anything because we agreed you were never at that bar tonight, remember? I know you want to help, but for Ingrid’s sake, your part in all this needs to be over.

She gripped her steering wheel, locked her elbows, and pressed her back as hard as she could against the seat to keep her scream locked inside.

Joel

I’m sorry.

But somehow, Joel’s apology only made her angrier. He wasn’t the person who should be saying sorry. Why did he have to be the fall guy for Hal’s sins?

As she watched Joel pull out of the marina, Cece shoved her phone back into her pocket where a familiar napkin brushed her knuckles. She pulled it out and studied Ryker’s number before checking the clock on her dash.

8:07 p.m.

If she left this lot now, she’d have time to go home, shower, and dress in something a tad more attractive than an old Seahawks sweatshirt. Ryker was cute—more than cute. He had wit and charisma and the very idea of standing him up went against every instinct she possessed. Except for one. The one that demanded she uncover whatever Hal was hiding that was worth more to him than his pride.

Okay,she thought. She’d make a compromise.If she forwent the shower and cute outfit for fifty more minutes of Hal-watching, then she’d simply text Ryker to meet her at a location closer to where she lived. If he felt even half the chemistry she did with him earlier, then he’d be willing to drive the forty minutes south to Port Townsend. For what was likely the first time in her life, she was willing to root for a hero she didn’t create from her own imagination.

With her headlights turned off, she coasted across the street into the quiet marina. She was deciding on her next steps when a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound plot twist wearing a red beanie skulked out of his apartment with his bulky jacket slung over his arm and a backpack slung over his right shoulder.

“I appreciate your timely cooperation, Captain,” Cece muttered to herself as she opened her car door.

Securing her hoodie over her curls once again, she watched him trudge across the marina and enter the coded gate where her uncle’s boat was docked. A boat Hal was suspended from using. What was he doing? A night of crabbing couldn’t possibly be worth the risk of being turned in for trespassing on a boat he was no longer authorized to captain. A boat that could easily be reported stolen, given his current employment status with the hotel.

Her plan began to come together in real time, one that didn’t involve Joel. Because as previously discussed, their main objectives were no longer the same.

First thing first: She needed to get on that boat.

She made a break for the loading dock. In her Hal-obsessed teenage years, she’d participated in at least a dozen crabbing ventures with Ingrid and her father, chalking it up to book research. But all that research would prove handy now. She knew his routine well. If Hal stopped to load the crates of crab pots at the dock, it would buy her enough time to get inside the boat’s cabin and check for clues on what he’d really been up to since Ingrid had been away.

As Hal trekked the length of the dock to the Campbell’s slip, she sprinted through the shadowed alley separating the warehouse and fish prep stations. She wouldn’t have long to crouch into position behind whatever fuel barrels or wooden crates lined the edge of the loading dock. But if Hal did what she hoped he’d do, once the cruiser was tied up and Hal was climbing off the boat to the crane to move the crates aboard the stern, she’d have close to ten minutes to hunt for clues.

But in reality, she wouldn’t even need half that time.

Thanks to the nosy days of her youth, she knew every hiding spot aboard her uncle’s cruiser, especially Hal’s favorite spot under the sofa compartment in the main cabin. It’s where he kept the Viking ax he never sailed without.

Seconds after the engine roared to life, Hal motored right toward her at the docks.Bingo, she’d been right. Whatever he was up to, his late-night crabbing sessions played a role in it all. Cece dashed across the paved loading dock for the tower of rusty barrels she’d been counting on. She waited for him to step down from the second-story control cockpit and tie up at the dock. Once the boat was secured, he took a quick pull from a familiar-looking flask, which fueled her suspicions all the more. What else was he hiding?

Unlike that fall night long ago when she cowered under that tugboat window, crying as she watched her friend’s childhood secrets unfold like the pages of a sad novel, tonight would not go down the same way. With the courage of her hero, Merrick, and the determination of her heroine, Ember, Cece crept onto the stern and into the unlocked cabin, careful to move with the tide under her feet. Keeping low, she darted to the sofa where Hal’s backpack and jacket lay sprawled across the cushions and dropped to her knees to avoid being seen through the large windows. She rummaged through the pockets of his jacket until she secured the folded piece of paper she’d seen him stash away earlier tonight. Inside the fold was a long sequence of numbers—too long for a phone number or even a combination code for a safe. She examined it closer until the puzzle clicked into place.

These were coordinates, much like the ones Cece had memorized and tattooed with her friends, only they weren’t for Port Townsend.

Hal was headed much farther south.

She heard the crane engine rumble to life as she shoved the paper into her own pocket and then unzipped the backpack, dumping the contents onto the sofa without care. There wasn’t enough time to care. A deluge of supplies fell out—water bottles, wallet, snacks, an extra shirt. Nothing of interest.

The boat pulled hard to the right, knocking her onto the floor as the first crab cage dropped onto the bow. Hal only ever hauled four crates filled with crab pots at one time. She needed to get moving. If there was something more to find on this boat, something that explained where Hal was going with those coordinates and why, then she intended to find it before he found her. Sickness rolled through her as she swiped Hal’s belongings off the sofa and heaved the edge of the cushion upward to reveal a hidden compartment underneath.

Inside was nothing but Hal’s battle-ax chest, a few spare bumpers, cables, and a collection of lifejackets. She plunged her hand to the bottom until she felt the cool fiberglass against her fingertips. There was nothing else.

One by one she tore through every other compartment in the vicinity of the main cabin, opening and closing each drawer and cabinet inside the galley before she raced to the wardrobe in the bunk room below and pulled it open. Apart from a yellow rain slicker, it was empty. As were the drawers below it.

Another crate hit the deck and she was tossed into the bedpost. She collapsed to her knees and hurried to slide the brass lock open under the bunkbed mattress frame.

Another crate dropped.

A deflated orange life raft met her gaze, but this time when she pushed it aside to plunge her hand into the depths of the compartment, her fingers didn’t have far to go. She chucked the raft out of the way and uncovered what had to be a thousand sealed, clear bags of white pills.

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