Stranded With Her Ex

by Jill Sorenson

  “I’ll head up to the tower—”

  “You should stay here,” Sean said, cutting off Jason. “What if she comes back?”

  Jason frowned. “I want to search.”

  “We don’t want to miss a call from the Coast Guard,” Brent added. “If you’d rather go with Taryn, I can stay.”

  Jason deliberated for a moment. “Okay. I know the terrain better than you, anyway. I want everyone to remain alert, and be aware of your surroundings. We have to consider the possibility that Elizabeth is emotionally unstable. Dangerous, even.” He looked around the room, as if hoping someone would dispute the idea. No one did.

  Sean left his coffee on the table. “Let’s go.”

  Each team took a two-way radio, and Brent kept one on his belt. They left him alone in the house and stepped outside. The rain had begun to let up a little, but a group of dark clouds loomed on the horizon, promising more bad weather.

  Sean led Daniela down the craggy cliffs, toward the sea lion blind.

  They didn’t see any evidence of Elizabeth there. The concrete structure offered protection from the wind and rain, so it seemed a likely choice for someone needing shelter, but there were dozens of other places to hide.

  Every moment she stayed missing, the situation became more strained.

  They moved on, checking for footprints on Dead Man’s Beach. The surface was smooth and clean, a fresh, cool blanket of maize.

  “Where do you think she went?” she said, dragging the tip of her boot through the stiff upper layer of sand.

  He thrust his hands into his pockets, reluctant to answer.

  Daniela thought about the conversation she’d had with Elizabeth at the lighthouse tower, remembering her distraught expression and her frightening proximity to the cliffs. “I feel sorry for her.”

  “Don’t feel too sorry. I’d bet anything that she skinned the seal and rigged the railing. Not to mention sabotaging the engine.”

  “She’s not over her father’s death. Seeing that footage traumatized her.”

  He stared at the dark, stormy sea, pensive.

  “I don’t know what I’d do if you were attacked,” she murmured.

  An emotion she couldn’t identify flickered in his brown eyes. “I would never take an unnecessary risk.”

  “Not on purpose.”

  He only shook his head, falling silent. She knew he didn’t like to talk about death. The idea that he could suffer a fatal accident, and prompt her next nervous breakdown, was too painful to consider.

  She watched the waves roll in to the shore, heavy and ominous.

  “Maybe I should get another aumakua necklace.”

  She jerked her gaze back to his, surprised. It was the first time he’d made a reference to Natalie’s funeral.

  The ceremony had taken place less than a month after the accident, and she’d been a zombie, too weak to walk. Sean had wanted to carry her, but she’d refused his support, relying on a hospital wheelchair instead.

  She remembered watching him as he stood over the tiny coffin, paying his respects. At the nape of his neck, just above the collar of his dark suit, there was a simple leather cord. On it hung a fossilized shark tooth, known to many surfers as Hawaiian aumakua, or a protective spirit. He’d had the necklace since he was a boy and he never took it off.

  Until that day.

  Shoulders trembling with emotion, he’d torn the cord from his neck. After pressing his lips to the tooth, he’d knelt and placed it on the surface of the coffin.

  Tears filled her eyes at the memory.

  “I know you took her death harder than I did,” Sean said. “You cried more, and you grieved longer. It made me feel like I didn’t love her enough.” He touched the hollow of his throat reflexively. “But I did.”

  Her heart clenched with sorrow, and she closed her eyes, feeling the hot spill of tears down her cheeks. The rain began to fall in earnest, pelting the hood of her jacket and perforating the surface of the sand.

  He stepped forward, bringing her into the shelter of his arms, and she let him. She let him comfort her. Tucking her head against his chest, she clutched the front of his jacket and cried, absorbing his warmth and accepting his strength, hanging on to her man while the world came crashing down around them.

  At long last, she allowed herself to be protected by him.

  Then the radio at his waist crackled with distortion, interrupting the tender moment, and they broke apart.

  Cursing, Sean took the receiver off his belt and brought it to his ear, trying to hear over the sound of the deluge.

  “…check in.”

  It was Jason.

  He spoke into the receiver. “This is Sean. Can you repeat, over?”

  “I said I wanted everyone to check in.”

  Sean exchanged a glance with her. “No sign of Elizabeth here.”

  “Same on this side,” Jason said. “We’ve got nothing. I think we should head in. Brent, can you notify the authorities?”

  “Will do. Over.”

  After Sean signed off, they stared at each other for a long moment. She hadn’t felt this close to him since the accident. It shamed her to admit that she had no idea what he’d gone through. She’d been so caught up in her own grief, she couldn’t see his.

  Everything that had happened over the past few days was worth it, for this single instance. This simple conversation.

  “Thank you for telling me,” she said, her hands on his face.

  He smiled, pressing a kiss to her palm.

  Their ability to discuss Natalie, even briefly, didn’t make their child’s death any less of a tragedy. Even so, Daniela felt as though a crushing weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Her daughter was a real person, loved and lost, rather than a sad, dark secret.

  She wiped the tears from her cheeks, and they left the beach, hand in hand. All around them rain continued to fall, strong and steady, like the beating of a heart.

  They all arrived at the house around the same time.

  It was quiet inside, and the living room was deserted. Taryn ducked into the downstairs bathroom while Jason went upstairs, looking for Brent. Daniela frowned when she heard a sudden commotion.

  Footsteps pounded down the hall, and Jason called out for help.

  Sean ran up the stairs, taking two at a time. Pulse racing, Daniela followed him. At the end of the hallway, Brent was lying in a dark pool of his own blood. Jason crouched beside him, checking his pulse.

  “Oh my God,” Daniela said, her heart in her throat. “What do we do?”

  “Get Taryn,” Jason ordered. “She has EMT training.”

  Sean strode down the hall. “I’ll grab the first aid kit.”

  Daniela could see blood pumping from the wound on his scalp, spreading across the hardwood floor. Swallowing back her nausea, she rushed into the bathroom, yanking several towels off the rack.

  “And call 911!” Jason shouted at Sean.

  Taryn ran down the hall, her face white with concern. Grabbing the towels from Daniela, she knelt beside Brent and held one to the laceration on the back of his scalp.

  Daniela knew that head wounds bled a lot. But the injury looked severe, and he was unconscious. His breathing was shallow and uneven. His life was in danger.

  Sean bounded back up the stairs, taking two at a time. “Here,” he said, setting down the red-and-white box that housed emergency supplies. “I don’t think the phone is working. I couldn’t get a dial tone.”

  Daniela’s stomach flipped.

  Jason looked up at Sean. “Let’s try the shortwave.”

  After they hurried away to try the radio, Daniela focused her attention on Brent. Taryn lifted the towel from the back of his head. The wound was still seeping, but not so much that Daniela thought he would die from blood loss, rather than blunt force trauma.

  With shaking hands, Taryn rummaged through the first aid kit. Tearing open a few packages of gauze, she placed the four-inch squares over the cut. If his skull was fractured
, she might damage his brain, just by trying to stop the bleeding.

  “I hope he’ll be okay,” Daniela said, her voice breaking.

  The next few moments passed in a whirlwind of confusion. Daniela could hear Jason and Sean talking about cell phones, but no one had service. The laptops, with satellite internet, were also useless.

  Both the house phone and the shortwave radio were dead.

  There was a loud banging noise downstairs, as if someone had thrown a heavy object against the wall.

  “How can I help?” Daniela asked.

  Taryn took the pads of gauze away from Brent’s head and inspected them. They were dotted with blood, but not soaked through. “We’re going to have to move him,” she murmured. “I think we should try to close the wound.”

  “With what?”

  “Butterfly bandages,” she decided. “There should be some in the kit.”

  Daniela searched the first aid supplies, finding several small packages and handing them to Taryn. She tore them open with her teeth. The laceration started behind his left ear, running jagged along his hairline. “You have to hold it closed,” Taryn said, removing the paper from the sticky adhesive strips. “But don’t press too hard.”

  Daniela flinched at the command, but she didn’t hesitate. With trembling fingers, she held the edges of the cut together, using a light touch, while Taryn applied the bandages. It was a patchwork job, but it would have to do until he got to the emergency room.

  Taryn covered the bandage with fresh pads and secured them with white medical tape. “He needs a hat.”

  Daniela found several. They put a stretch knit beanie on him, followed by a sheepskin cap with convenient earflaps.

  From the supply closet, Sean brought up a Stokes litter. It was the same kind of equipment used by the Coast Guard to transport and immobilize victims. Often suspended from a moving helicopter during an ocean rescue, the stretcher was sturdy, compact and buoyant. They rolled Brent onto it, using a brace to support his neck. With a clean, wet towel, Taryn wiped the blood from his handsome face. His eyes remained closed, his body unnaturally still. He never showed a flicker of consciousness.

  A sob caught in Daniela’s throat.

  “We can’t all go with him,” Sean said, stating the obvious.

  The whaler could hold five or six adults in clear weather, over a short distance. Under these conditions, three was the maximum, and the trip would be extremely dangerous.

  “I’ll drive,” Jason said.

  “I have CPR training,” Taryn said. “I should go, too.”

  Sean didn’t like it. He obviously wanted to go himself, but he couldn’t leave Daniela on the island with a homicidal maniac. The choice was between sending two crew members out in a serious storm or letting Brent die here.

  “He’s in bad shape,” Taryn urged. “We have to go now.”

  Jason took one end of the stretcher and Sean lifted the other, making their way down the stairs with care. Daniela covered his body with a waterproof safety blanket, protecting him from the elements. The journey from the house to the landing was bumpy and arduous, causing her to wince on Brent’s behalf, but he didn’t seem to mind. He showed no reaction to being jostled along the trail like a litter of supplies.

  She swallowed past the lump in her throat, praying he would pull through. Finally, they had him loaded in the whaler, bundled up tight.

  The sky was dark and heavy; the rain hadn’t abated.

  “Be careful,” Sean said, shouting to be heard above the roar of the wind.

  Taryn threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tight. “You too,” she said, pressing her lips to his shadowed cheek. The emergency had stripped away some of her hard feelings, and Daniela was no longer stung by jealousy.

  None of that mattered now. Sean didn’t want a romantic relationship with Taryn, but he still cared about her. They were friends.

  After giving Daniela the same kind of hug, warm and hopeful and more than a little frantic, Taryn climbed into the hull. Jason got behind the wheel and signaled to Sean with a nod, indicating that they were ready.

  Sean operated the crane, lowering the whaler onto the raging sea. The boat bucked and swayed on the choppy surface. Taryn held on to the stretcher, trying to keep her body low. It was dangerous to launch in weather like this, and insane to navigate the notoriously tumultuous San Francisco Bay.

  It was going to be a rough ride.

  Jason managed to unhitch the hook, and they sped away. Taryn looked back, waving to Sean and Daniela as the boat got smaller and smaller. Eventually, they disappeared into the fog, like a ghostly apparition.

  Chapter 15

  The landing was no place to linger in the pouring rain. Sean put his hand on Daniela’s arm, encouraging her to hurry, but she was frozen to the spot. The bizarre events of the past hour were catching up with her, the frightening implications sinking in.

  They were stranded.

  Jason and Taryn could reach San Francisco Bay this afternoon, if they were lucky, but no rescue team would be dispatched until the weather improved. A visit from the Coast Guard was unlikely. Air support, impossible.

  They were stuck here, on Southeast Farallon, with no transportation and no means of communication.

  Knowing a crazy person was on the loose made her panic increase tenfold, and being surrounded by shark-infested waters didn’t help. The island seemed to shrink, closing in on her. She couldn’t breathe. Her heart pounded with anxiety and her lungs refused to expand.

  There was no hope. No help. No escape.

  “Look at me,” Sean ordered, taking her by the upper arms and shaking her gently. “Damn it, Dani, stay with me.”

  She blinked a few times, watching his face waver in and out of focus.

  “Brent is going to be fine. You’re going to be fine. We’re all going to be fine. But I need your help. I need you to stay strong.”

  Her legs felt like rubber, incapable of supporting her, but she closed her eyes and visualized a safer, happier place. Laguna Nigel, on their honeymoon. Beautiful, sunny beaches. Soft summer breezes and warm sand beneath her feet.

  Managing to suck in a quick breath, she opened her eyes. “Okay.”

  His relief was palpable. “I can carry you, but I’d rather have my hands free.”

  She didn’t need him to explain why. “I can walk,” she said, shaking her head. This was no time for fainting and hyperventilating. After another moment of concentration, she was able to set her fear aside.

  Taking a steadying breath, she started down the path, heading toward the house. The rain hammered against her hood and the wind tugged at her jacket like a menacing hand, inviting her to lose her balance on the uneven ground, to skirt closer to land’s edge.

  Rivers of water appeared everywhere, coursing across the footpaths. In some areas, it was like wading through a creek bed.

  She trudged forward, putting one foot in front of the other, trying to stay alert. With Sean behind her, protecting her back, it was up to her to watch out for a frontal attack. Breathe, she told herself. Just breathe.

  At the bottom of the trail, she almost slipped and fell. Sean reached out to grab her upper arm, holding her upright. “Steady now?”

  She moistened her lips. “Yes.”

  The inside of the house brought instant relief from the elements. After making sure the downstairs was clear of intruders, Sean locked the front door. Rifling through the supply closet, he located the tagging equipment he and Jason had used a few days ago.

  It seemed like weeks.

  “Take this,” Sean said, handing her one of the sleek metal poles. It was sturdy, but not too unwieldy to swing.

  He kept the other for himself.

  “I’m going to check upstairs.”

  “I’m coming with you,” she said immediately.

  “No. This is the easiest area to defend. In the bedrooms, there are too many places to hide.”

  “I’ll stand at the top of the stairs.”

  H
is jaw clenched with displeasure, but he nodded, making a compromise. They went up the stairs together, moving in unison. At the edge of the hallway, he inched away from her. Her heart went with him.

  Be careful! her mind screamed. She had the frantic urge to tell him she loved him. Gripping the smooth metal bar in her hands, she bit down on her lower lip, forcing herself to remain silent.

  He stepped into the bathroom, his legs braced wide. It was unoccupied.

  The room she shared with Taryn was also empty. He pushed the door against the wall to make sure. Sean and Jason’s room was trickier, as it had a closet. He had to go all the way inside, disappearing completely from her view.

  Seconds ticked by in taut silence. Blood roared in her ears and her palms grew slick with sweat. Her eyes darted from the stairway to the hall and back again. Finally, he reappeared, shaking his head.

  She let out the breath she’d been holding.

  Brent’s room was neat as a pin, his duffel bag sitting on top of the crisply made bed. In contrast, Elizabeth’s room appeared to have been ransacked. From where she stood, Daniela could see clothes on the floor.

  “All clear,” Sean said.

  Daniela relaxed her stance, loosening her grip on the pole.

  “Maybe Elizabeth came back to confront him while we were out.”

  After giving the floor a brief inspection, she crossed the room, glancing out the rain-splattered window. It wasn’t yet noon, but the sky was so dark, it might as well have been dusk. “Do you really think she did it?”

  “I don’t know who else could have. I don’t see a weapon here, either.”

  Elizabeth must have taken it with her. A chilling thought. “I guess she wanted to avenge her father.”

  “Yeah, but she put all of us in danger. Not just Brent.”

  They closed the bedroom doors and went back downstairs. While Sean made a pot of tea, she sat down on the couch, her legs tucked beneath her and the tagging spear close by. It was difficult for her to remain calm. With no important tasks to distract her, she couldn’t help but replay the terrifying morning, and imagine a dozen future horrors.

  Sean handed her a steaming mug. “Here.”

  Although she longed for something stronger, like his warm hands all over her body, she accepted the tea and took an experimental sip.