Shark Island
Page 25
He reaches Alice. The rain has stopped. Walter puts his arms around her, sagging a bit and shaking, but not crying. All his life he’s had extra motivation not to cry, not to let his feelings show.
“I’m so sorry, Alice,” he says, knowing that she liked Jamie more than she’d ever let on.
Alice pulls back from him, puts her hands on his cheeks to make sure he’s looking her in the eye. “No, honey. Don’t do that. No. I’m sorry for you. I’m so, so damn sorry.”
Then she pulls Walter into her arms again and he lets out a long, hitching breath. He still won’t let the tears come—some lessons are too deeply ingrained—but he’s never felt so grateful to anyone. The pain is still almost unbearable, but it’s not quite so lonely now. He was wrong. There is at least one person who understands.
CHAPTER 50
“I don’t need an ambulance.”
Naomi stares down the EMT who’s inspecting her prosthetic. She’s in the back of the ambulance already, still on a stretcher because that’s how they carried her off the Coast Guard cutter. The Coast Guard medic has already given her the once-over. Her hands are bandaged and she’s been drinking water to get rehydrated, but her biggest problem at this point is an inability to walk on the wreckage of her prosthetic.
“What?” Naomi says, glaring at the EMT. “You think you can fix that? The local hospital keep a bunch of spares lying around? They’re custom-made. I need crutches or a rental wheelchair, and I need to borrow somebody’s cell phone. I don’t need to go to the hospital and I don’t need a ride in an ambulance.”
The EMT is maybe thirty, serious about his job from the look of him. Former military, she guesses. But the prosthetic is like a puzzle to him and he keeps glancing at it.
“You sure you don’t—”
“Very,” Naomi snaps. Then she softens. “Very sure.”
Their eyes meet. He’s just trying to do his job and she respects that. A silent acknowledgement passes between them. Naomi’s made an assumption about his basic intelligence and it seems she was wrong.
“You’re already on the bus,” the EMT says. “Please give me a minute to call it in, so I don’t get fired later for letting you walk away.” He squeezes his eyes shut, opens them again. “Sorry. Not walk, obviously.”
Another day, she would have smiled. But there are no smiles today. Not a one.
Naomi nods. “I get it. Call in. If you need me to get on with them and tell them to fuck off, let me know.”
The EMT does smile, a little. He pulls out his phone and climbs out of the ambulance, taking a few steps away. Naomi exhales and lies back on the stretcher, but it’s only a few seconds before she hears a soft rap on the inside of the open door and looks up to find Eddie Wolchko standing at the back of the ambulance.
“Knock knock,” he says.
“That’s not the opening of a joke, I hope.”
The horror on his face is answer enough. It’s Wolchko. He’d never have considered making a joke now and never have imagined someone would think he’s joking.
“Jesus, no. Of course not,” he says.
“I know. That’s just me being sarcastic. It’s my default defense mechanism.”
Wolchko nods, but she can see he only half-understands her and it really comes home to her how different their minds are. She wonders how much it’s going to haunt him, what they’ve gone through today.
“So I wanted to tell you—” he begins, but she cuts him off.
“Eddie, listen. Later, when it’s all just bad dreams … when the shitstorm that’s about to hit us has died down … I want you to know that you can call me. If you don’t have anyone you feel comfortable talking to, if it’s bothering you, but you have a hard time putting it into words or if you’re just under pressure … you can call me.”
He frowns, and it takes her a second to realize that he’s not sure how to take this, that he might be wondering if—even after all of this and despite the age difference—she’s flirting with him.
Miraculously, she finds herself smiling after all. Not for herself, but for him. So he knows.
“I’m saying I’d like to be your friend,” Naomi explains. “If you’ll have me.”
Wolchko seems to relax. “Of course I will.”
He doesn’t have to tell her that he doesn’t have a lot of friends.
“Thank you,” Wolchko says.
The EMT interrupts them, halfway nudging Wolchko aside. “Just wanted to tell you that you’re good to go. I’ll just need you to sign something. Are you going to be okay with a ride to wherever?”
“I’ll sign whatever you want,” Naomi says. “And if I can borrow your cell, I’ll call home and get a wheelchair and a ride sorted out.”
She’s thinking of what her mother must be going through right now, how she must be waiting for her cell phone to buzz. By now she’ll have heard that Naomi’s all right, but she’ll be shaken by the story of what’s happened. They’ve had their differences, but Naomi misses her right now. All she wants is to go home.
She thinks of Kayla, wondering if the things that had been broken between them can really be repaired. Out on the island, she decided to find out, to give Kayla a chance. It worries her, opening herself up again like that, exposing an old wound that has never fully healed. But then she remembers the way Kayla used to look at her, the wonder in her eyes, and she knows she’s only fooling herself. Of course she’ll give Kayla that chance. Of course she’ll take the risk. Love might break her heart, but it isn’t going to kill her.
As the EMT goes around to the front of the ambulance to get whatever paperwork she’s meant to sign, Wolchko studies her.
“You don’t need a ride home, Naomi,” he says. “I’ll stay with you. Woods Hole is arranging for a boat to take us back.”
Naomi stares at him, cold fear spreading through her. Her instinct is to fight this fear, to straighten her spine and show that she won’t be beaten by it. But to hell with that—after the past thirty-six hours, she no longer has to prove anything to anyone.
“Sorry, Eddie, I’ll pass.”
Wolchko seems disappointed. “If you’re sure.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” Naomi says. “I’m never getting on another boat in my life.”
He looks like he wants to hug her, but she’s still in the back of the ambulance and he’d have to climb in there, and even Wolchko knows how awkward that would be. Naomi sees the thoughts skim across his eyes and then he gives her a small shrug and promises to talk to her soon. Naomi tells him that he’d better, and then he’s gone.
She sits up, maneuvers herself off the stretcher onto her one good leg, and then uses a handhold at the back of the ambulance to lower herself down so that she can sit inside the open doors. Her good leg dangles. The wreckage of the other leg juts at a strange angle.
She waits to use the EMT’s phone, to hear her mother’s voice, and as she waits she gazes out past the dock, past the Coast Guard cutter, toward the islands in the distance. Deeley is too far out to see from here. There are other islands in the way, so of course she can’t see Bald Cap, either. She’ll never see it again, and that suits her just fine.
Naomi watches the undulating surface of the ocean. The sight always used to soothe her, but today she studies the swells that roll into the harbor, scanning for the familiar curve of a fin. This is how she sees the ocean now.
And how she always will.
About the Author
CHRIS JAMESON has been a bouncer, a liquor retailer, an assistant hockey coach, a drama teacher, and an office drone. Summers on Cape Cod have given him a healthy respect for ocean predators. He lives near the coast of Massachusetts, but doesn’t spend a lot of time in the water. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Eleven Months Later
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
SHARK ISLAND
Copyright © 2017 by Daring Greatly Corporation.
All rights reserved.
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St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / July 2017
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