It got shallow surprisingly fast, and although the shoreline was littered with rocks, the ocean bottom was smooth and sandy. The water was only knee deep as we plodded our way up to the stump and examined the reflector.
“It’s in decent shape,” he said. “I’d be surprised if it’s a year old.”
“Is it glued on?”
“Looks like it.” He lifted his gaze, scanning the area, and then his head tilted. “Is that a path?”
From the boat, the rocky hillside dipped down and looked bowl-shaped, but now we could see that wasn’t the case. It was two separate slopes, one in front of the other. It would be generous to call the sandy area in front of it a beach, but a small path led away from it, disappearing behind the slope and into the woods up the hillside.
I dodged a clump of seaweed and wrung the seawater out of my hair as we moved up onto the shore, muddy sand squishing through our toes. We didn’t talk about following the path. Maybe we both sensed we were on to something. Hyperawareness rolled through me. This spot was so secluded, it made sense now why it’d been marked.
Tree branches and overgrown grass closed around the path which was so narrow we could only walk single file. Sunlight dappled through the leaves overhead. Sand gave way to sticks, rocks, and exposed tree roots, and I ground my teeth. I was tender footed and wouldn’t be able to go much farther. I was about to tell him that when Vance pulled to a stop, causing me to run into him.
“What is it?” I asked.
He turned to the side, allowing me to see. There was an ancient-looking chain link fence with a large gash in it and the ends bent away from us like people had been pushing their way through it for years.
On the other side of the fence, there was a road.
He pushed one side of it away from him and stooped to go through the narrow opening, but I grabbed his shoulder. “Wait, do you want to get tetanus? You don’t even have a shirt on.”
It was enough to give him pause, and he stood back up, releasing the fence. When it snapped back in place, something on the forest floor moved with it. I motioned toward it. “What’s that?”
He bent, brushed the dead leaves out of the way, and retrieved the thin, black tactical flashlight whose wrist strap must have gotten snagged on the jagged edges of the metal links. I put a hand on his arm, leaning in to look at it as he rotated the flashlight in his hands.
There was yellow printing on the handle, but it was faded and worn off in some places.
“Any idea what that says?” I asked.
His tone was odd. “Seas the day.”
I peered closer at the writing. “Wow, good guess.”
“It’s not a guess. I have the same one on board Favorite right now. This was the senior gift we gave to the underclassman.” He pointed to the series of letters at the end. “Cape Hill Prep Sailing Club.”
My gaze snapped up to meet his. “Do you think it’s hers?”
“It’s not Lucas’s. He dropped and broke his the same day he got it. I remember because we all gave him shit about it.” Vance’s gaze turned toward the road beyond the fence, and then down to the flashlight in his hands.
Was the same idea forming in his head? Maybe the truth was Jillian had willingly stepped off the deck of The Trident, abandoning her father’s ship to the sea. But instead of drowning, she’d begun the swim she’d been training for.
It came from me in a rush. “What if she swam here, went through the fence, and someone picked her up?”
“My money’s on Lucas or Tiffany.” He clicked the button on the back of the flashlight, discovered it still worked, and then clicked it off. “Fuck, it had to be a long-ass swim to make sure the tide took The Trident out to sea and not back to the cape.”
“But you think she made it.”
He settled his gaze upon me, and I saw the same conclusion I had reflected in his eyes. That Jillian was like us, and she’d do whatever it took to get what she wanted.
“Absolutely,” he said.
FIFTEEN
EMERY
Sovereign Systems was an elite protection company, but the home office was a total shitshow. Desks were surrounded by mismatched partition walls they’d cobbled together over the years, and all the office equipment was ancient. A lot of days I was glad I had to travel so much because sitting at my workstation was depressing.
I set my purse and my laptop bag on the seat of my chair and stared in confusion at the large, flat box that took up most of my desk. It must have been delivered while I was out, finishing a job over in the North End. A hotel had discovered an old safe in the basement, and I’d manipulated the open quickly, but all that was inside were some master keys for locks that no longer existed.