Just fucking punch me, Sean thought.
Hunter drew a wet breath. “I’m not sleeping with Kat,” he whispered. “I’m not.”
Sean looked at Kat, who had been watching him. He believed her. He believed both of them now. He turned back to Hunter and suddenly felt more horrible than he had ever felt in his whole life. They really weren’t sleeping together. Something was going on with his girlfriend, but it was clear now that it wasn’t an affair. And he’d allowed himself to be seduced by outlandish theories from a near stranger. Ashley. She was still there. Jesus, why was she still there?
Sean nodded at Hunter. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
Hunter was still staring, but his anger had softened. “I get it,” he said. And he didn’t say any more.
Hunter’s response perplexed Sean. I get it, he’d said. Did that mean that Sean’s suspicions had been warranted? That Hunter was guilty of something else? Or was it simply that Hunter was the most forgiving chump he’d ever met. That seemed unlikely. He’d just been punched in the face, so maybe Hunter wasn’t thinking so straight. Whatever it was, Sean was grateful for it. He felt deeply remorseful about the punch, and, although he wasn’t sure that he deserved forgiveness, he would take it.
“Sean, can I talk to you?” Ashley said quietly. She wasn’t satisfied with this outcome.
He turned to her. “No, Ashley. You should go home.”
She looked around. Everyone was watching her. She pulled her hat down farther on her head and looked back at Sean. She was pissed. “But what about—”
“Go home.”
Hunter and Kat watched as she considered the order.
Finally, Ashley spun on one heel, walked the length of the dock and stomped her way back up to the street.
When it was just the three of them again, Hunter cracked a small grin. “I always did know how to pick ’em.”
Kat laughed first, and then Sean. Things were maybe okay.
“I’m so sorry, man,” Sean said again.
“I know, you fucking animal.”
Kat smiled at Sean, and he smiled back. It felt like a real moment of intimacy and apology and regret for all the weirdness of the past week. It made him hopeful.
“Let’s forget about the boat,” Kat said.
Sean stepped past her. “No, I got it. You really do need to cover her up tonight. You want me to look at the motor while I’m here?”
Hunter and Kat exchanged the briefest glance. Sean saw it, but he reminded himself to let go of all the suspicion. A look is just a look.
Hunter rubbed the side of his head. “Uh, yeah, that’d be great.”
Kat began snapping the stretchy cover into place at the bow while Sean fiddled with the controls. He turned the ignition on, pushed buttons, then turned it off again. Then he walked to the stern and leaned far over the edge. Sean could feel Kat buzzing around him. She was saying something about how it didn’t matter...they could all go inside...don’t worry about it. He couldn’t quite hear with his face right up close to the engine, but it felt like she was trying to shoo him away.
Must be the propeller, Sean thought with his face over the edge. Yes, it was the propeller. Everything seemed to be working, but it looked as if the propeller itself wouldn’t spin. He couldn’t tell for sure. It was about ten inches under the water, but the grinding sound it made when he accelerated was classic propeller problems. Sean pushed the sleeve of his coat up to his elbows, bent farther over the back of the boat and plunged his arm in. If he could just get his hand closer to the blades, to feel around for whatever might be jamming it up... Goddamn, the water was cold. He walked his fingers along one of the blades, down to the center. He needed to get just a little closer to really know...
“Careful, buddy,” Hunter said from the dock. “Bad night for a swim.”
And there it was! Sean’s fingers landed on something soft and ropey. Something was tangled up in the propeller. It wasn’t seaweed or fishing line. He didn’t know what it was.
Sean stood back up. “You got a knife?” he yelled.
Hunter climbed into the boat with his bloodied face and opened a compartment in the cockpit. His nerves must have been running high—on account of the punch—because his hands were shaking so hard he dropped the knife twice. “Here.”
Sean went back to the stern with the little jackknife. Hunter and Kat watched from the dock. He leaned far over the back of the boat and put his hand down into the frigid water and started sawing. It didn’t take much—the knife seemed like it had never been used. He sliced right through whatever it was on the first few motions, then turned the propeller slightly and started sawing another section. It was really tangled up in there. With one more slice, he freed the last section and everything loosened in his hand. The propeller turned easily and he pulled the long, wet object out with his numb fingers.
“What is it?” Kat asked.
Sean held the skinny, dripping strip of fabric up to his face to try to make out what he was looking at.
“It’s probably nothing,” Hunter said.
“Garbage,” Kat agreed.
Sean squeezed water from the clump of cloth, then unfurled it and held it up to the moonlight. “Some kind of fabric. Clothing. I don’t know. It’s blue with little, like, flecks of white in it.”
The next thing they heard was Hunter’s head hitting the dock.
Chapter 9
Hunter’s eyes opened to the sound of the doctor’s heels clicking on hard laminate. He blinked twice into the glaring hospital light and took inventory of the people standing around him. Three bodies came into focus.
“Look who’s up,” a woman in a starched white coat said. She stood between Sean and Kat at the edge of the bed. “Hunter, my name is Dr. Boardman. Do you know where you are?”
He scanned the room. “Vineyard Hospital,” he whispered through parched lips.
“Right.” Dr. Boardman looked down at her clipboard. She didn’t seem nervous about Hunter’s state, which was reassuring. She was all business, with her tidy white coat and every hair in its perfect place.
Kat watched Hunter’s eyes as they moved around the room, putting the pieces together. The clock on the wall said 4:07 a.m. Hunter had been in that hospital bed for several hours while Kat and Sean watched him, stewing in all their private anxiety. It was impossible for Kat to know what he understood about their circumstances at that moment. A puffy square of gauze had been taped beneath his left eye, where Sean hit him, and the skin around it was turning purple. Kat could see fear in his swollen face. She hoped the others could not.
“What did I do?” Hunter asked.
Kat put a hand on his blanketed thigh. “You didn’t do anything, Hunter. You fell and passed out, so we brought you here.”
His eyes moved from Kat, to Sean, then Dr. Boardman.
“Hunter,” Kat said, trying to keep his focus. “Everything is okay.” She said this slowly and with emphasis. She wanted to convey to him that all their secrets were still kept. He didn’t need to panic. She knew that he’d be racing through the events of that night in his mind, and that when he got to the part where Sean found a piece of Kyle’s scarf tangled in the propeller of the boat’s motor, he would panic.
Hospitals aren’t the same thing as police stations, but Kat figured that you didn’t want to be in either of them if you were evading the authorities. They had ways of talking to each other, doctors and cops. Kat knew that Hunter would be wondering what he’d said in his delirium. He’d want to get the hell out of there.
“You’re going to be fine.” Dr. Boardman placed her clipboard on a nearby table. A tiny silver necklace with the word Kamila in swooping cursive shimmered at her collarbone, revealing just a whisper of humanity. “You passed out. Standard vasovagal syncope, which means that your heart slowed down and your blood vessels opened up too quickly. It was probably brought on
by stress.”
Sean exhaled. “That’s good, right? I thought he had a concussion.”
“He might,” she went on, “but there’s no reason to believe it’s serious. Someone should stay with him for a few hours to keep him awake and make sure he doesn’t vomit or lose any feeling in his limbs.”
“Of course.” Kat nodded.
“What you’re feeling right now is a mild sedative, Mr. Briggs.” As Dr. Boardman spoke, she removed the bloodstained gauze from Hunter’s cheek, peeling medical tape from tender skin with great care. “We needed to keep you calm while we stitched your cheek. When that and the topical anesthetic wears off, I want you to take a double dose of Advil.”
Hunter’s hands went up to his formerly perfect face and moved along the four little Frankenstein stitches.
Dr. Boardman pulled his hand down from his face. “Try not to touch it.” She turned to Kat and Sean. “I’ll need a moment alone with Mr. Briggs.”
They left the room and let the door click behind them.
The hall smelled of disinfectant. There was no one else in sight. Somewhere far away, fingers clicked on a keyboard.
“What do you think this is about?” Kat said, though she knew.
Sean looked worried. “It’s about his face, right? She’s trying to get the story on how it happened, so we have to stand out here like his abusive parents.”
Kat wished that were the case. What a quaint problem to have, she thought, to be guilty of punching someone and nothing else at all. “I’m sure it will be fine.”
They looked at the blurred figures talking through the frosted glass window, then at their feet. It was their first moment alone in over a week. There were so many things to discuss between them, but now was not the time.
A janitor walked past them, pushing a large bin, and a gust of human odors wafted by. Kat’s stomach rolled over on itself. This episode—and the conversation with Dr. Boardman—would be either no big deal or it would be the end of everything. What was Hunter saying in there? Was he capable of handling himself? What if the painkillers inspired a loopy impulse to unburden himself on this doctor? It would be over for them.
Kat remembered the wet scrap of Kyle’s scarf still in the pocket of her jacket, which was hanging over a chair in the hospital room at that moment. No one saw her take it while Hunter lay face-first on the cold dock, and Sean called an ambulance. Kat had grabbed the scarf and then ran back to Hunter’s side. When Sean returned to report the ambulance was on its way, he seemed to have forgotten about the scarf.
Maybe it didn’t matter to Sean. Maybe he didn’t see the connection between the thing he’d pulled from the motor of the boat and Hunter’s sudden fainting. There were other explanations for it, Kat supposed. Hunter had a gash in his cheek after the punch and had lost a little blood. People pass out after things like that, right? Maybe that was enough for Sean. He hadn’t asked any questions about it, so Kat hoped that meant he had none.
Why had she let Hunter take her down to the boat last night? He’d become obsessed with the boat. He wanted to give it one more scan for anything incriminating they may have left behind. They were just going to give it one last look, check to make sure everything was running normally. But then the motor wouldn’t start, and things just got away from them...
The door opened and Dr. Boardman appeared. “You can come back in now.”
Kat and Sean followed.
The doctor folded her arms across her chest and made a scolding face. “Well, Mr. Briggs insists that this assault was just a misunderstanding, and he’s in no danger with the two of you. I’m not sure I believe him, but I can’t make him press charges if he doesn’t want to. I’ll need you both to sign this form and write your full names beneath, please.”
She handed the clipboard to Sean, who got to work.
Kat could see that Sean was taking this hard. He had assaulted Hunter, technically speaking, but he wasn’t the kind of guy who got reprimanded by doctors for being an assailant. That was a different sort of person, and Kat knew that such distinctions mattered a lot to Sean.
“Thank you,” Kat said to the doctor when she was finished. “We promise to take care of him.”
“They will,” Hunter said groggily.
“Alright.” The doctor frowned. “Then you’re all free to go. Mr. Briggs, don’t sleep until after noon and don’t use any drugs or alcohol for a week.”
Everyone nodded.
The door clicked behind Dr. Boardman and then they were all alone together.
“Let’s go,” Hunter said.
The other two helped him up and into his jacket. They walked quietly, but quickly, out of the hospital and into the predawn cold, each shouldering one of Hunter’s long arms. He was wobbly on his feet.
“I’ll call a cab,” Kat said when they were outside, her phone already to her ear.
What a bunch of degenerates we must look like, Kat thought, standing in the enormous empty parking lot of the MV Hospital at five o’clock in the morning. She wanted to be anywhere else.
“How’s your head?” Sean asked.
“I think it’s fine.” Hunter picked a crusty piece of dried blood from his hairline. “I guess I’ll know when the meds wear off.”
Kat pocketed her phone. “Cab will be here in five.”
Sean blew into his hands and rubbed them together. He was thinking about something. Kat could tell. “So what’s the story with that rag?”
“What?” Hunter looked at Kat, who said nothing.
“You fainted when I pulled that thing out of the motor. What does it mean?”
Kat tried to keep her eyes on the pavement.
“I don’t think it means anything,” Hunter said. “I don’t know. I had just been punched in the face. Remember?”
Sean nodded slowly. “Yeah, I remember.” He looked over at Kat. “Is that your story too?”
She pushed her hands deep into her pockets and tried to breathe. Up to that moment, she had avoided and evaded Sean, but she hadn’t really lied in a big, deceitful way. This was a crossroads.
“Kat, what’s going on here?” Sean asked again.
Hunter kept picking at the dried blood in his hair.
“What the fuck is going on!”
A white Ford Focus with Island Taxi written across its side pulled gracefully up before them.
Kat looked at Hunter. He nodded almost imperceptibly.
The sun was beginning to come up and the colors of maturing bruises on Hunter’s face were clearer now. He was as hideous as she’d ever seen him. Not only the purple bruising and the little black stitches, but also the defeat and shame in his bloodshot eyes. She wore it too, though she didn’t realize it until she saw it on him.
The driver glared impatiently.
“We’ll tell you,” she said to Sean. “Let’s go home. When we get to my place, we’ll tell you.”
They climbed into the cab and it pulled out of the parking lot. But Hunter gave the driver his address from the passenger seat.
Sean sat beside Kat, his mouth set into a firm, unhappy line within his beard.
She put a hand on his knee—a gesture of affection, a plea for trust—but he didn’t budge. She didn’t deserve his kindness.
It was a short car ride, but it didn’t feel so. No one said a word as they snaked along the empty roads, past the closed shops. It was almost November and the sun was in no hurry to rise. The driver side window was down a few inches and the cold air stung in Kat’s eyes as they sailed around each curve. The smell of a just-smoked cigarette still lingered in the upholstery of the car.
Finally, they were at Hunter’s house.
Kat paid the driver and they walked in a line up to the broad front door of the Briggs beach house. It was open—not just unlocked, but actually open several inches, which explained why the entire first floor was freez
ing. Their breaths puffed ahead of them as they walked to the kitchen and Hunter turned up the heat.
“I guess we forgot the door,” he observed. “We were just going to be down at the water for a minute. I don’t know how we forgot.”
It sounded nuts in the light of dawn. What was wrong with them? Kat wondered.
Sean sat down at the table with his coat still on. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Kat adjusted the thermostat and peeked in all the rooms. There was no reason to believe anyone was there, but it still made her nervous, all those cavernous spaces for anyone to lurk in. She came back to the kitchen and looked at Hunter, just to be sure they were doing this.
He nodded. There was no putting it off any longer.
“That night we were drinking at The Undertow,” she started. “After you went home...something happened.”
“An accident,” Hunter added. They were standing side by side in front of Sean.
“Right, an accident. Anyhow, we went out in the boat, and everything seemed okay, but then it started raining and—”
Hunter shook his head. She wasn’t telling this right. “Kyle was with us.”
“Oh God,” Sean said. He rubbed his beard with two hands.
“Kyle was with us and he was getting very aggressive with Kat. He was practically assaulting her, and she had no choice but to protect herself.”
“He was sitting on the edge of the boat,” she added.
“Oh God,” Sean said again.
“Right,” Hunter agreed, his voice growing stronger. “He was already right on the edge, and drunk as fuck, and all we really did... It was just defense...defense of Kat...because he was about to do something pretty fucking terrible, we both knew it...”
Sean put his head in his hands. “No, don’t tell me this.”
And then, just as Hunter was about to continue, Kat grabbed his arm to silence him. She could see it all now. She could see the whole thing again, just as it had been playing on a loop in her mind, but this time with a new detail: the scarf. Kyle’s bulging, white eyes in the black night; his body jerking back violently and disappearing into the cauldron of cold water. But this time, she could see the thin, blue scarf with the tiny white flecks tighten around his neck. It had been waving behind him as he yanked her close. He didn’t notice, but she could see it. It made one loop around his skinny neck—not knotted in any way, just a single loop. The long end that had been waving in the wind, fell to the water. It floated languidly on the surface until, suddenly, it was tight. The moment at which Kat thrust her right hand into Kyle’s chest, the scarf became a taut line from his neck to something beneath the surface of the water behind him. The propeller. During their struggle, the scarf must have gotten caught in the propeller of the motor, and then it choked tight around his neck, causing his eyes to bulge and his breath to cease, and then yanking him back with a fierce urgency that remained unexplained in Kat’s mind, until now.
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