“It wasn’t us,” she whispered.
Hunter looked at her. “What?”
“It wasn’t us.” Kat felt a tug inside of her as she recalled another detail: the drag of the boat. In those moments just after Kyle went over, she had the distinct feeling that the boat was being held back. It was maybe only thirty seconds, but it was long enough to notice. She thought it was all in her mind, but it wasn’t. They’d had something in tow. Kyle. The boat’s drag was her sickening confirmation of what really happened to Kyle.
“Kat, it was me,” Hunter said.
She shook her head. “No, it was never you. I thought it was me, but it wasn’t me, either. It was the scarf. It pulled him in.”
Hunter could see it now too. “In the propeller.”
Kat nodded. “It must have been fast. At least there’s that.”
“And then, he must have just...broke free. It tore off.”
Neither of them said how grateful they were that the other end of the scarf wasn’t still on Kyle’s body when he washed ashore. But they were very, very grateful for that.
Sean stood up and his chair tipped over behind him. “Wait, Kyle Billings died on that boat? Is that what you’re telling me? Someone pushed him over?”
“Yes, he went over, but we’re telling you we didn’t kill him!” Kat felt almost relieved.
Sean was dumbstruck. “Am I missing something? What did you do next? Get to the part where you’re not responsible for his death. Did you call for help?”
Hunter stepped closer to Kat, creating a sort of wall of solidarity with their bodies. “Sean, we made a mistake. We didn’t kill him, but we did make a mistake.”
Sean stared.
“We went home,” Kat said quietly. “We were so scared. And, Sean, you have to understand that we thought maybe he was alive! We were so scared...and it was raining so hard...and there was nothing we could have done. We thought he could swim back.”
“Did you really think that?”
Hunter looked at his feet.
“We were wrong about it,” Kat said quietly. “Clearly, we were wrong. But now we know that he died instantly, which is—in a way—better than the alternatives.”
Sean glared; his face was growing red. Everything they said made it worse. “This is not better. This is... I don’t even know what to say.”
“It’s a nightmare.” Kat fought back tears. “It’s still a nightmare. But you have to understand that we thought we killed him, Sean. And now we know that it wasn’t entirely our fault. I mean, it wasn’t ever our fault, exactly... Jesus, it’s so fucked up.” Kat rubbed her forehead. “It was an accident, Sean.”
“Actually,” Hunter cut in. “I thought I’d killed him.” He stepped away from Kat and looked at her. “And you let me believe it. I offered you the money.”
Kat shook her head. “No, no, no. I was never going to take that money. I didn’t know what happened! You said you did it and so I believed you!” She could have cried in that moment, but it would have been a manipulation. This wasn’t her tragedy. Even in her panic, Kat knew this wasn’t her tragedy and she deserved no one’s sympathy. So she didn’t cry. “I didn’t know who did it, Hunter.”
“What money?” Sean looked back and forth at them. “Kat, what money?”
“Hunter wanted to bribe me for my silence.”
“Don’t use that word. And it was my father, not me.”
Sean began pacing. It was hot in the house now and his face was beet red. “Let me get this straight. You two watched Kyle Billings fall into the ocean. You drove the boat back to the dock, called no one and went to bed. And for more than two weeks, you’ve been watching the news and hearing all the speculation, and you’ve said nothing. You’ve been lying to me. To everyone. Do you understand what this means?”
Sean was in flames. He was out of his mind with horror and indignation. And this was almost more frightening than the memory of Kyle or the police investigation, or any of the threats they’d been worrying over. Sean was a righteous man with all their secrets, which made him the most dangerous threat of all.
Hunter stepped forward. “You aren’t going to do anything crazy, right, Sean?”
Sean walked to the window and looked out at the covered lawn furniture in the dim backyard. “Ashley kept saying it, but Jesus, I never imagined it could be real.”
“Sean, please, you can’t say anything to anyone,” Kat pleaded. “You really can’t say anything to Ashley.”
He clenched his hands into tight fists, then released them, over and over. “You need to go to the police.”
Hunter shook his head. “No, we can’t do that now. It’s too late. We need to just stay the course.”
“Stay the course? Jesus, can you hear yourselves?” Sean sat back down. “Kat, this isn’t you. Is he making you do this? Is he paying you to do this?”
“No, Sean. This is our only option.”
Kat watched a line of sweat form above Hunter’s purple eye as he stared at Sean. Everything was in Sean’s hands now.
“I can’t know this. I don’t want to. Why did you tell me?” Sean shouted at her. “Why did you have to tell me this? What am I supposed to do with this information, Kat?”
She went to him and took his hand. She could feel it trembling in her own as a fresh wave of that panic washed over her. Sean was in control of everything.
Kat took a breath. “I’m asking you to do nothing, Sean. Just go back to not knowing this. That’s all I’m asking for.”
“I don’t think I can do that. It’s so wrong.”
“I know. We know that it’s wrong. But Kyle is already gone and his family has already mourned. Nothing we do today will change that. What it will change is our lives. There will be trials and media attention, probably prison for one or both of us. Your mother will be dragged into this, and the glass shop will suffer. Weeta will know, and all her friends at school. It will ruin all of us.”
The full weight of it all was setting in. Kat could see that she was making headway with Sean, but she was also coming to terms with just how comprehensively she’d damaged their lives.
Sean looked like he was in pain. He was resigning himself to do nothing rash at that moment, just as she had resigned herself to Hunter’s appeal, but it pained him.
“I don’t think it’s wrong,” Hunter said.
Sean looked up at him. “What?”
“I don’t think it’s wrong. We’re past ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ This is so much more complicated than that. It’s illegal, but it’s the better path for everyone, which makes it right.”
Sean didn’t care for this sort of relativism. He stepped away from Kat and looked hard at her, like she was something new and grotesque.
She looked away and forced herself to endure his judgment because she deserved it.
“I have to go.” Sean walked out of the room. “I need to think. Don’t call me.”
“Sean, I think we should talk about what happens next,” Kat begged.
“No, I have to go.”
They listened to his boots stomp down the foyer. The door slammed.
Kat couldn’t hold it in any longer. She sank into a chair and let her head fall to her forearms. Tears were pouring from her eyes to the sleeve of yesterday’s dirty shirt. She was crying with fear and also relief. Kat hadn’t killed Kyle and neither had Hunter. With the discovery of that scarf, she was exonerated, not for everything, but for the very big thing. And as she let the truth of that night sink in, a primal wave of anxiety rumbled through her body and left her. Everything was still all messed up, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been just a few hours before, when she still believed she’d killed Kyle, however accidental.
Hunter sat down beside her and sighed. He might have been crying as well, but she didn’t look up to see.
“He’s going to tell someone
,” she said into her arm.
“No, he’s not.”
“We shouldn’t have told him.”
“We had to, Kat. And I don’t think he’s going to tell anyone. Not today, at least.”
She wanted so badly to agree with him, but she couldn’t imagine a scenario in which Sean went on living his life with a secret as ugly as this one. He considered himself too good for that. But also, he was weak. He wasn’t strong like Kat and Hunter, people who were more comfortable living with ambiguity. It didn’t make them bad people. It made them resilient and adaptive. They didn’t create this world, but they could live with its imperfections. Sean could not.
“So you knew I didn’t push Kyle over?”
Kat looked up. She could see the hurt on Hunter’s maimed face. “I didn’t know anything.”
“But you let me believe it.”
And with that, the shame was back. She’d only had a few moments without it. “I didn’t know,” she whispered. “It was so confusing.”
They sat in silence with one another.
Hunter’s breathing was hoarse. Everything about his physical being was suddenly pathetic. Kat used to think he looked like a beachy Ken doll, the salt-kissed waves of hair and tanned, flawless skin. She thought of a night several months before, when they were all swimming out by the lighthouse in their underwear. They’d had a few beers and she caught herself looking too long at Hunter as they stood dripping on the beach under the moonlight. The battered, hunched person beside her was nothing like that man on the beach.
“You need to go,” he said.
She put a hand on his hand. “No, the doctor said you shouldn’t be alone.”
“Kat, go.” He wasn’t asking.
She stood up and looked around. There was nothing left to say. Sean had stormed away from her and Hunter had kicked her out. She knew so few people on this earth and she loved even fewer. It wasn’t something she normally acknowledged, but at that moment she felt the unavoidable truth of her shrinking universe. She barely existed at all without these men.
Kat walked out alone into the cold island morning.
Chapter 10
Hunter had only been waiting for ten minutes at The Lobster Claw, but had already ordered his third ginger ale. His father made everyone wait. It wasn’t a conscious habit. It was simply that he was almost always the most powerful person in any room and had become accustomed to the fact that nothing began without him. Time moved with Senator Briggs. Hunter had endured dozens of parent-teacher conferences and adolescent birthdays that began with excruciatingly long periods of waiting for his father to arrive, all of which ended with his father charming the hell out of everyone and earning back their adoration. He’d been a politician even before becoming a US senator, before he was a state representative, a city councilman. He had always been this way and, although Hunter should have been impervious to his bullshit by now, he was not.
A glass of wine would make the waiting better, but that was not an option. Hunter needed to project an air of serene control under these alarming conditions. His father respected control. Plus, he wasn’t really supposed to be drinking at all. His father hadn’t spent a hundred thousand dollars on a luxury recovery facility just to watch him pound wine at The Lobster Claw months later. Or maybe he had. It was an unspoken understanding that these stints in rehab were merely expensive detentions out of the public eye. So maybe a buttery Chardonnay wouldn’t hurt things at all. Two would really soothe the nerves. But no, Hunter reminded himself, no Chardonnay. Serene control.
Erika appeared with his next ginger ale and gave Hunter’s shoulder a little squeeze. He hadn’t seen her since that night he went home with Ashley, three weeks before. He wasn’t going out much anymore. But Erika didn’t need an explanation from Hunter about that night, his subsequent absence or the bruise on his cheek. She was good like that. Hunter considered that maybe Erika was the most good of all of them, better than self-righteous Sean. People who believe themselves to be good rarely are, he decided.
Hunter picked up a polished spoon and examined his yellowing eye bruises in the warped reflection. It was better than it had been when he left the hospital two weeks before, but not good by any means. Father would ask about it. Thank God the stitches were mostly dissolved. No way to project serene control with those in.
“There he is!” Senator Briggs boomed through the mostly empty dining room as he approached. This was a standard greeting—loud and gregarious—in full sight of his constituents.
Hunter stood and greeted his father with a quick hug and back slap. He smelled like pine trees, because the second wife favored a woodsy cologne. He used to smell soapy, but now he smelled piney, a change that Hunter imagined had been focus-grouped in advance.
“Are we having oysters?”
Sean forced a smile. Sure, let’s have oysters. He looked around for Erika, but she was already approaching with a dozen bivalves on ice.
“Thank you, dear.”
Hunter cringed at all the dears and honeys. “Thanks, Erika.”
She squeezed his shoulder again, and he remembered that he’d briefly flirted with the idea of trying to sleep with her. That had been a dumb idea.
“So what’s on your mind, son?” Senator Briggs went to work dressing an oyster with horseradish, vinegar and one drop of hot sauce. He had the demeanor of a man on vacation, though they both knew this trip was a monumental fucking inconvenience. Hunter appreciated the effort, even if it was motivated by self-preservation.
“Dad, I wanted to talk to you about...the state of things.”
Erika appeared with a glass of white wine for the senator. It was pale and cold, with little impressions of her fingers in the condensation. Maybe a Riesling. Father loved Rieslings with oysters, which the waitstaff at The Lobster Claw apparently knew.
Erika walked away and Hunter resumed. “Nothing has really changed, not legally or anything, but the circle is a bit wider now.”
“Someone else knows?” The senator whispered, dropping the jovial vacation act.
“Yeah, it’s Sean.”
“Remind me of this character.” This was how Hunter’s father always referred to unsavory people in Hunter’s life, as characters.
“He’s my friend. And Kat’s boyfriend—or ex-boyfriend—I’m not really sure.”
“Is he the one who punched you?”
Hunter put a hand up to his cheek. “Yeah, but not about that.”
“Ah, swell. Sounds like a great friend. Why did he punch you?”
Hunter looked around the room. No one was watching them, but he now lived with the constant feeling that someone was.
“Was it about the girl? Kat?”
“Yeah, kind of.” Hunter tried to focus. “Anyhow, so Sean knows now. We had no choice but to tell him. We probably couldn’t have kept it from him. It’s not good that he knows, but it couldn’t be avoided.”
The senator chewed and thought. Hunter watched his silver hairline rise and fall with his jaws. He seemed to have more hair than ever.
“What does Sean want?” Senator Briggs asked.
“I don’t think he wants anything. He hasn’t said—”
“No, I mean, what are his motivations? Does he want to be rich? Does he want the girl? Why does he get up in the morning?”
Hunter removed the straw from his soda and looked into the melting ice. “He doesn’t care about money. He wants Kat. I mean, he’s angry with her, but I think all he wants is to be an upstanding guy and to marry Kat.” It felt strange to say it aloud, but it was true. That was all Sean ever wanted.
“And he punched you over her, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay, good. Then he wants what she wants. He’s not going to turn her in. As long as the girl keeps a clear head, then he will too.” The senator began inspecting the menu as if all the problems had been
solved.
“Right, but I am a little worried about Kat now too.”
His father looked up over the menu.
“She was fine for a while, but she doesn’t seem so clearheaded anymore. She never leaves her house. She’s avoiding her best friend. She’s been working at the glass shop, but basically not doing anything else or seeing anyone. I think she’s been obsessing over...the guy.” Hunter didn’t dare say Kyle’s name in public anymore.
The senator placed the menu back down. “Well, what about the money?”
“She won’t take it.”
“She has to take it. It’s the only way to guarantee her discretion. Forever.”
Hunter took another sip.
“Now, son, I don’t care if you think it’s distasteful. This is our goddamn life we’re talking about. The alternative is more distasteful. The very least these characters can do now is take the money and move on.”
It was some twisted fucking logic, but it seemed to make perfect sense to the senator.
“Should we offer Sean money too? They’d have to split it, of course. We don’t have a bottomless pool of cash for this sort of thing. Should we do that?”
Everything That Follows Page 14