she was mixed up with this psycho that got her killed? Maybe he killed her?”
I think about this. Whoever was on the highway that night is loose in the world. No one knows what he’s done. I can’t believe that he’d take the risk of coming back to Gant. I also don’t believe that Maggie would have returned to Gant willingly, not after she fled the police, not after her staying gone was the only thing preventing the police from pursuing her as a suspect.
“We shouldn’t have even tried to save her.” Becca says this for me. “Maggie was beyond shady—totally evil.” She beams at me. I should be grateful. I shouldn’t wonder who killed Maggie, or whether her death has anything to do with Ben’s. This shouldn’t drag me in reverse to the time when I couldn’t stop wondering who Maggie’s accomplice was. Now I wonder who had more reason than me to want Maggie dead. Who knew where she ran off to? Who hunted her down and lured her back to Gant to drown her? Possibly, she wasn’t even drowned but killed somewhere else and dumped into the spring.
I look up the sidewalk. It’s on the late side of ten, lampposts glowing like orbiting moons, and there are adults wobbling inebriated from restaurants and stepping over flower beds. A few middle-school-aged boys balance on skateboards outside the ice creamery under the candy-cane-striped awning. Maggie’s killer could be somewhere, not too far beyond them.
There’s an eerie symmetry between Maggie’s death and our stories. They always ended in the same way. The villains weren’t carted off to prison; they lost their lives. Maggie set the events in motion that led to Ben’s death and she turned up dead, possibly murdered. It makes me sick and happy at once. If Ben were here—Ben, whose heroes always killed their villains—he would call this justice.
Willa shifts forward confidentially and keeps her voice low. “Lana said Maggie was caught under the water. It’s possible that the killer tried to prevent her body from being discovered. They didn’t want her to be found, and we found her. What if we’re in danger for it?”
Josh winds himself up and gives a nod he thinks will settle it all. “We’re careful until we know anything for certain. Nothing we can do but wait and see.” There’s an optimistic swing to his words, and it sends comfort fanning out over the core, like a security blanket, easing their frowns and paving the way for Becca to remind the group that Josh’s birthday is tomorrow and that she will so not tolerate a canceled party. Then there’s a lot of agreeing to wait and see—and presumably to not commit the unthinkable act of canceling a party. The specifics of being careful or waiting and seeing—what we’re going to do after we wait and see or what we’re waiting for—aren’t discussed.
It’s difficult in Gant to believe you aren’t safe. Hard to make the adjustment even after you’ve seen proof. Everyone but Willa, who stares at her shoelaces, seems convinced that all will work out, somehow.
Danger didn’t used to be real on our island. You have parents and house alarms. You leave your bags on the beach during a swim and no one touches your cell. In the winter you leave your car running with the heat blasting to duck into Marmalade’s for mochas, extra whipped cream, dark chocolate shavings on top. Gant is a state of mind as much as a place. I learned this summer that the idyllic island doesn’t exist. Bad things usually happen when you least expect them, in places you believe you’re safest.
We trade good-byes, and Willa and I separate from the core. I eye the dark gaps between buildings.
I know these lessons better than the others:
Life is biting into a cupcake and finding an eyeball at its center. Going to bed with the covers to your chin, all snuggly and dreamy, and waking up without your teeth.
– 6 –
There’s the smell of bonfires, sweet charred marshmallows, and the singed edge of fireworks in the air as Willa and I walk to where the police parked her car. Gant Island is perfumed by its coastal celebrations all summer long. The breeze parts my hair like a finger brushing my neck. I shiver and smooth it to one side.
To my right there’s a grassy slope leading to the pedestrian promenade that meanders along the water the length of downtown. We slip between two clots of tourists gathered