The Invisible Husband of Frick Island - Colleen Oakley Page 0,75

he said, before immediately clapping his elbow across his face. “Dear God, man.”

“I know, I know.” Anders pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s crabs.”

Jess let out an involuntary gasp, while Hector took a small step backward, shaking his head. “You gotta wrap it up, dude. That’s rule number one.”

“No, not . . . I’m talking about real crabs. Crustaceans. I was helping—” Anders sighed. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

Hector slowly backed away and Jess shot him a concerned look before disappearing behind the cubicle. Anders sank into his chair and massaged his temples. He had plenty of headache-inducing problems, starting with the powerful throbbing in his tightly bandaged ring finger, the whole-body exhaustion from rising so early, and the most recent conversation in which he nearly lost his job and only source of income.

But the thing Anders couldn’t stop thinking about was the cell phone tower currently nearing completion on Frick Island. He had forgotten all about it until yesterday evening, when the women brought it up at the crab picking.

Three weeks.

Three weeks until anyone and everyone there who so desired could listen to his podcast. Of course technically he knew they could have been listening to it all along, using the albeit “painfully slow” Internet connection at the market, but it was clear no one had much interest or had bothered—and even more clear that Anders had become a little too comfortable with that fact. Now it was as if a countdown had been set—he could almost hear the ticking of the clock until the bomb detonated—because he felt certain he wouldn’t be welcome back on the island once everyone found out what he was really doing.

And he had so many questions! He still didn’t know why everyone was going along with Piper’s delusion. Or who set fire to Tom’s boat. And was there really a drug ring on the island? Why did Lady Judy receive so many packages? And who on earth was the anonymous emailer, NoManIsAnIsland?

But something else was bothering him, and it had nothing to do with the story arc of the podcast and whether he could bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. His hands started sweating as he realized that over the past few months he’d been living under a delusion of his own: that the Frick Islanders were never going to hear the podcast he was making. Or if and when they did, he’d be long gone and on to something else. He never anticipated he’d still be there when the cell tower was finished. Or that he’d want to still be there, even after it was done. Or that he’d care so much what the islanders would think when they found out.

And by islanders he meant islander, of course.

And by islander, he meant Piper.

Piper.

His stomach dropped when he thought of her listening to it—and not just because she would learn that Anders had been lying to her. But his mind kept drifting to something that therapist had told him in her interview. It can also be quite overwhelming for them to hear the truth, if they’re not ready—and can cause quite a bit of stress and agitation, which can lead to further deterioration of their mental condition.

Not only might it make Piper hate Anders forever, but it could actually make her delusion worse. And Anders couldn’t decide which consequence troubled him more.

He pulled out his laptop and opened it on his desk, clicking through to his podcast website, as if it might give him the answers he was looking for. Staring at the screen, he thought of only one: He could delete it altogether. The latest episode had 42,932 subscribers—and though it would be difficult to just erase all his hard work from the last few months, he doubted the listeners would mind too much. There were plenty of other podcasts for them to move on to. And if it meant helping Piper . . .

He froze, replaying that sentence in his head, and wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. He could help Piper. He had to help Piper. He had been on that island for months and it was clear that no one else was going to do it. There had to be a way to get her to come to terms with her reality, to help her to understand that Tom was no longer alive. It would be hard, of course, but she couldn’t go on like this forever—she’d have to face it sometime. And he could be