I pull it out so fast I nearly drop it. It’s a notification from my bank.
Transaction processed: $387,443.00
She did it! She cashed the check.
"Everything okay?" the woman next to me asks.
"Yeah." I stand up, suddenly restless. "I need to make a call. Excuse me."
I walk down the beach, away from the fire and the music and the questions. When I'm far enough away that no one can hear me, I stop and stare out at the ocean.
She took the money.
Now comes the hard part. Convincing her to come to me.
I pull out my phone again and open a notes app where I've been drafting and redrafting a letter for the past week. The words have to be perfect. Not too demanding, not too desperate. Just enough to intrigue her without scaring her off.
Tonight, I’m going to write it on good paper and overnight delivery it to Jade's address.
Then I open her blog again. There's a new post, published just an hour ago.
Title: "The Check"
What would you do?
$387,443 appears in your mailbox. No explanation. Just two initials.
You don't know who sent it. You don't know why. You don't know what they want.
But you're drowning. And this is a life raft.
Do you grab it? Even if you don't know who's pulling you to shore?
I did. God help me, I did.
I read it three times, searching for any hint of what she's feeling. Fear? Hope? Curiosity?
The comments section is empty. She doesn't have many readers, just a handful of other writers who occasionally leave encouraging words. But I've been reading every post for years now, watching her document her struggles and dreams and fears in careful, beautiful prose.
She writes like she's afraid someone might hear her. Like she's whispering secrets to an empty room.
Soon she won't have to whisper anymore.
I walk back to the fire. Owen and Kai are deep in conversation with the women, and no one notices when I grab my stuff and head up the stairs to my house.
Inside, I pour myself a whiskey and sit down at my desk to wait. The letter will arrive tomorrow morning. She'll read it, probably panic, maybe call her friend Chloe for advice.
The house is quiet except for the sound of the ocean below. I open my laptop one more time, not to check the bank account but to look at a folder I've kept hidden for years. Inside are screenshots of her blog posts, photos from her Instagram before she made it private, a scanned copy of a photograph I stole when I was ten years old.
A little girl in a purple dress, smiling at the camera. Dark hair, dark eyes, a gap between her front teeth that's probably gone now.
Because seventeen years ago, I made a promise to myself. And I always keep my promises.
5
JADE
The doorbell rings at eight in the morning, which is either a mistake or a disaster. No one rings my doorbell at eight in the morning unless something is wrong.
