“No, no, no,” he pleads, turning the key again, and again, and at lastThe Royalty Checkcomes to life, and Holden thrusts both hands into the air and lets out a victory whoop. He throws the boat into gear, and it lurches forward. He guns the engine, spins the wheel, and flings himself and the yacht onto the dark water, putting the island and its angry ghosts firmly in his wake.
Malcolm
Chapter One
FUCKING FOXES FUCKING.
The thought works its way up through the flat black shell of sleep.
Malcolm was twelve when he first heard the noise. A scream so violent and sharp it seemed to split the night wide open, had him bolting upright out of bed, convinced someone was being brutally murdered in the back garden.
A sound that cut right down to his core and made young Malcolm suddenly brave. He sprung up and grabbed a cricket bat from under the bed, hoping it was a young woman, and he would get there just in time to save her, like the men in the comics he read under the sheets, a torch propped beneath his chin.
The shriek came again, and he rushed down the stairs and into the garden, nearly slipping on the damp grass as he searched the plot and saw not a damsel in distress, but a pair of mangy foxes going at it right in the middle of the freshly mown lawn.
The sight was so jarring, so unexpected, that the cricket bat slipped from his fingers and he stood there while the two small forms writhed and tangled and let out that uncanny, ear-splitting wail.
Fucking foxes fucking.
Forty years later, Malcolm doesn’t spring out of bed at the sound, cricket bat in hand. He simply grumbles in annoyance and rolls, ready to drape his arm across Sienna’s side. But his palm finds only the empty bed.
Malcolm cracks open an eye.
There’s a Sienna-shaped groove worn into the duvet, but his wife is gone.
He sits up and is relieved to discover that he’s still, in fact, quite drunk.
The Scotch hasn’t turned on him just yet, but it will, it always does, the sweet bliss giving way to sour stomach, pounding skull, a betrayal at once wretched and inevitable.
But for now, at least, he’s good.
The world is still soft, padded, his head full of fog. Malcolm scratches at his stubble, trying to remember why he’s awake. He grasps, but the thought dances out of reach.
The world is black beyond the windows, but butter yellow spills through the open door. He looks down at the indent in the bed.
Where the devil is Sienna?
His thoughts are sluggish, but slowly they haul themselves together to form a hazy memory. Ah, that’s right.
The fight.
His marriage, over. Penn Stonely, dead.
He scrapes a hand across his face. Why did he open his mouth? If he hadn’t told the others, they’d have never told the editor, and he and Sienna could have—would have—gotten through this. But the indignity of his wife, his literal partner in crime, declaring in front of everyone that she wants to write alone, and even worse, the editor agreeing!
No loyalty these days. None.
But as the emptiness of the room settles over him, so does panic.
Oh god, what has he done? He can’t do this alone. He needs Sienna. She’s the thing that makes themwork.
There’s still time. He can apologize, beg, if necessary.
He’ll do whatever it takes, pride be damned.
Voices are rising from the foyer now. An unholy commotion, given the hour.
Malcolm levers himself upright, still dressed in last night’s clothes, now crumpled. The room tips once, precariously, and he throws out a hand, bracing himself on the desk chair. As his gaze scrapes over the desk, it lands on the place where the typewritershouldbe. Where it’s obviouslynot.
