Her eyes widened. “You saw Seb?”
I nodded. “Apparently he’s been crashing at the cottage. Did you know about this?”
She gritted her teeth and made a face. “I knew he was doing a little couch surfing lately, but I thought it was temporary—thought he would’ve cleared out of the beach cottage by now. He mostly stays at Benny’s, I believe. I hadno ideahe was trashing the cottage, Paige. I swear.”
I nodded, scratching my nose. “Might’ve at least told me that he was back in town.”
“Hey.Youtold me if any of us mentioned his name ever again you’d poison them in their sleep, so I didn’t think you’d want to know. He came back last fall, after...”
After Nana’s funeral. She didn’t have to say it.
“And apparently, he’s working for your dad at the marina? Seriously?”
“Oh. That? My parents feel sorry for him, that’s all. So, what was it like? Seeing him again after all that time?”
“Strange,” I admitted. “He really grew up, huh?”
“The glow-up of all glow-ups.”
“I mean, what the hell... ?”
Jazmine laughed. “Should’ve seen him last fall when he first came back. You wouldn’t have recognized him, all quiet and dead-eyed. At least he looks a little more like himself now.” She sighed heavily. “God, I can’t believe he trashed your place.”
“Actually, turns out he may have caught a couple guys breaking in and scared them off.”
Her eyes widened. “What? Who?”
“Seb said it was two men on motorcycles. They didn’t take anything. Just broke a lot of stuff.” I’d already given her a rundown of the broken things when I left her the frantic voicemail. “So, anyway. Feels great to come home and be on edge in my own house.”
“So fucking sorry,” she said, slinging her good arm around my shoulders. Which felt nice. Reassuring. Like old times. “If they were local, we’ll find them. What can I do to help?”
There was nothing to be done, but everything seemed fractionally better now that I’d shared it with her and knew that the two of us were okay. I still had Wyrd Jack’s wedding certificate cipher on the brain and started to tell her about it, but one of the boys in her class waved at her. “Ms. Neely? Are we going out in the water today? If not, I’m calling my mama to pick me up.”
“Fuck,” Jazmine whispered. “I gotta go, Paige. I can’t have these demons reporting me to their parents again.”
I sure was glad this was her job and not mine. “Call me later,okay? I’ve got something intriguing that might be of interest to a former Wag.”
“Wag business? All right, then. For sure,” she assured me, eyes brightening. “Speaking of, we really do need a proper Wags catch-up. Benny wants to see you, too.”
I hadn’t seen Benny since the funeral. Back when we were kids, hunting for Wyrd Jack’s treasure, it had been Benny’s idea to call us the Scallywags before we shortened it to the Wags. Him, Seb, Jazmine, and I spent every summer together until Seb began pulling away. However, Benny and Seb continued talking—long after Jaz and I had given up on Seb. In fact, if Benny hadn’t been with Seb on his seventeenth birthday, Seb might’ve never been sent away to boot camp.
That was then, and this is now.I really hadn’t thought much about Benny when I was at Harvard this year, but it would be nice to see him again.
Maybe he and Jaz would like a crack at deciphering the Morse code numbers...
After leaving Jazmine and her class on the beach, I walked back up to the parking lot and got the Corvair started again—only two tries!—so I went ahead and drove across town to the grocery store locals used, an ancient Meijer that always smelled of boiled shrimp. But its prices were a billion times better than the Haven Gourmet Market, where all the tourists bought overpriced cheese and wine. I picked up the basics: toilet paper, Cokes, and sandwich-making stuff. Then I went through the Grind-and-Shine Coffee Hut drive-through and got my favorite order since I’d been ten years old, and the most iconic drink in town: iced white chocolate mocha. I like mine with a splash of coconut milk.
Taking long, pleasurable sips from an oversized cup, I got back on Harbor Drive, intending to cruise through town at my own pace, see what I could see. Maybe go inspect the area downtown where the gold bar was found in the sewer.
But I only made it to the next red light when white smoke started seeping out from beneath the Corvair’s hood. “Shit! Shit!” I said.
The car had done this once before, a couple years ago, but I hadn’t paid much attention to the cause. Nana simply took it into a repair shop and got it fixed.
I didn’t have auto-repair money left in the bank account. Ibarelyhad iced-white-chocolate-mocha money. And I needed to make what little I did have stretch through the next school year.
The only thing I remembered about the last time this happened was that Nana drove the car like this for a couple days. So, not knowing what else to do, I drove the smoking car back to the cottage, utterly embarrassed that everyone I passed gave me dirty looks. When I finally got it parked and the engine shut off, the smoke was so thick, I had to wave it away to find my way out of the garage.
That could not be good.
