I couldn’t answer.My throat had closed, and I reached out with a shaking hand to touch the edge of the poster, like maybe if I felt the paper, my brain would tell me I was wrong.
I wasn’t wrong.
I knew that face.
I knew those eyes.
Even distorted by the poster effect, even made black and white and fake-old, I knew my sister.
“Erin,” I whispered.
Push went completely still beside me.
The air around us changed.
I turned slowly and looked at him.My voice barely worked, but the words came out anyway.“Why the hell is my sister’s picture on that wanted poster?”
Chapter Twelve
Push
“What the hell do you mean Erin’s picture is on a wanted poster?”Anchor’s voice crackled through the radio clipped to my cut while I kept my eyes locked on McKayla.
She hadn’t moved.Hadn’t blinked.She just stood there staring at the poster nailed to the oak tree like the ground beneath her feet had shifted.
Maybe it had.
“Exactly what I said,” I answered.“Get over here.”
A beat of silence crackled over the radio before Anchor answered.“Piney, get your ass back with the boat and come pick me up.I’m not taking one of those big, haunted clown barges.”
“They’re ghost boats,” Piney muttered.
“I’m not bringing the clown barge.”
“Copy that,” Piney said into the radio before looking at us.“Guess I’m the ferry service now.”He took off toward the dock at a jog while McKayla stayed frozen beside the tree.
I stepped closer to her carefully.“You okay?”I asked.Stupid question.Obviously she wasn’t okay.
Her eyes stayed fixed on the poster.“That’s Erin.”
“I know.”
“How the hell is that Erin?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She laughed once, sharp and humorless.“That feels like the slogan of this island.”
I looked at the poster again.The fake wanted sign looked just like the rest nailed around the ghost town.Same aged paper.Same fake weathering.Same bold black lettering.
Except this one had McKayla’s sister on it.
McKayla stepped closer to the tree and touched the edge of the paper again.“There are so many of these things.”
“Yeah.”
“There have to be at least forty in this area alone.”
