Page 50 of Everything You Hate
No Name. Gull Shit Rock. The place I threaten tourists with when they get difficult. The place I’ve never actually left anyonebecause it’s exposed, rocky, genuinely unpleasant, and the cell signal is nonexistent.
“No.”
She blinks. “I haven’t told you why yet.”
“Don’t need to.” I reach for a wrench. “The answer’s no.”
“Dean.” She steps onto the boat. Not asking permission. Doug raises his head, assesses her, and drops it again. Even the dog has given up pretending he doesn’t like her. “I found something. In the journal. Evangeline mentions a cove on the east side of No Name. She went there. With Thomas. The night they left.”
“So?”
“So Malcolm’s archive has nothing about No Name. Nothing. It’s not on any of his maps. It’s not in any of his documents. He edited it out. Completely.” She holds the journal like it’s evidence. “If Evangeline and Thomas did conspire to steal the Fairchild treasure, that’s where they would have hidden it. Not the north shore. No Name.”
I set the wrench down. “Scarlett. Look around.”
She does. The dock. The tourists. The metal detector leaning against the rail.
“This is what happens,” I say. “This is exactly what I told you would happen. You post a story, and people show up, and the place stops being itself. The Rosens just canceled a four-day charter because they’re nervous about all the attention. Four thousand dollars. Gone. Because eight million people decided my island was content.”
“I know. I saw Malcolm’s metrics. I know what’s happening.” She takes another step. “That’s why I need to go to No Name. Today. Before anyone else figures it out. If I can confirm the location, I can shut this down. I can tell Malcolm the north shore is a dead end. I can redirect the story.”
“Or you can post about No Name and bring eight million people to a two-acre rock with no facilities and no cell service and get someone killed.”
“I’m not going to post about it. I’m trying to contain this, Dean. The same way you’ve been trying to contain me since I got here.”
That does it. That cracks something open.
I stand up. “Contain you. Is that what you think this is?”
“You’ve been three feet behind me since day one. The Driftwood. Harbor Street. Saltbox. Every conversation I have, there you are.” Her chin comes up. “You don’t trust me. Fine. I get it. But this isn’t about trust anymore. This is about finding the truth before Malcolm spins it into something worse.”
“The truth.” I laugh. The sound is ugly even to me. “The truth is my family folded you in because that’s what they do. They take in strays. They adopted a goose, for Christ’s sake. They’d adopt a rabid raccoon if it showed up looking sad enough. You don’t belong here. You never will.”
She goes very still.
“You mistook kindness for belonging.” I keep going because stopping now would mean facing what I’m doing, and I can’t. “This place is not your story. These people are not your characters. You’ll write your piece, you’ll collect your footage, and you’ll go back to whatever morning show hires you next, and we’ll still be here cleaning up the mess.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Fair?” I step toward her. Close enough now that I can see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes, the pulse in her throat, the way her mouth tightens when she’s hurt. I see it all and I keep going. “You want fair? Your career is built on turning real people into content. You stood in front of a camera for five years and smiled at America every morning like nothing was eating you alive, andnow you’re here making a show out of being a victim of the same machine you profited from.”
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch. Just stands there with my words hitting her full in the face, and for a second I want her to hit back. To scream at me. To call me a coward or a bastard or a hypocrite, because all three would be true.
She nods once, sharp, and all the color drains from her face. “Okay,” she says. She turns on the heel of her boot and climbs back off the boat, not looking at me.
I stand there with my fists clenched and my jaw aching and the sick, sour taste of the argument in my mouth.
Doug lets out a sigh like a punctured tire. I look at him, and he looks back at me, disappointment in his droopy eyes.
“Not now, buddy.”
He sighs again. Louder.
I scratch behind his ears because it’s the least I can do, and he melts against my leg like I’ve offered him a steak. Then I go forward and start pulling lines.
I’m not going anywhere. There’s nowhere to go. The Rosen slot is empty for four days and the next charter isn’t until Tuesday and the port engine is still half apart on the deck behind me. I cast off anyway. Captain shrieks as we clear the slip, and I take her out past the breakwater into open water where nobody can reach me.
The Rosen cancellation hurt. I won’t pretend it didn’t. Four days of guaranteed income gone because the island I’ve been trying to protect became content for eight million strangers. That’s real money. Groceries and diesel and the mortgage payment on the house Henry still insists is half mine even though I sleep on a boat.
