Cass remained at her post until the sky brightened with the first hints of sunrise. Selena didn't return.
She was so tired she could hardly steer her bike, but somehow she managed to make it back to town and the Andiamo, where she swung her bike aboard and stumbled below deck. To her relief, the cabin was dark; she'd been afraid Jen would be waiting up for her. She eased open her cabin door and fell into bed, convinced she'd fall asleep before her head hit the pillow.
But instead of a pillow, her head hit something hard and cold. "Ouch," she whispered. She pushed to sitting. A dark oblong shape lay where her pillow should be. A rock? She lifted it to the faint light from her window and ran her finger along its edge. No, glass. It was a piece of sea glass, edges worn smooth, the biggest piece she'd ever seen. From the shape and size, she guessed it started off life as a beer bottle.
A series of scratches marked one side. When she tilted it toward the light, she could make out...waves? Definitely waves, she decided, which would make the square shape beside them a cliff overlooking the ocean. Another set of angled lines hovered between the waves and the land. A bird? No, the proportions were wrong and the head too big.
A person, she realized. A person falling from the cliff to the waves.
Without thinking, she threw the glass at the far wall as hard as she could, where it thumped loudly but didn't break. Her heart pounded against her ribs; she waited, frozen, for Jen to come investigate. After long minutes when nothing stirred, she scrambled to the foot of her bed and grabbed the glass. The feel of it-the sand-roughened texture-made her skin crawl. She itched to throw it again, which wouldn't do any good. What she really wanted was to destroy the threat it represented.
She still carried it topside and hurled it into the waiting waves.
It was just another threat, she thought. It meant she'd won last night-but as she crept back into her bunk, she hoped that she'd judged correctly and Selena really wouldn't hurt anyone. Because Cass sure as hell wasn't going to back off from Jason.
It seemed only a few minutes until she woke again, this time to the soft clanks of Jen moving in the kitchen. With a groan, Cass pushed her door open; she would have thought she'd sleep through anything short of a tidal wave, and yet here she was, awake. It didn't seem right.
Jen flashed her a grin. "Coffee? I was just making a pot."
Cass blinked, nonplussed. She'd expected a lecture. She rolled back through the previous night's events, and no, she hadn't returned until nearly six in the morning.
"Coffee it is," Jen said, eyebrows raised, "since you're obviously too tired to answer the question. Guess you didn't sleep well?"
"About that," Cass said. She might as well get it over with. "I'm sorry I got back so late."
Jen winked at her. Winked. "Nice try, hon, and it would've worked great except that I checked on you before I hit the sack. You must've been too sound asleep to notice."
The coffee pot rang with the sound of water hitting metal as Jen filled it. "Coming with me again today?"
Maybe this was what a hallucination felt like. "Um, sure," Cass said. "Wait-no, I can't."
Selena had been in her room to deliver her sea glass message. If Jen returned while Selena was there, it would have been simpler for Selena to pretend to be Cass than to erase Jen's memory of her presence. Maybe mind-control took energy. Selena had seemed exhausted when Cass last saw her.
"Cass? Why can't you come?" Jen asked.
Jen's tone had turned impatient and Cass had the feeling she'd asked the question more than once. "We're going to Friday Harbor to pick up supplies for tomorrow. For the concert."
"Oh. Right. Well, take your phone so you can call if you'll be late."
"I don't have a phone. But I'm sure I can borrow Jason's."
"And if I need to reach you?"
"You can call Jason," Cass said. "I called him yesterday, so you should have his number."
Jen frowned and turned back to coffee-making. "We have to get that phone of yours fixed. Bring it here, will you? Maybe if I open it up and let everything dry we can resurrect it."
When Jen finally left, Cass crawled back into bed, but she kept waking, panicked that she'd overslept and missed the trip to Friday Harbor. Finally she gave up and dressed-with a suit underneath, just in case.
She killed the rest of the morning re-reading the books about the island, searching for more clues about the Serra, but she kept seeing Dan's wind-roughened hands encircling a white neck. She'd wanted to find old newspapers so she could see the facts for herself-but what more was there to learn? Selena had shown her what happened. It didn't seem like she could fake something like that. Even if she wanted to, Cass's gut told her the orca wouldn't help her.
#
When she went to meet the others, she found only Jason and Evie. "Gramps can't come," Jason said. He avoided her gaze; obviously Selena's influence hadn't magically worn off. "He's got to work at the marina-septic's backed up. He said he could take the rest of you if I stayed to fix things, but...." He shrugged, grimacing. "Oh, and he said to tell Jen he's sorry about the robbery."
Cass blinked. "Jeez, does everyone know about the missing monitors?"
"It's a small island. Everyone knows everything about everyone around here."
Evie plopped onto one of the two cushioned seats and propped her boots on the rail. "Where's Reis? I thought he'd be here already."
"Your turn to watch him," Jason said. "Not mine."
Evie dug through her bag, a black leather satchel with silver studs and embroidered rainbows, and emerged with a cell phone. "He wasn't at his house when I stopped by. I figured he'd gone on ahead. I'll give him a call."
Reis didn't answer his cell. He also didn't show up. Jason checked the radio, the gas gauge, and the running lights three times, and finally hiked back up to the marina building to see if his grandfather had heard from him. He returned empty-handed.
"Where would he be?" Cass asked. A sprout of uneasiness was pushing up inside her.
"Maybe he had a flat tire?" Jason offered.
"I would have passed him on the way in." Evie slid her glasses back on her nose and stood. "Let's take one more look around."
"I'll take a spin through town," Jason said. He held up a hand when Cass started to follow. "No, you wait here. If he comes back, give the horn three toots."
Thirty minutes later, Jason and Evie returned, sweaty and unsuccessful. No Reis on the dock, in the marina, in the store, or anywhere, and still no answer on his cell or at his house.
"What now?" Evie asked.
Jason climbed into the pilot's seat and fired the ignition. "I guess we go without him."
They rode in silence as the boat rumbled around the wave barrier and past Remembrance, with its reefs and cliffs and wheeling cormorants. Cass found herself searching the rocks and strip of green at the summit for a patch of red hair. When she glanced at Jason, she saw him doing the same.
It was late enough in the afternoon that the sun burned directly against the cliffs, washing out shadows in a way that made the rock appear completely smooth. Rust stained the cliff face, crossed by long streaks of white. As Cass stared at them, the white resolved into a pattern: a curved triangle surrounded by a circle. It was large enough and irregular enough that she wouldn't have connected the pieces if she hadn't had the symbol so clear in her mind of late. Like an optical illusion: once she knew what to look for, it became perfectly clear.
She scooted to the rear of the boat and pointed it out to Jason. "If I remember right, that's right below where I saw her."
He gave her a sharp look but didn't answer.
"Do you remember?" she asked softly. "Do you remember we came to Remembrance to search for her?"
He nodded, once, a frown filling his eyes.
They hugged the coast for the first part of the trip, following the shore to the southern tip of the island. The coast sheltered them from the larger waves of the Strait. It meant, though, that they were within shouting distance of land when they passed Piper Center and the cliffs beyond-which Cass knew because she heard someone shouting. Shouting her name, a faint echo of "Cass! Cass!" that unfurled across the still water.
"Wha-" Jason started. He broke off as something hurtled over the cliff directly opposite. Something blue and black. Blue jeans. Black shirt. A balled-up body streaking toward the water.
"No!" Cass scrambled to her feet. It was Reis, it had to be Reis, playing out the image Selena had left, carrying through on her threat.
He hit the water and disappeared in a swirl offoam.
A/N Thanks for reading & don't forget to vote ;-)