Page 32

As promised, Jon was waiting for us on the other side, standing outside his car, and I gave Jeanette Terwilliger a grateful wave goodbye.

When Jon saw me, he went all saucer-eyed, mouth hanging open.

“Good Lord, woman!”

he said.

“You look awful!”

“Thanks,”

I said, laughing.

“And take my advice.

Don’t ever play poker.

You’d suck at it.”

That got him to clamp his mouth shut.

“I’m going to need some stitches,”

I said.

“Are there any medical services here on the island?”

“Of course.

Where’s your car?”

“It’s in the parking lot of the boat shop on Old Indian Point Road.”

“Can you drive?”

“I’m not sure, to be honest.

I’m feeling a little woozy, but I don’t know how much of that is from the head wound and how much is because I haven’t had anything to eat all day except a granola bar.

All my food is either still on the boat I rented or it got tossed overboard when Newt and I did.”

“Speaking of which, I think your boat has been found.

Someone reported seeing an apparently empty one adrift over by Washington Harbor about an hour ago.

The Coast Guard was looking into it.”

“Well, that’s good.

At least I won’t have to buy the shop a new one.”

“Yeah.

Right.

Let’s get you looked at.”

The closest ER was in Sturgeon Bay, so Jon drove me to a clinic on the island while I filled him in on more details from Newt’s and my adventure.

He didn’t say much, but the scowl on his face told me he wasn’t pleased with what he heard.

At the clinic, I was able to see a doctor after a brief wait.

Jon stayed outside with Newt, who was none too happy at being separated from me.

I was none too happy at seeing what I looked like when I glanced in the mirror in my room at the clinic.

My curls sprouted out around the top and sides of my head like a crop of brown-and-red broccoli.

Dried blood smears ran down and across parts of my face: my eyelids, my cheeks, my nose, my chin.

I looked like something out of a horror movie. No wonder people had been staring at me.

“That’s a right nasty gash you got there,”

the doctor said when she came in.

By then I’d used paper towels and a sink in the room to wipe away some of the blood on my face.

The doctor’s name was Maggie Holland, and she was lovely, with poker-straight red hair and big blue eyes.

She smelled faintly of roses with an underlying tinge of astringent—probably alcohol—and she had a deep, calming voice.

Her touch, however, left something to be desired as she probed my wound with jabbing fingers that felt twice as big as they looked, after which she made me bend over a sink so she could scrub the area.

After towel-drying my hair, she numbed me up, the needle jabs making me see stars and get so light-headed, I had to lie down.

It got better once the medicine took effect, and Dr.

Holland closed my wound with calm, speedy efficiency—not with the stitches I’d expected, but with staples from a stapler that looked scarily like the one on my desk at home.

“Those can come out in seven days,”

she said once she was done.

“It requires a special tool to remove them, so you’ll need to go to a doctor’s office or urgent care.

You can shower and wash your hair, but don’t scrub hard around the area of the wound and be careful not to snag the staples.

It should heal just fine.

You’re lucky you have such thick curly hair because the wound barely shows, not even the small area I had to shave.”

“You shaved my head?”

I said, feeling around with my fingers.

The staples felt hard and cold.

“Just a tiny spot.

Are you up-to-date on your tetanus?”

I was and told her so.

One advantage of all the traveling I did with my parents was that I was always up-to-date on my vaccinations.

“Okay.

Just let me finish my neuro exam and then we can get you on your way, assuming you pass, of course.”

She hammered my reflexes, shone a light in my eyes and ears, listened to my lungs, checked my vision, and asked me if I had any numbness or tingling anywhere. I didn’t.

“You’re going to be fine,”

she said finally with a smile.

“It sounds like you were very lucky, but that doesn’t mean you can start playing hard just yet.

You’ve most likely sustained a small concussion, so don’t be surprised if you feel a little dizzy, nauseated, or foggy for the next week or two.

Rest and plenty of fluids should fix you right up.”

I thanked her for getting me in on such short notice, and then I went outside to find Jon hanging around near the entrance to the clinic.

Newt nearly bowled me over when he saw me, yanking the leash Jon had fashioned from a rope in his car clean out of his hand.

“I thought he was going to drag me into the building,”

Jon said.

“He does not like being away from you.”

“I know.

Thanks for hanging on to him.”

“Are you okay to drive now?”

“I think so,”

I said, nodding.

“Just a headache, is all.

A bite to eat and a cup of coffee will fix me right up.”

“I know just the place.”

Jon drove us to a small sandwich shop where we ordered sandwiches and coffee to go.

We settled in at a picnic table in a small nearby park to eat.

Once I’d downed most of my sandwich—I shared it with Newt—Jon asked me to once again tell him what had happened.

I did, adding in details that I hadn’t mentioned earlier, including the glowing greenish yellow eyes.

Admitting to that still sounded too crazy to my own ears, so I could only imagine what it sounded like to someone else’s.

“You’re sure something hit your boat from beneath?”

he said when I was done.

“Sometimes when you’re out there bobbing about on the lake, those waves can really toss a boat around.”

“I’m positive,”

I told him.

“I saw it on the fish-finder.

I don’t know what it was, just that it was big.

And I got proof.

I saved the screenshot.”

Jon frowned.

“How far out were you when it happened?”

“I was southwest of that long arm of shoals that extends down from St.

Martin Island,” I said.

“That’s nearly two miles out from Rock Island,”

he said.

“You’re damned lucky you didn’t drown.

You must be a good swimmer.”

“I am.

Newt and I swim together a lot.

Part of the credit goes to him, because I was knocked out cold initially, and he pulled me through the water toward shore.”

Newt thumped his tail at the mention of his name and grinned up at us from where he was lying alongside our table.

Jon stared at him with newfound respect for a few seconds before turning his attention back to me.

“By the way, I have some good news and some bad news for you.”

“Give me the good news.”

“I got a call while you were in the doctor’s office.

The Coast Guard managed to get someone onto your boat and bring it to shore.

They figured out what shop it came from and they’re taking it back there now.

Apparently, it was none the worse for wear, so if something hit you out there, it didn’t do any serious damage.”

If something hit me? I frowned at him, miffed that, apparently, he harbored a certain amount of skepticism regarding my story.

“What’s the bad news?”

“There was nothing in the boat,”

he said.

“Not your pack, not your camera, not even the expensive fish-finder the rental shop had installed on the boat.

That’s unfortunate because that model has memory storage that would have allowed us to go back to exactly where you were when this incident happened.

I’m guessing the pack and camera went overboard when you did.

The fish-finder is a bit more puzzling since it was attached to a mounting post on the boat, but if it was jarred hard enough, I suppose it could have gone over the side, too.”

Not bloody likely.

I must have been making an ugly face because Jon said, “Are you okay, Morgan?”

“I’m fine.

I’m just pissed, is all.

Losing that fish-finder means losing my proof of what I saw.

It all seems a little too convenient, doesn’t it?”

Jon said nothing, which said everything.

I let out an exasperated sigh.

“This whole situation is starting to give me the heebie-jeebies.”

“Big words coming from a woman who lives with a corpse.”

That made me smile. “Touché.”

“You can quit if you want.”

I shook my head.

“I’m not a quitter.

There’s something out there.

I saw it on the fish-finder.

It was big and had two long appendages, just like the neck and tail on a plesiosaur.”

“Maybe it was a school of fish packed together in such a way that it looked like a big creature with a long neck and tail.”

“I considered that,”

I said.

“But that doesn’t explain those glowing eyes I saw rushing up toward me in the water right before something hit the boat so hard, it tossed me out.

And this isn’t the first time I’ve seen them.”

Jon’s brow folded into a scowl.

“Tell me.”

I told him about seeing those eyes right before Marty revved up the engines on his boat.

When I was done, I leaned back, puffed my cheeks out with a sigh, and went to run a hand through my hair, stopping short when I felt my stapled wound.

The numbing medication was wearing off.

Jon’s cell phone rang, and after glancing at the screen, he gave me an apologetic look and took the call.

I couldn’t hear who was on the other end, and Jon’s only commentary was the occasional grunt and one “I see”

before he said thanks and disconnected the call.

“Your boat is back at the shop where you rented it.

They said they’d probably have to charge you for repairs and for the missing sonar device.”

“Of course,”

I said, exhaustion kicking in.

By silent agreement we cleared up our meal detritus and walked back to his car.

The drive to T.J.

and Sadie’s store took all of three minutes.

“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”

Jon asked as he pulled in next to my car.

“I am.”

“Do you need passage for the ferry ride back to the mainland? I can arrange it for you.”

“I’m good.

I bought a round-trip ticket.

It’s in the car.”

“Okay, then.

Call me if you need anything.

Don’t push yourself too hard because you think you have something to prove.”

I turned and stared at him, annoyed.

“You think I think I have something to prove?”

He sighed and stared out the windshield.

“That came out wrong. Sorry.”

“Just what is it you think I have to prove?”

I asked, unwilling to let it drop.

He looked at me, his blue eyes dark.

“I like you, Morgan.

A lot.

I don’t want to see anything happen to you, okay?”

After opening and closing my mouth like a fish a few times because I kept coming up with and then rapidly discarding smart-assed responses, I simply said, “Okay.”

I got out of his car, let Newt out of the back, and quickly got into my own car before anyone in the shop might see me and come outside.

I would happily pay for any damages related to my boat rental, but I simply didn’t have the energy or emotional bandwidth to deal with the drama attached to Sadie and T.J.

Besides, it was probably best to let Sadie carry out the plan we’d discussed.

My showing up might set T.J. off.

I thought Jon might follow me to the Detroit Harbor ferry landing, but he was gone before I’d even backed out of the parking lot.

Luck was with me as I pulled up only five minutes before the ferry arrived, and even though I was in a long line of waiting vehicles, a line that rapidly grew behind me in the five minutes I waited, my car was the last one allowed on the current boat.

I got out of the car with Newt and climbed up to one of the upper decks.

As the ferry left port, I stood at the rail, watching the tip of Detroit Island slip away and the lighthouses on Plum Island come into view as we navigated through Death’s Door.

I thought about all the ships that had gone down in these waters over the centuries, all the lives that had been lost, including that of my paternal grandfather.

While my adventure hadn’t occurred in Death’s Door, per se, today I’d nearly become one of those deadly statistics.

And that not only made me mad; it made me singularly determined to figure out what the hell was going on.