Page 17

RED JOE

I woke early. I’d been doing it for so many years now that I didn’t need to set an alarm.

I carefully disentangled myself from Eddie, dressed, and then went into the kitchen and pulled my boots and my jacket on before letting Hiccup outside for her morning pee.

I left the kitchen door propped open for her while I did my check of the lighthouse.

It was a bright, cold day. The sea was smooth, its surface only broken into choppy waves close to the island and to the jagged rocks that ringed it.

On days like these, I usually liked to stand on the catwalk for a while, leaning on the rail and taking in the view.

But I usually didn’t have someone sleeping in my bed back at the cottage.

The sea didn’t have anything on Eddie Hawthorne.

I headed back down the winding stairs.

Hiccup met me in the yard between the lighthouse and the cottage, her tail swinging lazily. I scratched her head, and she leaned against me.

“Is Eddie awake?”

Her ears twitched as she beamed up at me.

“You like him, huh?” I asked her. “Me too, Hic. Me too.”

I’d always told myself I wasn’t one for summer—or winter—flings with tourists, but that was before Eddie came to Dauntless.

Most of our tourists were retirees, and my idea of sexy underwear didn’t really extend to anything in the compression socks range.

If our average tourist looked more like Eddie and less like someone who’d last stepped on a Pacific island with Douglas MacArthur, maybe I would have gotten around more.

Dauntless Island wasn’t exactly a draw for the young, hot backpacker crowd.

It probably never would be, however much Short Clarry dreamed of those tourism dollars.

Last night Eddie had said he liked me, and I’d said I liked him back.

I wondered if that was something Eddie would remember this morning, and if he still meant it.

I thought we had something more than attraction and convenience, but I didn’t know if that was worth acknowledging when we were both sober, or if it was something we’d be better off ignoring since Eddie would be returning to the mainland soon.

Too bad I only had Hiccup to talk it through with.

Eddie was poking around in the kitchen when Hiccup and I got back to the cottage. He was yawning and blinking, his hair sticking up in odd ways.

“Feeling okay?” I asked.

“Hmm.” Eddie considered that for a moment, and I could almost hear his brain whirring behind his long, slow blinks, like an old computer doing its hardest to restart. “Not great, but considering how drunk I was last night, I should probably be feeling a lot worse than I do.”

“Sarah Hooper’s rum has a hell of a kick.” I moved around him to get to the kettle. I filled it in the sink and set it on the stovetop.

Eddie hugged his chest. “It’s cold this morning.”

Probably because I’d left the door propped open when I’d done my rounds. “Go sit in the living room. I’ll bring you your coffee when it’s done.”

Eddie flashed me a grateful smile and shuffled out of the kitchen. Hiccup followed him.

I expected to find him snoring on the couch by the time the coffee was done, but instead he was inspecting the bookshelves and the framed photographs standing in front of the books.

“She’s beautiful,” he said, sliding his fingers over the glass of a frame.

“My mum. She passed away when I was nine.” I set the mugs on the coffee table. “Cancer. She went to the mainland for treatment, but it didn’t do her any good.” My eyes stung a little at the memory.

“I’m sorry.” He touched the next frame. Two grinning red-headed kids squinted into the sunlight at the camera. “Is this you?”

I nodded. “Me and Amy, on Dad’s boat when we were kids.”

Dauntless was in my blood, in an unbroken line that stretched back two centuries.

And it was home. It would always be home.

I’d thought about not coming back after Dad died.

I’d thought about sending for Amy instead and making room for her in my poky Sydney flat—but it had been nothing more than an idle thought.

I’d never really meant it. I couldn’t be the first Josiah Nesmith in two hundred years to abandon the place.

“Would you ever move back?” Eddie asked softly. “To Sydney?”

I had the sinking feeling he was asking about more than Sydney. I felt a pang of regret, but I owed Eddie the truth. “No. Dauntless is where I belong.”

Eddie’s mouth quirked into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Yeah, of course. I mean, it’s incredible here. Why would you leave?” He bent down to pick up his mug, then winced. “I need a couple of aspirin and at least another few hours’ sleep before I’m human again, I think.”

“Bacon and eggs for breakfast first?” I asked, hating myself for being glad he’d changed the subject.

Eddie’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “That would be amazing.”

We went back into the kitchen, and Eddie began to rummage through the fridge to find the eggs and bacon. I unhooked my keys from my belt and crossed to the green medical chest to grab some aspirin. I unlocked the padlock, wiggled it free, and lifted the lid.

And stared down at the packs of medication and bandages there.

The diary…

Henry Jessup’s diary was gone .

My heart raced and my blood ran cold.

“Hey,” Eddie said. “You’ve got spinach here too. Want me to make omelettes instead? I make a mean omelette.”

I reached into the chest and pulled the first tray out. I dug through the contents, scattering wrapped bandages and dressings all over the kitchen floor.

Hiccup grabbed one and brought it back to me. She dropped it and waited expectantly to be told she was a good girl.

I hauled out the second tray, sending a plastic jar of pills rattling over the floor.

“Joe,” Eddie said, “what’s…”

He trailed off as he came to stand beside me.

I looked up at him.

Eddie’s expression was as tight as his voice. “Where’s the diary?”

“I don’t…” I shook my head. “It’s gone.”

Eddie stepped back, the colour rushing from his face. He reached out and gripped the top of a chair as though he was afraid he’d stumble.

“How can it be gone?” he asked. “It was in a locked box, and the only person who has a key is…”

I didn’t have an answer for him, just another useless shake of my head.

“You,” Eddie said flatly. “You’re the only person who has a key. Fuck! I trusted you! I always do this—I— fuck !”

I rose to my feet.

Eddie took another step away from me. “It sure would make things easier for you if the diary vanished, wouldn’t it, Joe?”

“What? Jesus, Eddie, no!”

“You have his name, Joe,” Eddie said. “You’re the one with the most to lose if it comes out Josiah Nesmith was a criminal, not a hero.

You’re the king of the fucking island, and you took my side, not theirs.

That mattered .” His eyes shone with angry tears.

“What? Did you have second thoughts about backing a Hawthorne ?

Did you get rid of it because all your little subjects gave you shit for it?

“No,” I said woodenly. “I don’t care about that.”

He glared at me. “Was I not good enough in bed?”

“ What? Eddie, god! Why would?—”

“And of course you care about that island king bullshit,” he shouted. “This whole fucking place does!” He dragged his hands through his hair. “Oh, Jesus. I need to go. I need to fucking go.”

I reached out a hand.

“Don’t,” Eddie said, his voice colder than I would have ever thought possible. “Don’t you touch me. I need to go.” He edged around the kitchen table, disappearing into the living room. He appeared moments later, shoving his stuff into his ugly orange backpack.

“Eddie,” I said over the buzzing in my skull. “Please. You’ll freeze out there.”

Eddie held his gaze, angry and defiant.

“Just think,” I said. “Please, just think. If I’d taken the diary, why the hell would I have opened the chest in front of you?”

I saw the hesitation in Eddie’s expression, but then he was backing away toward the kitchen door.

“I didn’t take it, Eddie,” I said, swallowing painfully around the lump in his throat. “I wouldn’t. I like you.”

Eddie pressed his lips together in a thin line, and for a moment I thought I’d got through to him. Then he lifted his chin and shook his head. “I need to think, okay? I need to think, Joe, and I can’t do that here. I have to go.”

“Eddie—”

Eddie walked out.

Hiccup bounded happily out of the kitchen door after him, and was back a few minutes later, staring at me with her head on an angle.

“No, we’re not going with him,” I told her, my voice cracking. “We’re staying here.”

I knelt on the floor and began to clean up the items from the medical chest.

“We’re staying here.”

* * *

I climbed the lighthouse stairs to the catwalk, then walked around the lee side so that I could see the way into the village.

Eddie’s red jacket and orange backpack were already nothing more than a distant flash of colour against the patchwork of green hues that made up the island.

I watched him until he vanished from the windswept hillside into the first copse of pine trees that dotted the way.

I didn’t wait to see him pop out the other side of the trees amongst the sandstone cottages of the village, taking my heart with him.

It was Dauntless Island. It wasn’t like he could get lost.

I climbed down the stairs again and then, whistling for Hiccup, made my way to the ocean-side of the point and headed down the steep, twisting track.

Eddie’s yellow tent was where I’d left it the night I’d retrieved his belongings.

The tent was flat and battered. Water ran off it in streams when I picked it up.

Hiccup crunched a pinecone while I folded the tent up as best I could. I carried it back up to the top of the point and left it at the base of the lighthouse.