Page 7

COULTER

M y head pounded as the morning sun snuck in through the tiny crack between the curtains, perfectly aligned with my face. I looked around the room, taking a moment to get my bearings. Right, I’d spent the night at Dad’s house.

“Damn you and your red wine, Ava.” I grumbled, rubbing my temple.

My sister kept our glasses full last night, probably to keep our minds off all the loss.

The first Christmas without mom, and the shock of Kylie’s death—it still didn’t seem real.

Nine months since Mom passed, and it felt like she might walk through the door at any second.

But when Kylie turned up dead, our grief shifted.

The eerie parallels between the two deaths rattled my hungover brain.

How could two women who were as comfortable on the water as they were on land, drown?

In Mom’s case, the coroner said she’d likely had a heart attack.

That was hard to believe, as strong and healthy as she was.

But Kylie was young and fit and could hop onto a boat on one leg. No way she fell in .

That detective yesterday was so intent on grilling me, it felt like a pointed attack; there must have been something suspicious at the scene–something she was trying to pin on me.

Did they think Kylie was murdered? I roused myself out of bed and threw on a pair of shorts and T-shirt, grabbing my flip flops on my way out to the kitchen.

Dad seemed far more chipper than I felt as he poured a cup of coffee for Kai, shooting me a smile. “Good thing your charter today canceled. You look like shit.”

“Thanks. I wouldn’t have drunk so much if they weren’t snowed in, in Detroit. You know I don’t get shitfaced before a charter.” I gave my father a serious look.

“I know, son, just riling you up.”

Kai chimed in, shuffling across the tile floor in socked feet. “Yeah, Coulter would never show up to work with a hangover.” He reached for the coffee mug Dad had filled.

I smirked, snatching the mug before Kai could. “How’d that couch treat you last night?” He’d drawn the short straw against Reef and opted for the sofa over the top bunk in their old room.

Kai glared at me sipping my coffee while Dad poured him another one. “Better than trying to climb that ladder drunk as a skunk.”

“I’m guessing it wouldn’t be the first time.” Dad chuckled, handing him a mug.

“Yeah, well when I was teenager the couch wasn’t an option. You or Mom would’ve beat my ass if you thought I was drunk. Now, I’m allowed,” Kai argued .

Dad sighed, shaking his head. “After the day we had yesterday, we are all allowed.” He pulled an iron skillet out of the drawer under the oven. “Some nice greasy bacon and eggs will help.”

“I’m going to West Marine for some hydraulic fluid,” I said, trying to change the subject and get the fuck out of there.

I was too distraught to pretend I felt okay around my dad and brothers.

And I needed to see for myself what the fuck had happened to Kylie.

”The tilt trim motor on the flats boat is acting up. ”

My father’s head cocked, his brows scrunching together. “Seemed fine when I ran it a couple of days ago.”

“It’s lagging at the top,” I lied. It seemed as good an excuse as any to get out of the house so I could go check Kylie’s apartment.

Turning down Stromboli Drive, the sight of the yellow police tape in the distance made the coffee in my empty stomach threaten to come back up.

Aside from the police tape, the first thing I noticed was that Kylie’s cherry-red Jeep Wrangler was not in its spot on the right side of the driveway.

My mom had scoffed at the car when Kylie graduated, saying Doreen couldn’t afford to give her a car like that.

But Doreen had an old Wrangler when she was young, so she’d found a way to buy Kylie’s dream car for graduation.

Kylie had driven it ever since. I still had my Dad’s old pickup that I drove back then, too. Some things hadn’t changed .

The reality that Kylie was gone washed over me like a cold wave as I scanned the driveway. If she was home when she died, where was her Jeep?

I parked on the street in the shade of the Royal Poinciana we’d climbed as kids, its bare, bone-like branches stretching wide above the asphalt. Come spring, it would be full of dark orange blooms, but Kylie wouldn’t be here to see it.

I choked up as I stared across the yard toward the baby blue stilt house with white storm shutters I’d helped Doreen hang when I was in high school.

Kylie shook the ladder when I was at the top, teasing me because she knew I hated heights.

I laughed at the memory, but then the tears came as more memories rushed back with a vengeance.

The mailbox that Kylie hit when she was learning to drive.

The Key lime tree we’d planted for Kylie’s doberman, Rosco, when he died.

Our first kiss, Kylie giggling at me in her pink room that she’d outgrown, in front of the open balcony doors, while I stood there terrified her mother would come bounding in and catch us.

My hand trembled as I shut the car door.

I could barely walk, my knees weak as I stepped over the police tape across the driveway.

I gazed up at the balcony outside her old bedroom, where she’d returned the diamond ring I’d saved for over a year, and told me she didn’t want to get married.

She’d ripped my heart out in the very place where we’d shared our first kiss.

I walked around the house, which looked exactly as it always had.

It felt like she might dance out the door at any second and wake me up from this nightmare.

A pit opened up in my stomach as I neared the water.

I scanned the edge of the dock, searching for any trace— blood, a scuff mark, anything— that might hint at where she had fallen.

The center console boat, that I’d taught Kylie how to dock, floated silently in the canal.

I stepped onto the boat and looked around, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. From the stern, I eyed the dock edge again. Behind the boat, a school of small grunts hung motionless in the shade, almost as if they were guarding the secrets of her death in the crystal clear water.

“There is no way you just fell in here, Kylie. What happened to you?”

I stepped back onto the dock and headed to the door of her downstairs apartment. Locked. So she locked up her apartment before she ended up in the canal? Something felt off.

Before Kylie moved into the apartment, it was their guest house.

Doreen let my parents' visitors use it several times over the years, since we had such a full house.

“There used to be a key,” I muttered to myself, as I walked toward the familiar spot.

There it was, hidden beneath the third conch shell in the border encircling the palm tree beside the door.