Page 41 of Wayward (Wrecked #4)

Calling Shore

Sam

I hang up from talking to Charlie. He’s in shock. To him, I’ve come back from the dead. He gave me Sis’s number, but he’s going to call her now. There’s no way I have time to do it before the interview.

“You want to phone next?” I hand it to Zane.

He stares at it. “Do you need a number? I could have Charlie look it up in my records.” He’s got my backup laptop at his apartment.

In fact, he’s got everything I own at his place.

Which is a considerable bit less than when I left last year—he apologized over and over for giving away a lot of my stuff.

Charlie never apologizes. Charge-ahead-Charlie, my mom calls him.

He packed up my apartment after I’d been missing six months.

My clothes have been tossed. Though he said there’s a few boxes of things our sister wouldn’t let him throw away in her basement.

I don’t care. It’s just stuff. Replaceable.

We’re here and alive. Haley’s alive . . .

all those days alone with Penny on the Rock Candy , that’s all that mattered to me.

What comes next? That’s been something I’ve thought about my whole life.

What’s next? And now I don’t care. Just as long as I have Haley and Penny somewhere safe.

Together. I want us to be together. Though I don’t have unrealistic expectations that it will be the same as on the island.

No fucking way it could be the same. But with a hell of a lot of work, it might be better?

“I don’t need the number,” Zane says. “I know Mum’s and Ruby’s, the pizza joint, fuck, I know the number from my best mate’s old landline from when I was a kid. Numbers I’ve got stored in my head forever. I’m just nervous about what to say.”

“Nervous? From everything you’ve told me, they’re going to be thrilled.”

Zane twists around, and Haley grabs his hand. “I know . . . I know—” There’s a knock from the main room.

“Yeah?” I check behind me to make sure everyone’s decent before I open the door.

Rocky’s got his hands in his designer suit pants pockets. “We’re ready when you are. Hank will be up here soon.” Of course Rocky knows Henry Goodstone well enough to call him Hank.

“Do we have a minute?" I ask. "Zane and Dante haven’t called their families yet.”

“Of course.” Rocky nods at the phone in Zane’s hand. “Your mum’s a lovely lady. Ruby too.”

“Yes, they are. Thanks.” Zane stares at the floor, then back to the phone.

“What?” Rocky asks, before I can.

“It’s nothing. I was sending money to Ruby for school. I know they’re going to be thrilled with me being home. I just feel guilty about not being able to help them for the last?—”

“I hope you don’t mind, son. I know how important it can be to take care of your family yourself.

But I— Or rather, I had a team making sure your families were taken care of.

I made the calls, though. Ruby’s schooling was paid for.

She’s been sending in her marks to the office.

It’s rather adorable. We never asked her to do that.

She’s smart. So smart we’ve offered her a paid internship in the Birmingham office this summer. ”

“You’re shitting me?” Zane’s smile returns.

“Uh, no.” Rocky puts his hand on Zane’s shoulder. “It’s the very least I could do.”

“Thank you, Mr. Rockwell.”

“It’s Rocky. And thank you for being such a good friend to Easton.”

“He’s family to me now. We’re all family.”

“It’s nice to have more sons.” Rocky tips his imaginary hat at us. “I don’t mean to rush such an important phone call, but Hank’s on a time limit.”

“Of course,” Zane says.

“You want to go first, Dante?”

“Sure, toss it over.” Dante catches the phone. He punches in a number. “Hey, Shortstack.” A scream comes out of the phone, followed by a loud cry and an unintelligible jumble of words and loud music.

“Yes, I’m alive. No, I didn’t disappear on purpose .

. . I’m safe and can’t talk long. But I’ll be in touch as soon as I can get a phone of my own.

Tell Mom. Gotta go. Hug those rugrats of yours for me.

” There’s a long stream of mumbling. “I’ve got to go.

Everyone needs to use this phone.” The screaming stops.

“Yes, everyone is alive . . . yes, Zane is alive . . . yes, he’s going to call Ruby if you let me go.

” Dante looks at the phone. “Well, Zane, I’m using your sister as an excuse to get off the phone with my sister from now to the end of time.

I guess she likes Ruby. Catch.” Dante tosses the phone back across the room.

“I’ll be as fast as I can.” Zane gives Haley a hug and ducks into the large walk-in closet that I talked to Charlie in.

The bright lights shining down on us are hot.

And despite the efforts Rocky’s team went to get matching polos, the news producer had us change out of them.

The white was too much for the integrity of the shot.

And Calvin’s didn’t fit, even with taking a slice out of the back of it to give him some room to breathe.

We’re lined up on the sofa, Easton, Haley, me, and then Zane.

Calvin and Dante are behind us on tall bar stools that have appeared from somewhere.

Rocky’s in a chair next to the sofa, next to an empty chair.

Henry . . . hasn’t shown up yet, and it’s almost an hour from when we were supposed to start.

“I really like your hair, Sassy. It’s sassy to a T.” Dante fluffs the side of her hair.

The eyes of the production assistants weigh on my shoulders as they skim over us. Easton gave Haley a kiss on the cheek when we came out of the primary bedroom. It’s easy to see the wheels in their heads turning. And I remind myself again: I don’t care.

The door flies open, and Henry strolls in by himself.

I figured he’d have an entourage behind him.

He’s wearing khakis and a bush jacket, complete with epaulets and a dozen pockets.

When it sways open, a linen shirt flashes.

He looks more like he’s going on a safari than interviewing castaways and billionaires as he beelines across the room.

“Rocky, amazing to see you. Thank you for sitting down with me to have this chat.” He shakes Rocky’s hand and pivots on his heels toward the sofa.

His eyes focus on Haley. “There’s the gal who lived for a year on the island with all these blokes.

” He laughs. “How was that? I bet you’re looking forward to a spa day? Haley Brewster, correct?”

The mention of a spa day has me spiraling inside, remembering the spa day I gave her. My eyes flick to her cheeks that are turning crimson. She’s remembering it too.

“It wasn’t bad. Sure, there was a lot of rain. But we managed. Island life wasn’t the problem. It was leaving the island that we’d like to talk to you about.”

“Yes, say no more. I want to capture everything you say with a fresh reaction to inform our viewers.” He nods like he’s curing world hunger and points at each of us. “Calvin Green, Dante Jones, Easton—good to see you alive and kicking. Captain Samuel?—”

“Sam.”

“Noted.” Henry gives a curt nod. “And our hometown boy from Birmingham?”

“Stourbridge.”

“Ah, a lovely village, yes. Right, then, let’s get this show moving. Such a lovely piece.”

I turn to Haley beside me. Her eyes go wide. Lovely piece, she mouths.

“Hank, your producer told you about?—”

“Things like this I want to go in fresh.” He plops down in the chair next to Rocky’s. “Knee’s giving me fits. Nigel, are we doing this or what?”

The producer puts on his headset, and the lights flip from glaring to supernova and back down again.

A camera person focuses on Henry. “Almost a year ago, the mega yacht Rock Candy was lost at sea. One raft containing the Rocky Rockwell, his daughter, another guest, and some of the crew was found after a short time. The yacht and a second raft containing Olympian swimmer Easton Rockwell and more crew were never found and presumed lost at sea. That’s clearly not the case.

Welcome to the long-lost gold medal winner Easton Rockwell and the missing crew. ”

I can feel Easton’s disdain rolling off him.

The camera pans over us, and Henry introduces each of us before turning to Rocky. “You must really have been waiting for this day? Your big announcement at the forums market and now your son is home. This will be a day you never forget.”

Easton cocks his head at his dad, and I’m more than wondering what announcement was made at the forum.

“Yes, it’s an exciting day. I’m damn happy to have them all home.” Rocky crosses his legs.

Henry’s off. “How did you end up in London, Captain Sam Miller? Belay that order.” I want to slap Henry. He’s sounding more like an early morning talk show host and less like the award-winning hard reporter that PR Mike sold him as. “Can you introduce us to your crew?”

I straighten myself on the sofa and give a quick introduction to people I know Henry knows the names of.

He’s rubbing me the wrong way, and I’m losing hope quickly that this is going to do anything but make us look like a bunch of helpless victims. “. . . and Easton,” I say, and it feels darn awkward.

“Right, well, of course we all know the water genius of Easton Rockwell. Did you pull the raft to the island?” Henry asks Easton.

“No.” Easton looks back to me. He’s boiling.

“We really appreciate you talking to all of us today. Because what happened to the Rock Candy wasn’t an accident. And we need to go on record with what did happen,” I say.

Henry’s eyebrows shoot up, and he butts in before I can say anything else.

“What do you mean? It was malicious? Sabotage? That’s fascinating .

. . unless you didn’t live through it, I suppose.

” He straightens himself and looks into the camera.

And now I’m wondering if good old Hank has had a couple of mimosas this morning.

“Yes, we’re incredibly lucky that there weren’t more fatalities,” I say.

“Yes, Candace Abbott. What a tragic loss. She fell out of the tender when it was put in. There was an inquiry into your first officer for it.”

Now it’s my turn to raise my eyebrows. My stomach clenches. Anders was doing his best to get the primaries off the boat. I don’t know for certain, I didn’t see it, but I can imagine how hysterical Candy must have been for him to break protocol.

“He was cleared of all wrongdoing,” Rocky says.

“That’s right, he was.”

“The first officer did his best to keep her safe. But she was hysterical. She kept screaming my wedding dress, my wedding dress .” Rocky shakes his head.

Easton’s hands are clenched in fists between his and Haley’s legs. That dress was Candy’s way to escape from Rocky. Or I suppose escape from Susan.

“We’ll be doing a full investigation as to who the guilty parties are for what they did to everyone on the Rock Candy . And we thank you for letting us announce to the world that my son and his friends are back.”

“Back from the dead,” Hank says, mugging on his face. And now I’m sure he had a few glasses of champagne on the way back from the airport. “Any speculation on what happened?” He turns to me.

“That’s best left for the authorities to decide.” And as much as I’d like to spill the beans about Susan, it’s best that she’s taken down by surprise. Mike and Rocky had a call with the lawyers while we were waiting to start filming. They advised against bringing her in on camera.

“Spoken like a true captain.” Hank nods at me. Whatever the hell that means. “How did you find food, Calvin?”

I turn to see Calvin better.

“We fished,” Calvin grunts. He’s glaring at Hank, and I’m not the only one who doesn’t have a good opinion of the anchor.

“I would love to hear about how you survived all those days on the island. What did you do for shelter, Miss Brewster? And food other than fishing?”

“The guys are really rather resourceful,” Haley says.

“We all are,” I add. I’m not going to let her not take credit for our survival.

“Yes, my knowledge of plants came in handy. Zane’s building skills, Calvin’s archeology degree and his hunting skills, Sam’s maritime knowledge, Dante’s ability to turn lacking ingredients into a five-course meal, and Easton’s attention to detail—we kept each other alive. It really wasn’t all that bad.”

“You didn’t miss your cell phone and television?” Hank turns to the camera again.

“No, we told stories. Or rather, Zane did. He’s a movie buff and a great storyteller . . .”