They all turned to the window, as if the dark could tell them something.
“I don’t know what could have happened.” Jack’s voice was low, uncertain. “The guy was wearing one of our life jackets, but he wasn’t on my tour. He didn’t have an empty boat or a paddleboard or anything that I could see. He was dressed in normal clothes, jeans. Heavy boots. Like a fisherman. But not one of the regulars. I think.”
“Did Paul know who he was?”
“Paul wasn’t there.”
Beth put her arms around Jack again and gave her a long, slow squeeze.
“I’m so sorry this happened, honey. You can sleep in my room tonight if you want.”
Jack closed her eyes and gave a grateful nod. She pressed her head into Beth’s soft shoulder, breathing in her mom’s steady scent of eucalyptus trees and salt.
Lana coughed again. “I’ll call the school and tell them you won’t be in tomorrow. You can stay home with me.”
Jack raised her head in surprise.
“What? No, Prima. I mean, thank you, but I should go to school. I’ll feel better that way.”
“We’ll all feel better in the morning,” Beth said. “Go get your pillow. And your blanket. It’s too cold tonight for you to steal mine.”
Lana watched them get up from the table and fingered the pills in the pocket of her robe. She was six days away from chemo, which meant a bad week was starting. She felt short of breath, her lungs laboring to push out a hacking cough that made her eyes water. Not that her girls noticed. They were focused on each other now, shuffling to Beth’s bedroom in a tight huddle of hugs and whispers. No “You okay, Ma?” Not even a “good night.” Lana felt the energy drain out of the room, the tide of love receding.
Chapter Eight
Jack floated through North Monterey County High on Monday in a fog. On one level, she felt comforted by the normalcy around her—the shouting kids, the smell of chalk, the ritual passing of papers from desk to desk—but each time the bell rang, Jack realized she had no memory of what the teacher had talked about all period. Presidents, maybe. Or covalent bonds. She headed home with a backpack stuffed with indecipherable notes and arrived to a quiet house. There was a note on the counter that her mom had gone to Gilroy to visit a former patient. She peeked into her old room and saw her grandma, snoring in bed. She grabbed some grapes from the fridge and settled on the couch to try to do her homework.
At six o’clock, there was a knock on the door.
Jack ignored it and kept plodding through Spanish verb conjugations. She figured it was one of Lana’s deliveries of new appliances or fancy face serums. But then the knock came again, louder.
Jack followed her mom’s rules. Walk to the door. Ask “Who is it?” without unlocking. Wait.
“We’re here from the Monterey sheriff’s department.”
Jack squeezed her eyes shut, hard. Her mind flashed back to the mud flats. The glint of sun on the dead man’s long hair, the water pooling in his jacket. Jack wanted to run into her old room and crawl under the covers. She wanted to grab her board and charge down the gravel hill to the water, to paddle back in time somehow to before yesterday ever happened, before the water darkened.
She opened the door.
It was the man and the woman from the day before, him in a dark brown suit, her in a shiny purple jacket that matched her nails.
“Jacqueline Rubicon?” the woman said. “We met yesterday?”
Jack stared at her, a mess of hair and discomfort.
“Is there an adult home with you?”
“Uh . . . hold on.” Jack shut the door, ran to the back bedroom, and woke up her grandma.
When the door opened the second time, Lana stood in front of Jack, wearing a headscarf and her thick, satiny bathrobe like a shield.
The man spoke. “I’m Detective Nicoletti. And my partner, Detective Ramirez. From the Monterey sheriff’s department. May we come in?”
Lana swept out her arm, directing them to the kitchen table.
Nicoletti seemed to be the one in charge. “We’re glad you’re both at home,” he said. “We were hoping to talk with you, Jacqueline, about what happened at the slough. Of course, if that’s all right with your mother.”
This last word earned the detective a full-wattage smile from Lana and an offer of something to drink.
“She’s my grandmother,” Jack said.
“You didn’t have to tell him that,” Lana hissed, her back to the detectives as she scrounged in the cabinet for matching water glasses.