CLAIRE SPILLED OUT HER FEAR to Zoey and Lucas. She had told Jake the truth early that morning. Jake had said very little, just turned his back on her, and when she had tried to put her arms around him, he had told her to leave.
Later that afternoon she had tried to call him, but there had been no answer.
She had gone over to his house. His yellow pickup was gone, and when Claire peered through the sliding glass door into his room, she had seen a pile of empty beer cans shoved half under his bed.
She had looked for him everywhere, called everywhere, but no one had seen him. She was worried. He was probably drunk, and in his truck, somewhere on the island.
“I don’t know where to look that I haven’t looked,” she said, sitting stiffly on the chair in Zoey’s room. “There’s only one place . . . And I don’t want to go there alone.”
Lucas caught Zoey’s eye. “We’ll go with you,” Zoey said.
The three of them piled into the Passmores’ island car, a wreck even by island standards. Zoey drove along South Street to Coast Road. There was no question in anyone’s mind where they should look.
At the end of Coast Road where the asphalt gave way to gravel and sand, where a huge tree still bore the scar of a deadly impact, they spotted the pickup truck parked in the ditch.
Jake was slumped over the wheel, unmoving.
Claire leapt from the car and ran, followed closely by Zoey and Lucas. She threw open the door, her heart pounding, her mind swimming in fear.
She saw Jake’s breathing and, putting her hand to his cheek, felt the warmth. She nearly collapsed with relief.
“He’s all right,” she said. “Just passed out.”
“Thank God,” Zoey whispered.
Lucas gently pushed Jake back onto the seat and raised his legs into a prone position. Then, with a glance at Claire, he removed the keys from the ignition and handed them to her.
“I’ll wait here with him,” Claire said. “Till he wakes up.”