“I’ll take care of… this.” Even in the most trying of circumstances, never let it be said that my grandmother was not discreet. An abandoned house soaked in lighter fluid? An impostor daughter who’d kidnapped us, drugged us, and held us at gunpoint?
All summarized in a single word: this.
“You girls head home.”
“And how do you suggest we do that?” Victoria was the first one to recover her voice. “Someone took care of our Jet Skis.”
Lillian was not ruffled in the least. “Lily and Walker are the ones who called me. They brought me here. They’re waiting on the east side of the island, and they have a boat.”
A hundred questions swirled and collided in my head. What were Lily and Walker—and for that matter Lillian—doing here in the first place? And what could my grandmother possibly be planning on doing to contain this situation?
The only question that came out of my mouth was: “If we take the boat, how will you get home?”
Lillian turned toward the woman who’d been her daughter longer than the original Liv Taft had lived. “I suspect Olivia has a way off this island,” she said quietly. “But first, I’d like to finally hear, after all these years, what happened to my girl.”
Campbell, Sadie-Grace, Victoria, and I spent the first half of the walk back to the east shore of the island trying to figure out what—if anything—we should do. I knew what Lillian’s preference was. I could practically hear her ordering me to let her handle it.
Just this once.
“I meant what I said to Lily’s psychotic mother,” Victoria offered behind me. “I cannot imagine that trying to tell the police any of this would go particularly well.”
“For what it’s worth,” Campbell told Victoria, “more than one person might be willing to pay you to keep your mouth shut.”
Campbell had a vested interest in the truth about the Lady of the Lake not coming out. Given Sadie-Grace’s relationship with Boone, she did, too. As much as I might want to, I wouldn’t say a word to the authorities without Lily’s blessing—and Lillian’s.
That just left Victoria.
“Generous,” Victoria commented. “But I’ll pass. If the last month has taught me anything, it’s that I don’t need my father’s money—or anyone else’s. I have his brain.”
“But you’ll keep quiet?” Campbell asked. “For Walker.”
I had no idea what, if anything, had passed between Walker and Victoria since Walker and Lily had taken a step back from their relationship.
Oh, God, I thought suddenly. Walker and Lily.
If Lily was Ana’s baby, then her father was Sterling Ames. And if Lily’s father was Sterling Ames, that meant that Campbell was her half-sister.
And Walker was her half-brother.
The light on the front of the boat was bright enough to illuminate Lily, who sat on the bow, her knees pulled to her chest, her arms around her knees. Her back was straight, her chin held at an angle that made her neck look miles long.
Walker stood behind her. “Everything okay?” he called when he saw us.
Not even a little bit.
“We have to tell them,” Campbell said softly beside me. “Don’t we?”
Given the way we’d left things, I didn’t know why Lily had come back. She probably shouldn’t have. And once we tell her the truth . . .
There would be no recovering from that.
The water surrounding the island was too shallow for Walker and Lily to bring the boat any closer, so we had to wade out to board. Lightning struck in the distance. I mentally counted as I stepped into the lake and began making my way through the water.
I made it to five before I heard the thunder.
“Storm missed us,” Walker commented. “It’s headed the other direction now.”
On the front of the boat, Lily was silent. I wondered what she was thinking. I wondered what, if anything, she knew about what her mother had done.
But mostly, I wondered how in the world I could tell her that Walker was her brother. He was the only boy she’d ever dated. The only one she’d ever loved. Even if she wasn’t sure what she wanted now, even though they’d broken up . . .
This will destroy her.
I was waist-deep in water now. Campbell was on one side of me, Sadie-Grace on the other. I twisted to look for Victoria and discovered that she was still on the shore. As I watched, she bent and retrieved something from behind the brush. It wasn’t until we’d all made it onto the boat that I realized what Victoria had gone back for.
“Here,” she said, handing a scarlet robe to me and one to Sadie-Grace. The gloves came next. “You’re shivering.”
I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or Sadie-Grace. The night air was warm, but still, with my clothes soaked through, I could feel goose bumps rising on my flesh.
Lily’s eyes flickered over the lot of us, over the robes and gloves in our hands. “Go ahead,” she told me. “Put them on.”
I did as she said, then met her eyes. “There’s something we have to tell you.” I glanced toward Walker. “Both of you.”
Before I could say more than that, Campbell stepped in front of me, literally coming between us. “How did you know where to find us, anyway?” she asked her brother.
I recognized an attempt to stall when I saw one.
“Victoria texted me,” Walker said.
“No, I didn’t.” Victoria took a few steps toward him, then stopped. She reached into the pocket of her robe. “My phone is gone. It doesn’t get reception out here anyway. . . .”
So who sent the text?
“Hope,” I said suddenly, answering my own question. “Do you think she got off the island?”
“With my phone?” Victoria said. “Sounds about right.” She turned back to Walker. “What exactly did this text say?”
I realized between one breath and the next what she was really asking. How much does Hope know? What did she see—and hear?
“The text just said there was an emergency.” Walker paused. “That it involved Sawyer and Lily’s mama, that you were all trapped on King’s Island, and I shouldn’t call the police.”
That didn’t exactly answer the question of how much Hope knew.
“So he called me,” Lily said. “And I called Lillian.”
“You came,” I said, feeling the weight of what I had to tell her a thousand times more.
“Of course I came,” Lily told me, sounding offended. She hesitated. “Is my mama okay?” she asked. “Victoria’s text—or Hope’s, I guess—was a little vague on the details.”
Because Hope didn’t know them? Or because she was being discreet?
“Details later,” I told her. “For now… your mama’s fine.” That was what Lillian would have called a bit of a stretch. “More or less.”
“I sense that this is a very long story,” Walker put in. “And based on how closely Campbell is standing to me right now, I have the general sense that it doesn’t have a happy ending.”
We have to tell them.
“Remember how you spent most of the summer being mad at me for things that weren’t my fault?” Campbell said flippantly. “Pretty sure what I’m about to tell you is going to extend that by a few dozen years.”
“Wait.” Victoria stopped Campbell. She moved toward Walker. “I need you to tell everyone on this boat what you told me at my father’s funeral, Walker.”
From what I’d gathered, Victor Gutierrez’s funeral had been a private one. Family only. I hadn’t realized Walker had attended.
By the looks of things, neither had Lily.
You should have left, I thought, unable to look away from the frozen expression on her face. Wherever you were going—you should have run away and never looked back.
“Vee,” Walker said lowly. Clearly, whatever he’d told her wasn’t something he particularly cared to share with the rest of us.
“Trust me,” Victoria told him, “you’ll be very glad once this secret is out. Very. Glad.”
“Fine.” Walker turned his attention to the boat’s console and hit a sequence of buttons that had the anchor pulling up. The noise was loud enough to drown out anything that was said, so he waited until the job was completed. “I’m a bastard.”
“This again?” Campbell asked. “I thought you got all of that pesky self-loathing out of your system last year.”
“He’s illegitimate,” Victoria clarified. “Your father isn’t Walker’s father.”
There was a moment of stunned silence, and then Lily spoke up. “How long have you known?” she asked Walker. I thought of everything that had passed between them this summer.
“Since Mama started drinking,” Walker replied. “She never would have told me if he hadn’t gone to prison.”
“Back up,” Campbell ordered her brother curtly. “Explain.”
“They got married because Mama was pregnant,” Walker said. “He didn’t know I wasn’t his.”
“No way,” Campbell replied.
“She had me tested, right after I was born.”
“Daddy didn’t know,” Campbell said decisively. “You were his favorite. You’re still Mama’s favorite. . . .”
“She told me that she loved me extra—in case he didn’t.”
Campbell took a moment to recover from that and then shrugged. “In that case,” she said, pivoting, “Lily, we have slightly less devastating news for you.”
Sadie-Grace took off her scarlet robe and placed it around Lily’s shoulders. “Just remember,” she cautioned, “what we’re about to tell you doesn’t change who you are. It’s just like musical chairs, but with parents.”