“I don’t want you to be unhappy,” Elyse said some time later.
I opened my eyes. The sun lit up the horizon, its reflection sparkling off the stretch of water in the distance.
Elyse stood over me, then dropped down to my level, squatting in front of me. “My method might have been hasty, but I didn’t think you would have come otherwise.”
She was probably right. “I wasn’t given the option. And you hurt people I care about.”
Her chin fell to her chest. “I know. Which is another reason why I thought you wouldn’t have come. Could you ever forgive me?”
“Elyse,” I said, swallowing, “I don’t know if I can.” I wasn’t sure if my honesty was the smartest move but her delusions about life had to end. You couldn’t kill people and get away with it without consequences, no matter how messed up your past was.
Elyse sighed and stood up again. She offered her gloved hand to me and I took it. She held me up and dropped her hands on my shoulders. “It will take time. I understand.”
She embraced me and for a moment I froze. Her arms tightened around me and I eventually lifted my arms and hugged her in return.
“I never wanted to hurt you. You have to understand that,” she said against my shoulder.
“I do.” I moved away from her, wanting to speak to her face. “You have to come clean. Joe’s family deserves the truth and you need help.”
She recoiled as if I’d slapped her.
“I won’t go back to the hospital,” she said in a low voice. “Ever.”
A high-pitched sound in the distance made us both turn around. The siren broke through the gentle sound of waves. I raced for the edge of the deck and squinted, trying to see where it was coming from.
Our boat jarred to the right and I stumbled backward, grabbing hold of the edge before falling over.
I turned. “Elyse?”
She was at the controls again, her expression determined.
Our boat sped off away from the siren. I looked again to see a white and red blur coming toward us. Was that the Coast Guard? Had someone found us? How? I shoved all the questions away and allowed my heart to fill with the possibility of rescue coming for me.
“Elyse,” I repeated. “They’re going to catch us. We should stop.”
“I won’t stop. I won’t be locked up again.”
There was a part of her past she hadn’t shared with me yet. What else happened at the hospital to make her so freaked out?
“I’m sure if you explain yourself, they’d be willing to work with you.” But I doubted that was true. Devereaux was going to crucify her if she was found guilty of hurting Ryan and killing Joe. But I wanted to go home. And I’d say or do anything to get there.
Elyse looked behind her and her jaw clenched. There wasn’t anything I could say to her. We were going to be caught and she would most likely go to jail or a mental hospital. Had she been to one before? Was that what her terror was about? The gap in the timeline from her killing our mother to meeting Nolan was wide and we’d barely brushed the subject in our time together. What other horrors had she committed in that time?
Our boat swung around and this time I couldn’t keep my footing. I crashed into the controls, my forehead slamming against the buttons, hard. I stood up; my head throbbed.
“Sylvia,” Elyse said. It was the first time she’d used my first given name.
I waved a hand at her, feeling nothing for that part of my life. “I’m okay.”
“We need to get away from them.”
“You can’t.” I turned around, they had gained on us. “There’s no way you can get out of this.”
Elyse’s eyes shone and a tear slipped out of one and down her mask. She removed the mask, this time I didn’t react. She wiped at her face. “You hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“Don’t lie to me. I despise it when people lie to me.”
“I’m not. I might not be able to forgive you right now, but we are sisters. I wish things could be different but I promise that, whatever happens, I want you in my life.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yeah, of course.”
She wrapped me in another strong hug and the weight of her was so much for me that I stumbled back until I hit the edge of the boat.
“Ow!” I said.
Her eyes darted between mine. “I’m sorry for everything. But I can’t do this.”
And then she shoved me, hard. My legs kicked out and my arms flailed as my body plummeted into the water. My breath caught in my throat. My back slammed against the surface and the cold water stung me like a thousand pinpricks. I clawed for the surface, broke through, then inhaled sharply. Something landed beside me and I flinched. It was an orange life preserver. I looked up.
Elyse leaned over the edge. “I have to do this. I’m so very sorry, Sylvia. I love you.”
She disappeared from the side.
I shoved my arms through the life preserver and buckled it around my chest. “Elyse!” I called.
The boat suddenly veered away from me and sped into the distance. Water splashed around me from the motor.
“Elyse!”
I couldn’t believe she’d pushed me off the boat! I pressed my lips together to keep them from shaking. The siren from the other boat were much closer. I waved my hands in the air above me, trying to flag them down. I would die out there or at least suffer from hypothermia if they decided to go after Elyse before rescuing me.
The boat slowed as it approached me.
“Cara Daniels?” one of the men in orange jumpsuits asked through a megaphone.
“Yes!” I yelled over the siren.
He put down the megaphone and jumped into the water. We swam to each other and he assisted me onto the boat.
Once I was aboard, another of my rescuers, a woman, wrapped a thick blanket around my body.
“Your parents are going to be happy that we found you,” she said.
I nodded, thinking about my parents and Madison. The emotions from everything—Ryan’s accident, Joe’s death, Madison’s kidnapping—all rushed to the surface and I couldn’t help the sob escaping my throat.
The woman rubbed her hands up and down my arms, attempting to help warm me. “You’re safe now.”
It was over. But what was to become of Elyse? My poor disfigured sister. I hoped she would get the help she needed.
A massive explosion in the distance made me jump up, away from the Coastie.
The driver of the boat called out to the others and the engine roared under us as we drove in the direction of the explosion. Elyse’s boat was fully engulfed in flames. The closer we got the better I could see the giant crater in the hull.
“Elyse,” I said weakly.
“Was that the woman who took you?” the female Coastie asked.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“I don’t think she made it,” she said.
Her motivations for pushing me overboard were now clear. Elyse knew she wasn’t going to get away with the things she’d done. Instead of going to jail or a hospital, she decided to end her life.
I openly wept for her and the loss of yet another person in my life.