Page 68 of Won't Back Down
“Ain’t that all the more reason she might’ve gone off on her own?” Daniel asked. “A li’l adventure?”
Gabi carefully rotated her marshmallow. “Willa was never the instigator. Unless it was something to do with an animal. Hell, she spent most of the party playing with somebody’s dog, like she’s doing now.”
We all looked out to where she was wrestling with Keeley, her smile so wide we could see it from here.
“So maybe she didn’t go off on her own. Maybe she went off with your other friend. The one who went missing.”
Gabi shook her head. “My brother was the last person to see Gwen alive. He didn’t see Willa with her.”
“Is he sure he saw Gwen? Or did he catch sight of a teenage gal with the same coloring and figure, dressed like every other girl at that party probably was, and jumped to conclusions? Musta been dark by then, yeah? Easy to be mistook. Maybe he saw what he ’spected to see. Wouldn’t be the first to make that kinda mistake.”
I wanted to dismiss the possibility. Rios had been so sure he’d seen her. He’d gone to Carson himself to report it, hoping they’d be able to find something that would help them find her. Instead, Carson had made him a scapegoat, and it had been enough that a huge chunk of the island bought into it, despite the total lack of evidence.
Bree circled a finger around the mouth of her longneck bottle. “Okay, I’m willing to play. Let’s follow that thought through. If Rios was wrong, and Gwen left the party earlier with Willa…”
“You’re suggesting that something happened to both of them?” Jace’s tone was flat.
Daniel lifted his palms. “Me, I’m just playin’ devil’s advocate. I’m the outsider who hasn’t been influenced by the stories everybody tells about what happened that night.”
My fingers tapped restlessly against my own bottle. “The remains were found less than fifty yards from where I pulled her out of the water that night.”
Gabi’s marshmallow dipped into the flames as her attention swung to me. “You think the two are connected?”
“I don’t know. The police haven’t said how long they’d been there. They may not even know yet. But this island isn’t that big. If speculation places Willa and Gwen out there together... And somehow Willa ends up in the water, Gwen disappears entirely, and some guy ends up with a bullet between the eyes, all in the same relative geographic area?”
Jace’s brows drew together. “She had a head wound.”
This was the first I’d heard of this. “What?”
“When we got her to the hospital, they just attributed it to her being bashed against the ocean floor or against a piece of driftwood while she was caught in the riptide. But what if it wasn’t that? What if someone struck her?”
My blood ran cold. I’d imagined countless scenarios, trying to make sense of how Willa had ended up in the water in the middle of that storm. But I’d never imagined this. “You think someone could’ve attacked them both?”
“I don’t know. This is all pure conjecture. But the tides were huge that night. You seeing Willa at all was a goddamned miracle. If somebody threw both of them into the water, that might explain why Gwen’s never been found.”
The idea of it made me physically ill. That maybe I’d missed seeing her, and she’d died because of it.
Gabi abandoned the charcoaled marshmallow. “If that’s the case… then who’s the dead guy?”
Daniel slid an arm around her shoulders. “Might could be related. Might not. Don’t matter which. Either way, there’da been somebody else there that night. It’s not likely either of the girls or the dead guy pulled the trigger.”
And if somebody else had been there, chances were, they were still walking around free, with no one the wiser.
I didn’t like the line of thought. I didn’t like it at all.
Realizing I no longer heard Willa laughing, I searched her out again. She stood shin-deep in the water, stock still, the ball clutched between three fingers. Even from here, I could see the odd, vacant expression on her face. As I watched, the color drained out of her cheeks.
“Something’s wrong.” I was out of my seat, running toward her before the ball in her hand dropped straight into the water.
She swayed, and I just made it to her before she toppled forward, sinking to her knees.
“Willa, what’s wrong?” I gripped her arms, holding her up.
Jace was right there. “Wills? Willa?”
Her eyes didn’t focus on either of us, instead seeming to stare at something over our shoulders. I glanced back and saw nothing on that stretch of beach. Her face twisted in absolute terror, and somehow I understood that she wasn’t actually here. That scared the shit out of me. I’d seen that kind of expression on the faces of men I’d met at Walter Reed, who’d been in the midst of PTSD flashbacks.
“Wren, baby, can you hear me? Wren?”