“Oh right,” Cassidy said. “Your race! Not bad for someone who should be in liver failure,” she added, poking him playfully.
Quinn laughed, and the two crossed the final street then climbed the slight rise through deep sand to the top of the dune. Before them, the wide, indigo-blue ocean extended to the horizon. Cassidy felt the breeze cool the back of her wet head and brush past her thighs. Cassidy picked her way down the sand dune and through the ice plant and across the broad shore. Beyond the shore, waves broke in steep, short bursts. Several surfers took turns at the break directly out front. Cassidy saw the surfer who had hurried past them standing at the shoreline, zipping into the top half of his wetsuit before plunging into the water. She watched him paddle swiftly for the outside, ducking beneath the first row of whitewater.
“And word from Bruce?” Quinn asked, squinting at her as they regrouped at the water’s edge to attach leashes. Cassidy quickly braided her hair and secured it with an elastic from her wrist.
“Just that text,” she replied, referring to the message on her phone that had come in at five a.m. Are you okay? And she had replied. Yes. We both are.
Had defying his request destroyed their friendship? Was his agent safe? How much longer would they need to build a case before they could bust Saxon and his gang? She thought of the girl in that room, waiting for her nightmare to end. Maybe she got away, Cassidy thought with little conviction.
Quinn followed her into the cold Pacific. “You still think about Reeve?” he asked, his face soft and thoughtful.
“I like that we did that,” he said, and Cassidy knew he was revisiting the memory from earlier that year when the two of them had paddled outside the breakers—much bigger that day—to say goodbye.
“Me too,” she replied.
“Are you going to answer any one of those reporters about Costa Rica?”
Cassidy shook her head. “Mark called, not for the story, just to check in. I might talk to him.” Truthfully, she knew the reason she hadn’t called Mark back—just the thought of hearing his compassionate voice brought back that awful night when she’d clung to him, her body telling her one thing while her mind told her something else. She thought again of Jay’s warning: you calling me tonight makes me think that you should consider . . .
Cassidy closed down Jay’s voice and pushed onto her surfboard to paddle to the outside. Her arms felt stiff in the wetsuit, but quickly warmed. Quinn huffed next to her, and she glanced his way, feeling a flood of affection for the one person who truly got her, who would always be here for her. She ducked under an incoming wave, feeling the cold ocean wash over her, tugging her hair back from her upturned face as she resurfaced.
By the time they returned, Cassidy had still not heard back from Dutch.
“Why won’t he answer my texts?” Cassidy asked while Quinn buzzed around the kitchen making breakfast. An iPad propped up on the counter was broadcasting a special report about Kilauea and the screen showed red lava spurting into the sky.
“Maybe he’s too sick. If he had a collapsed lung, that’s pretty serious.”
“I just wish I knew what hospital he went to,” Cassidy said. “I want to know that he’s okay.”
“You’ll still be able to go pick up his motorcycle, right?” she asked. “I don’t want it to get towed away before we can get it back to him.” I also owe him a gun, Cassidy realized, the thought coming out of nowhere.
“Yeah, I can get a buddy to take me out there this afternoon.”
“Cool, thanks,” Cassidy said, a strange unease filling her thoughts. What if Dutch wasn’t okay?
The mechanic from Redding had called, confirming her worst fears about her car. Abandoning the vehicle that held some of her most precious memories of Pete filled her stomach with an empty ache. She would have to solve that problem after her Hawaii trip. At the very minimum, she wanted the opportunity to collect the bits and pieces from the glovebox and console plus the field equipment she always carried in the trunk, and sit in the driver’s seat one last time.
Quinn delivered a giant plate of fluffy scrambled eggs and toast then sat next to her with his own plate.
“I mean, I get it that this sucks for residents,” he said, sipping from a second cup of coffee while his eyes fixed onto the news story on Kilauea, now showing red ropes of lava flowing over an abandoned stretch of blacktop. “But it’s pretty rad to see Mother Nature do shit like this.”
Cassidy grinned. “Welcome to my world,” she replied, forking a bite of hot eggs into her mouth as the story switched to an aerial view of a doomed neighborhood, lava closing in from one side. The broadcast ended and the news show returned to the two reporters at their desk.
“Will you get to fly around in helicopters while you’re there?” Quinn asked, biting into his toast.
“Doubtful,” Cassidy said. “The USGS gets to do all that sexy stuff. I’ll be placing seismic stations in areas outside the hot zone.” Cassidy picked up her coffee and blew across the top as the image on the screen changed again to show a clogged section of freeway from above.
“A section of Highway 101 near Crescent City was closed last night for several hours while authorities investigated a fatal motorcycle accident,” the anchorwoman said.
Cassidy heard her breath catch.
Quinn finished his breakfast and carried his plate to the sink.
Cassidy relived the challenge of driving Dutch’s powerful bike to the warehouse. So many emotions had flowed through her then—desperation, fear—but most of all, she had thought of Pete cresting that hill in
