Chapter 4

The maintenance path was a slick, narrow strip of mud behind the soccer field. We moved in a slow, jagged line, the wind shrieking through the exposed metal fencing. Twenty-five lives, shivering in the dark, huddled together as the gusts threatened to knock the younger ones into the mud.

Halfway across the lot, ten-year-old Eli Kim lost his footing. Harper caught the back of his coat before he went through the fence. When she planted her foot to pull him upright, the mud swallowed her left sneaker.

I turned back, ready to reach for her, but she was already moving.

"Leave it," Harper said. Her thumb shook against the edge of the clipboard, but her voice didn't crack. She tightened one hand on Eli's sleeve and kept moving in one soaked sock. "Twenty-five. We still have twenty-five."

When we finally reached the concrete shoulder of the causeway, I didn't wait. I climbed the embankment, scrambled over the guardrail, and stood in the middle of the breakdown lane.

I didn't hide. I held my flashlight in a steady, unblinking beam toward the south.

Ten seconds later, the high beams swept over me. Three Bennett buses, moving at a slow, controlled speed.

The lead bus braked. The hiss of air-brakes was sharp and final.

I walked to the driver's side window. Luke rolled it down, his face gray under the harsh dashboard lights. Natalie Cross sat in the front passenger seat, a tablet gripped in her lap.

"April?" Luke stared at me. "What are you doing? This is a high-speed causeway!"

"I need one bus, Luke," I said. "Twenty-five people. One bus."

The dashboard radio crackled. It was Marcus, the driver of the second bus. "Luke, I can take them," his voice was grainy but clear. "Twenty-five people fit in one bus. Turn me around."

Luke picked up the receiver, his thumb hovering over the talk button. "Marcus, if one bus leaves the Seabriar run, the whole contract is gone."

"I know what my mortgage costs," Marcus answered. "Turn me around."

Natalie leaned across the console, her eyes narrowing at me. "Those buses were hired by Seabriar. Eighteen guests are still on the island. Two are on oxygen. If we lose the causeway, they're trapped."

"They're on the third floor of a concrete resort," I retorted. "They have generators, food, and staff. These families have a broken drainage wall and open sky."

"If I pull one bus, the bank takes two on Monday," Luke said, his jaw tightening.

"Then we face the bank on Monday," I said. "I'll answer for my share of the business. But tonight, you open one bus."

Behind me, Henderson moved the families against the concrete barrier. A broken line of flashlight beams flickered below the guardrail. Luke looked into his side mirror. This time he wasn't looking at a number on a dispatch screen. He could see Eli Kim in a torn raincoat, two younger children pressed against their mother, and the residents holding the rope so the wind wouldn't separate them.

A piece of concrete broke from the lower ramp and disappeared into the water. Henderson raised one hand. "We're losing the edge down here."

Luke looked back at me. "Take them back under the overpass, April. Tell them county dispatch wouldn't let us stop. I'll come back after the Seabriar run."

Harper climbed the embankment and came to a stop beside me, the clipboard pressed against her chest. She was missing one sneaker, and her sock was soaked in mud.

"Are you going to make Mom lie for you again?" she asked.

Luke flinched.

"Or are you going to turn around and get us?" she continued.

Natalie stared at the girl, then at the golf bags strapped into the front row. "Your father is trying to protect those drivers' paychecks, Harper. He's trying to keep the bank from repossessing two of his buses."

Harper looked at the golf bags. "Do the golf clubs need oxygen too?"

"No," Natalie said. "But the people who own them are the reason those drivers still have health insurance."

"Then put the bags in the road and use the seats for people," Harper said.

"If their property is destroyed," Natalie replied, "Seabriar still cancels the contract."

Luke looked at the row of his company's buses—the fleet that represented his entire life's work. Bus One had stopped just beyond the service ramp. If he put it in Reverse, its passenger door would line up with the twenty-five waiting families. Marcus and Bus Three could continue south.

Luke looked south toward Seabriar.

Then he looked at Harper—one shoe gone, mud running down her bare ankle, the clipboard still pressed against her chest.

"Dad," she said. "Drive or Reverse. Which one is us?"

His hand closed around the gear selector.

I couldn't see whether he chose Drive or Reverse.

Harper didn't move.

Neither did I.