Chapter 5

The first wave reached my duffel bag before I understood the tide was coming in.

I had been standing in the dark, staring at the empty horizon where the yacht had disappeared.

The sudden rush of cold water surged over my shoes and hit the heavy canvas of the bag at my feet.

The cold water cut through the numbness in my head.

If the ocean took the bag, I lost my dry clothes.

I lost whatever Cole's men had shoved back inside.

I grabbed the nylon strap and dragged the bag away from the water.

The shore was all sharp rock, broken ledges, and holes I couldn't see.

In the pitch black, I only had the sound of the crashing waves to tell me how fast the water was rising.

I took another step up the incline.

My wet shoe slipped on a patch of slick algae.

I went down hard.

My right knee struck a jagged ridge of rock.

The stone sliced cleanly through the fabric of my slacks.

Pain shot up my thigh.

I pushed myself up, favoring my left leg, and dragged the bag farther inland until the ground leveled out into a patch of dry dirt.

I dropped the bag and sat down heavily.

Blood ran down my shin.

I could bend the knee, so nothing felt broken. But I had to stop the bleeding.

Cole's men had thrown my clothes back into the torn duffel bag.

I found the dress Vivian had ruined and caught the silk on a sharp rock until it tore.

The cleanest piece went over the cut. I pressed hard until the bleeding slowed, then tied another strip around my knee.

The dress I had worn for a proposal had become a bandage.

My wet slacks were clinging to my skin, pulling the heat out of my body.

I dug through the bag again until I found my dry sweatpants.

It took ten minutes to carefully strip off the ruined slacks and pull the dry clothes over my bandaged knee without shifting the silk.

I backed up to sit against the thickest root of a dead mangrove tree, wrapping my gray sweater tightly around my torso.

I pulled my knees to my chest.

I didn't sleep.

Every time the wind shifted, it sounded like a boat engine.

Every time, it was just the waves.

The sky slowly turned the color of dirty ash.

Gray morning light finally revealed the shoreline.

I was sitting on a steep rise of limestone and tangled brush.

Below me, the ocean churned, slate-colored and violent against the rocks.

I checked my knee in the daylight.

The white silk was crusted with dark brown blood, but the edges were dry.

I left the bandage exactly where it was.

I looked at the rest of the ruined dress in my lap.

Cole had said a supply boat came every three days.

I knew he was lying about picking me up.

But supply boats didn't travel to empty patches of ocean.

Someone else knew this island existed.

I limped toward a higher branch of the mangrove tree.

I tied the remaining white silk tight against the dead wood.

The ocean wind immediately caught the fabric, snapping it loudly.

I turned away from the tree to look for a path inland.

My eyes caught something unnatural near the twisted roots of the mangrove.

It didn't look like driftwood.

I stepped closer.

A black stiletto lay half-buried beneath the dry dirt and root system.

The leather was warped by salt and sun.

I crouched down and brushed the sand away.

The heel had snapped clean off.

I stared at the pointed toe.

A woman had come to this island before me.

She had arrived wearing heels.