Burke and Jess unloaded their supplies from the skiff, brought them up to the tree line, and stashed them there. They dragged the skiff up to the high tide line on the beach, tied the rope off to a tree at the edge of the forest. Then they armed themselves—Burke the shotgun, Jess the rifle, a pistol for each, and ammunition for all—and then Burke looked at Jess and asked, “Where do we start?”

“Follow me,” Jess told him. She shouldered her rifle and set off west through the forest, the narrowest part of the island, where the blue sky and open ocean were just visible through the trees, the surf plainly audible as it crashed on the black rocks. The island was maybe a hundred feet wide at this point, and there was a vague trail that bisected it, the product of locals like Jess and Ty escaping civilization for a deserted-island getaway.

Jess could remember following Ty through these trees, pushing the ferns aside and listening to the waves crash, the raven call, seeing Ty grinning back at her, and the sun hitting her face. It was a painful memory, but not as much anymore. Mason Burke was a better man than Ty Winslow; Jess knew it now for certain. If anything, she hated how young and naive she’d been to fall in love with Ty in the first place.

She pushed through the last of the trees, and then the forest was gone and she was staring out at the vast blue sky, ragged clouds racing overhead and sun rays shining down between them. The ocean spread out before her, darker blue than the sky and mottled with whitecaps, a bitter wind blowing in, the mainland extending out on her left like a finger of green, falling away at Cape Flattery. Here was the smell of tidal pools, salt water, and seaweed, the sound of the ocean overpowering now.

There was a beach here, a small one, sand ringed on either side by more black rock, sheltered farther out by half-submerged reefs. The waves crashed over them, sending white water exploding into the air with a sound like a mortar bomb. You could, conceivably, land a boat on this beach, though Ty said getting in through the maze of shoals was like suicide. You’d have to get lucky, or you could die pretty quick.

Burke stepped out of the forest behind her. He stood beside her and surveyed the vista, one hand shading his eyes, the other rubbing at the back of his neck.

“Jeez,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“It’s not so bad when it isn’t raining,” Jess said. “Just happens to rain about eight months of the year.”

“Those other four months, though.”