What did I believe? I didn’t believe he was Baby B, but I did see something almost familiar in him, one small thing that made even a stranger recognizable. Cole also longed for hidden things to rise to the surface, wanted something more, something deeper, something buried. I remembered the feeling of his hands on my wrists, how I’d opened my eyes to find him examining me, as if he were trying to find someone, something.

Then Lucas was there, his hands full of sand, and when he moved his fingers, the luminous phytoplankton lit up like stars, and then went dull and dead. The water was so dark behind him, a thick green-black, the air chilly. The air held something else that was harder to describe, something I couldn’t see or hear or touch. Something that emanated from Cole, light, or frequency, or pheromones. Whatever it was, I recognized it, and it recognized me.

Chapter 5

5

I sat at the bar at Jack’s until Eddie abandoned his bouncer stool and sat down beside me.

“So, Lyd.”

“So, Ed.”

“I saw you tonight,” he said. “With this new guy.” He spun around on the stool and surveyed the bar. The same CD was playing that was always playing in Jack’s. It belonged to the bartender, Eliot Moniz. A girlfriend had made it for him years ago, and he kept listening to it, long after she broke up with him and moved off the island. It was all Van Morrison and Tom Waits, sad, romantic songs. I’d begun to associate those voices with the smells and tastes of the bar, the salty scent that permeated the air of fish, both fried and fresh, the thick, heady stench of spilled beer. “I guess that’s how it’s going to be. That’s the end of us.” He stared morosely at the bar where something had spilled earlier, leaving a long, dark streak.

“I already ended things between us,” I reminded him.

“I’m trying to be happy for you,” he said. “This guy looks nice enough.”

“I hope he is.”

Ed looked surprised. “You hope so? Don’t you know whether he’s nice or not? If the guy’s not nice to you, Lyd, I can help you out.”

“It’s not like that.”

“If I’m being honest, I got a weird feeling when I saw him,” Eddie said. “I thought something might be a little off. You don’t have to take shit from him or anyone. You want me to talk to him?”

“It’s nothing serious. I’m not fucking him,” I said. “Or dating him, or whatever people do.”

He looked relieved. “Everyone’s been saying you met him on the internet,” Eddie said.

“I don’t even know him, Ed. He just showed up. Honestly. He and Lucas think they know each other from a past life.”

“That sounds like a load of bullcrap.”