Making it to the ferry—it was a trip of several miles to the island’s far shore—was out of the question, given that the only way to get there would be in an Arrival. Not getting in one of those now, thank you very much. And he wasn’t about to wait for help to arrive from the mainland (they might send in the army for all he knew) and run the risk of having his true identity revealed.

So he would head into the town of Garrett, a much shorter trek. And then he would find his way to the harbor. Derek would be heading there now in the boat he’d rented. Once they had rendezvoused, they’d head back to shore.

He just hoped Derek would be on time. He had to—

What the hell?

There was an explosion. One of the Arrivals taking aim at the fire truck must have hit a gas tank. A battery-powered Arrival didn’t have one, but the truck would have a substantial tank tucked into its undercarriage.

“Fuck me,” Kyle whispered.

The fire truck was on fire.

Fifteen

When Chief Joe Bridgeman had finished filling in the coast guard about the possibility that a man named Clyde Travers had fallen off the ferry en route to Garrett Island, he started walking back toward his specially outfitted Arrival.

He was about to ask Sherlock to open the door when his phone, barely back in his pocket for a minute, rang again.

“Yup?” he said, taking the call while walking.

“Chief?” It was Ronny Dyson, who was on the dispatch desk that morning.

“Yeah, it’s me, Ronny.” Joe sighed. Ronny had dialed the chief, the chief had answered, but Ronny still had to ask if it was him.

“Where are you?” Ronny asked.

“Ferry dock.”

“Right, that guy that didn’t get off?”

“What’s up, Ronny?”

“There’s some crazy shit going down at that Arrival event at the community center.”

Joe stopped walking. “What kind of shit?”

“Well, kinda everything. Some lady’s leg got cut off and now they’re saying—”

“Wait! What lady? Whose leg got cut off?”

“Uh, I’m not sure. She was showing how the car worked and the door slammed shut on it or something.”

“Was it Sandra?”

“Who?”

“Sandra Montrose!”

“That the lady you’ve been seein’?”

Christ, it was hard to keep a secret on the island.

“Was it her, Ronny?”

“Don’t think so. Sounded like someone important. I mean, not that she isn’t, but it was someone who’d come over for the day, the head of the company, I think, and—”

“Never mind,” Joe said. He’d put Ronny, who was, as they say, untroubled by intelligence, on dispatch because Joe believed he could do less damage there than being out on the street. Now, he wasn’t so sure. “Tell me the rest of it.”

“So you know Duff McLaughlin?”