Daniel got the boat as close to the cove’s shore as he could, then tied the boat to a cypress tree leaning out over the water. Alex got the landing plank. It barely reached from the boat to the shore, but it just made it. Alex ran down first, with Harper right behind him.

The spotlight on the boat was still shining on the cove, so they could see everything inside it, but there was nothing much to see. A circle of rocks in the center for a fire pit. Footprints in the dirt. That was about it.

“I found something!” Alex yelled and held up a bag.

“Is it her stuff?”

Harper ran over to him and yanked the bag from his hands. She tore through it, but it only took a few slutty tops and thongs for Harper to realize that these weren’t her sister’s clothes. Still, this bag was the only thing they’d found, so she clutched it to her chest and stared vacantly in front of her.

“It’s not hers, is it?” Alex asked, watching a red thong tumble from Harper’s grip.

“What’d you find?” Daniel asked. He’d gotten off the boat after them, and he was just coming up behind Harper.

“I think it’s those girls’.” She turned to face him and held the bag out to Daniel, as if he’d know what to do with it. “Those horrible girls have done something to her.”

“You don’t know that.” Daniel tentatively took the bag from her. “Just because somebody else crashed here doesn’t mean that she has anything to do with them.”

“But where is she?” Harper asked, tears filling her eyes. “She’s not here. Where could she be?”

“Gemma!” Alex resorted to yelling her name since he didn’t know what else to do. He stood at the edge of the cove, shouting out at the bay. “Gemma!”

“Maybe we beat her here,” Daniel suggested. “We got here pretty fast, right?”

“Do you think?” Harper stared up at him, her frantic eyes searching his.

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Or is there anywhere else you can think of that she might go?”

“No, I…” Harper trailed off, her face twisting with confusion, and she tilted her head, listening. He opened his mouth to say something, and she silenced him by putting her hand on his chest. “Do you hear that?”

“What?” Daniel asked, but then he heard it, too.

Very faintly at first, but the wind was carrying music out to the cove. A song unlike anything Harper had ever heard before, but it was one that Alex was all too familiar with.

“It’s Gemma,” Alex breathed.

“What?” Harper asked, but now without the incessant panic that had been gripping her only seconds before. Her entire expression changed, the tension melting away to a bizarre serenity.