Huck drives to the Beach Bar, double-parks, and strides out onto the sand. He doesn’t see Maia. He heads to the left, spies a couple of kids—it’s pretty far away from the Beach Bar, Huck wonders what Mick was doing all the way down here—and whistles. Even in the dark, he can see Maia jump to her feet. She comes running through the sand toward him.

“Uh-oh,” she says.

“Uh-oh is right,” he says. “Follow me. We’re going home.” Over Maia’s head, Huck calls out, “Party’s over, kids. I’m calling everyone’s parents.”

Maia sits in the truck while Huck leans against it. He really wants a cigarette right now, but he can’t set that kind of poor example until every child is claimed. This gives Huck a chance to calm down and second-guess himself. Did he overreact? No; it’s nearly nine o’clock on a school night and they were having a kumbaya sit-in on a deserted section of beach. God only knows what they were doing.

“What were you doing?” Huck asks Maia once he gets behind the wheel. “Other than trying to send me to an early grave.”

“Talking,” Maia says. “And I know I was wrong and I know I owe you an apology. I’m sorry. I also know it’s not going to make any difference and that I’m grounded. But we had a crisis.”

“Crisis?”

“Colton’s parents are getting a divorce,” Maia says. “He needed us.”

Huck sighs and lets the rest of his anger go. One of the things he likes best about St. John is exactly what Maia is describing: in times of trouble, people come together. That was true when LeeAnn died and even more true when Rosie died. Why should it be any less true for Maia and Colton just because they’re kids?

“You should have called me,” Huck says.

“My phone was dead.”

“Not everyone’s phone was dead,” Huck says.

“I didn’t want to call,” Maia says, “because I thought you’d make me come home. We all made a vow we wouldn’t tell our parents where we were until we knew Colton was going to be all right.”

“Colton is going to be just fine,” Huck says. He nearly points out that Maia just endured something far worse and she’s okay, but Huck doesn’t want to bring up Rosie right now, even though he misses her very, very much at this moment. Rosie would have been far more understanding than Huck about this little powwow. Rosie might have invited all the kids to pile into her car and then taken them all home herself, encouraging them to share their feelings as she drove. “He has two parents who love him.”

“Facts,” Maia says. “Unfortunately, while we were on the beach, I discovered another problem.”

“Oh, really.”

“I saw Mick,” Maia says. “He walked all the way down from the Beach Bar.”

Huck nearly says, Yes, he was the one who called me—but he doesn’t want to reveal his sources.