He buried his face in his hands. Long minutes passed. A century, maybe.
A ring pierced the tense silence. The sheriff pulled a blocky cell phone out of his pocket.
“Sheriff Nugent,” he said. There was a long pause, then: “What? Are you sure? Well . . . that is certainly surprising, but I’m glad to hear it. Thank you. We’ll see you at church on Sunday. Bye now.” He ended the call.
“That was Deputy Raycroft,” Sheriff Nugent said, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “He was just at the Middleton residence.”
Beacon sat up.
“Jane is in bed sleeping. Just like she has been all night.”
4
“B-but that’s impossible,” Beacon said.
“Robert saw her for himself.” The sheriff slapped on his cap, as if he was getting ready to leave.
“No,” Beacon said firmly, standing up. “It was Jane. I saw her Gold Stars jacket. She looked right at me.”
“Tell us what happened again,” the second officer said.
Beacon recounted the story, making sure not to leave out any details. But this time, the sheriff’s eyes narrowed as Beacon spoke, and he and the deputy exchanged a knowing look.
“You say she heard you gasp, all the way from in your bedroom? Over the wind and rain and waves, and through a couple inches of window glass to boot?” the sheriff said.
Beacon felt himself shrink. “I know how it sounds.”
“Listen,” their dad said. “It’s late, you’re in a new place—I’ll bet the house was making all sorts of weird sounds, right? You probably had a bad dream.”
“It was real,” Beacon insisted.
“Maybe it was someone else you saw, then?” his dad suggested. “A different Gold Stars kid.” He looked at the sheriff.
“We’ll find out soon enough if that’s the case,” the sheriff said. Although, it was clear he didn’t think that would happen.
“We’ll have a deputy check missing persons until we can get back out tomorrow,” Deputy Steele said.
“Bless you, officers,” Donna said.
“Sorry about the disturbance,” his dad added, flitting a glance Beacon’s way.
They were acting as if he wasn’t even there. Acting like he was stupid. Nobody believed him. But he’d been wide-awake when he heard that scream.
“There was someone out there!” Beacon cried.
Everyone was looking at him with the most infuriating pity all over their faces—everyone but the sheriff, who eyed him with something closer to contempt.
Beacon stormed out of the room. He was halfway up the stairs when he heard his dad say, “I’m sorry, this isn’t like him. His brother died recently.”
Fury swelled inside him.
Ever since Jasper died, it seemed like all of Beacon’s behaviors were automatically attributed to grief. Fight with Everleigh? “Anger is a normal stage of grief.” Bad mood? “It’s normal to feel depressed after losing a loved one.”
It made Beacon want to scream.
Wasn’t he allowed to have any legitimate feelings anymore, without having everyone making it all about his “trauma”?
He stomped up the stairs into his new attic bedroom and flopped down onto the bed. He was confused and angry and humiliated, and he just wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole.
There was a creak behind him. He glanced up to see Everleigh poking her head through the hole in the floor.
“Go away,” he said before burying his face back in the mattress. But of course, his sister didn’t listen. She crossed the room and dropped heavily onto the end of his bed. Beacon jammed a pillow over his head so that she wouldn’t see the tears threatening his lashes.
“Get it over with,” he said gruffly. “I’m an idiot, a wimp, a liar.”
He felt a hand clamp onto his shoulder.
“I believe you.”
“Very funny,” Beacon mumbled angrily.
“I’m not joking,” Everleigh said. “I don’t know what happened, but I know you. You’re not a liar, and I don’t think you imagined it.”
Beacon rolled over and sat up. He waited for his sister to burst out laughing and say “Gotcha!” But she didn’t.
“So what now?” Beacon said.
Everleigh shrugged, a whole-body gesture. “Now we go to bed.”
“But someone’s out there, and no one’s helping. Maybe it’s not Jane—I guess it’s possible it was someone else—but it was a person out there.”
“If someone was out there, they’re already dead,” Everleigh said.
The words were a sucker punch to his gut, but it was true. It only took minutes without oxygen for someone to start losing brain function. Ten minutes and they’d be dead. He knew this better than anyone. But still. It didn’t seem right. Just going to bed when someone was floating in the ocean.
“They’ll find whoever it is soon enough,” Everleigh said. “We just have to be patient.”
It was too bad patience wasn’t Beacon’s strong suit.
* * *
...............................
The next morning, Beacon awoke to the smell of coffee and fried eggs. Bright sunshine slanted across his comforter, making the attic bedroom look warm and cozy and inviting, and not at all like a horror movie waiting to happen. Last night seemed very far away.
He heard clattering and the murmur of voices coming from the kitchen, so he pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and climbed downstairs. Everything was so bright and weird and different that for a moment, he half expected to see his brother standing at the stove, plucking eggs directly out of the frying pan while his dad pretended to be annoyed and swatted him away. Jasper could get away with anything. It was impossible to be mad at him.
Beacon walked into the kitchen, but of course, his brother wasn’t there. Donna pushed eggs around a sputtering skillet, while his dad sat at the table and stared at a newspaper called the Seagazer, which he assumed was Driftwood Harbor’s version of the L.A. Times. Beacon took a seat across from him, but his dad didn’t look up. He’d probably been staring at the same page for the last ten minutes, if history was any indication.
His dad thought he had Beacon fooled with his twitchy smiles and positive attitude, but Beacon knew that he still kept Jasper’s cell phone in service more than a year after his death, just so he could hear his voice on the voice mail. Beacon saw him lying on Jasper’s bed late at night when he thought no one else was awake. He saw the keys left in the refrigerator, heard the grocery clerk calling after them that they had forgotten to pay. He saw the school recede in the rearview mirror as his dad missed their stop for the millionth time, lost in thought. He was hurting, too. Probably as badly as Everleigh. Maybe worse.