Page 45 of Dauntless
“Why the fuck would Joe steal the diary?”I asked the goat.“He knows there’s a copy.Itoldhim there was.”
My voice rose at the end there, and the goat woke up and wobbled to its feet.
“Joe didn’t steal the diary.He’s theonlyDauntless Islander who knows it would be fucking pointless, because I told him that me and Theresa have a digital copy!”
The goat scuttled away in the darkness.
“Shit.Sorry, goat.”I looked at the beam of the lighthouse, and sharper guilt twisted my gut.“Shit.I really fucked up.”
I only had myself to blame for being cold and miserable tonight.Joe hadn’t just told me he was innocent—he’d laid out a damned good case for it too.
“Just think.Please, just think.If I’d taken the diary, why the hell would I have opened the chest in front of you?”
But I hadn’t fucking listened, too struck with shock, only hearing a high-pitched buzzing in my head because thediary wasgone.I’d got so twisted up with the idea that everyone on Dauntless was crazy and that everyone wanted the diary destroyed, that I hadn’t stopped to think it through.If Joe had wanted to get rid of the diary, he never would have locked it in the chest to begin with.If Joe had wanted to get rid of the diary, he’d had plenty of opportunities before yesterday.But most fucking importantly, Joe knew that getting rid of the diary wouldn’t make any difference.
But because I was an idiot with a history of trusting the wrong guy, I hadn’t thought of any of this yesterday.I’d just assumed I’d slept with another lying, cheating arsehole, because apparently I attracted those, and instead, I’d accused the one guy on the island whodidn’thave a motive to steal the diary of being the thief.
I squeezed my eyes shut and made a pitiful sound.
It wasn’t Joe.
It had never been Joe, and a part of me had always known that.I’d just been confused, and upset, and needed someone to be angry at.And who better than the king of the fucking island?A man who had only ever treated me with kindness and good humour.
I scrubbed at the angry, self-recriminating tears that burned my eyes.
I’d fallen for Joe, after less than a week, and maybe some of my reaction to the diary being missing had come from that—some deeply embedded psychological impulse to destroy whatever it was between us before it got too real.Or it was because of Kyle, because the moment Joe had opened the medical chest and I’d seen the diary was missing, the sickening swoop in my gut had been exactly like the one I’d felt when I’d walked in on Kyle and the theology major.This wasn’t my fault; this wasKyle’sfault.
I groaned again.
No.That was a cop out, a coward’s excuse, and Joe deserved better than that.Hell,Ideserved better than that.Most of the time, at least.This moment right here though?Not one of my finest.
I was anarsehole.Would Joe even want to see me again?My first instinct was to totally avoid the awkwardness of that moment by crawling away and hiding in a ditch, but I was already doing that.Also, I liked Joe.I more than liked Joe.And even if he didn’t want a damn thing to do with me after I’d accused him of stealing the diary, I owed him an apology.
I wanted to go now, but I didn’t trust myself not to fall down an embankment and break both my legs in the dark.I hunkered down in my hole instead and tried not to think about how happy I’d been with Joe, sharing his hot cocoa, his kisses, and his bed.How he’d wrapped his arms around me as we’d stared at the moonlit ocean, and told me the heartbreaking story of his father’s death.How the hell had I ever thought he was a liar and a thief?He’d never given me any reason to think that—I’d just plucked one out of the air because I was a fucking idiot with trust issues.
Tomorrow.
I’d go and see Joe tomorrow, and apologise, and maybe—because Joe was a better man than I was—he wouldn’t hate me.
I blinked the fresh sting out of my eyes and drew a shaky breath.
Because out of everything terrible that had happened to me on Dauntless Island, I thought that the worst thing of all might be Red Joe Nesmith hating me.
Chapter 13
RED JOE
By dawn on Monday the weather had turned bad thanks to a cluster of storm cells moving in from the southwest.I hadn’t slept much during the night.I’d dozed for a few hours, but spent most of the night sitting in the kitchen instead, talking on the radio to the police.They’d tried to send a chopper just after midnight, but the weather was even worse near the mainland, and it had been forced to turn back.Now there was a boat on the way, but the going was slow and rough, and it wouldn’t arrive until mid-morning.
The clock on the kitchen wall told me it was dawn now, but it was still dark outside.The sun was barely able to breach the low, black clouds that clung to the island.There was a softening of the gloom, that was all, but no true light.
I did my rounds of the lighthouse then headed into the village to rejoin the search parties, knowing that one of the men they were searching for was already dead, and desperately hoping that the other wouldn’t be found.
“Miserable weather for it,” Fisher Harry Finch said through his scarf as I joined him outside the church.
I grunted in agreement, looking around the crowd and wondering which of my neighbours was a killer.I saw Young Harry Barnes standing off to the side of the crowd, his shock of white hair encased in a fug of cigarette smoke, and made my way over to him.
“Nasty fucking day,” Young Harry said cheerily, and coughed and smacked himself on the chest.He spat on the ground.“Bloody chest infection.Looks like I might be getting that new prescription from the doctor next week after all.”
