Serial Killer Summer (A 3-Day Novel)

Chapter Thirteen

A lot of things happened after that. Most of it doesn't matter. Here are the things that do.

The serial killer who had murdered the four women in the city was indeed captured out west just a few weeks later. I was assured by police—we all were—that he had never been on the island. The man I'd seen, the man who took the boat that night, was a vagrant, just making his way from place to place, stealing what he needed in order to get by. He was never going to hurt anyone. He did not even make the news except for one brief mention of a stolen motor boat. And if you asked most people who went to Camp Big Spirit, even in 1992, most would hardly recall it.

Courtney and the others who were waiting back at Lindsey's cabin tell me that they all heard the boat start up, even in the storm. They also heard the whistle, and the dog take off. But they just had to wait, then, for some word from me and Jay.

Jay tells me that after I slid down the escarpment, he realized that he'd have to go around to find me, either by the staircase or by the beach trail. Once he saw the man on the beach, he just stayed low and waited to see what would happen. When the boat was out of Big Bay, he came to find me in the boat house—crumpled, muddy and shivering—and took me back up to Lindsey's cabin to get cleaned up. We all slept there in the living room, snuggled together. In the morning both the police and conservation officers arrived.

I think I remember some of that.

I finished out the summer. Nothing else remarkable happened. Jay and I grew closer in some ways, and further apart in others. I like to think he knew I was not coming back, and that's why he never asked.

Still, I used to have panic attacks thinking of him sitting on the deck of The Shack in the dark every morning, wondering where I was, and if there was something he could have done to help.

I used to, but I don't anymore.