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A week ago, this woman bolted off like I was a demon out to devour her soul, and now she’s suddenly worried about me? I’m not buying it. Lifting my gaze to the surrounding trees once more, I keep the fork out in front of me as I back away from her.

“Man had a sister dat gone missin’. Dere one day, gone da next. You aks ‘im ‘bout her. Aks ‘im what happen’ to her.”

A sister? I haven’t seen a single shred of evidence that any sister exists.

“Promise me somethin’,” she says, clambering to her feet. “Promise me you won’ tell him I tol’ you dis. Don’ tell him I talked to you. He came to my house a few nights back and t’reatened to kill me, too, if I set foot on his property again. An’ he will. He’ll kill me.”

A creeping numbness crawls over my skin as I continue to back away from her. A branch hits my calf, and I stumble backward, catching myself before I fall. Wouldn’t that be my luck, if I stabbed myself on a fucking fork and died out here.

“Please don’ say a word of dis, chère. I’m ‘fraid he’ll be fâché an’ come lookin’ for me.”

“I won’t,” I mutter, confused, and I spin around on my heel and run back through the brush, toward the boat.

Weathered boards creak under my feet, as I race across the jetty and up the stairs to the door. The air inside breezes over my skin, adding a chill that springs goosebumps.

God, that woman creeps me the hell out, but what if she’s telling the truth? What if he’s been playing me this whole time?

What if he has something vile planned for me?

The questions swirling in my head have me pacing back and forth across the galley.

I need to get off this boat. Being this far out, in a place I don’t recognize, couldn’t pinpoint on a map if my life depended on it, is unnerving after a whole week. No communication. No one else around, aside from a crazy old woman. It’s like something out of Grimm’s Fairytales. There’s got to be a way back to town that doesn’t require a massive houseboat that I wouldn’t know the first thing about driving.

Or where he keeps its keys, for that matter.

Tonight. Tonight, I’ll ask him about my truck. I’ll think of an excuse to go into town.

And I’ll ditch him. Because at this point, I don’t know who the hell to trust. One could argue my logic, with the fact that he wouldn’t have put so much into my sobriety if he planned to hurt me, but why such extreme separation from everything?

The obvious answer, of course, is that he doesn’t want his bad friends knowing where he lives. But that doesn’t explain why he’d keep me here after a week. Even if I suspend disbelief and allow him the good Samaritan angle, why hasn’t he dropped me off on the side of the road with a care package and a fond au revoir by now?

Why keep me confined to a boat in the middle of nowhere?

I need to find a phone. Surely, the guy has a burner tucked somewhere, like all the shady money launderers in the movies. Someone needs to know where I am, because if, by some stroke of the imagination, that crazy old lady is right about his sister, the guy could dispose of me like he assuredly does a toothbrush every six months.

No one would even know I was here. Except the crazy old lady. And what if someone looked at her the way I did just a few minutes ago? Not believing a word. I’d surely die as nothing more than a ghost.

The thought of that settles deeper into my brain, and a renewed rush of adrenaline has my hands shaking, my pulse racing.

I cross the boat to the back room where I tucked away Brie’s phone number. Breaths become shallow. Air thick. Too thick. Pausing, I close my eyes. Breathe. Just breathe. Think.

As I rummage around for the paper she handed off to me back at the Charpentier Estate, my fingers brush over a card, and I pull it out to find the one from the envelope. The name of the attorney from Chicago on one side; a phone number handwritten on the back. Maybe someone my father knew? Maybe someone who can help? My thoughts drift back to the Sheriff, and a strange feeling sits in my gut. My father never trusted the authorities. I remember. Maw Maw Day always called him paranoid for it. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always felt uneasy around them myself.

I tuck the card into my pocket, along with the crinkled paper I finally manage to dig out from the bottom of the bag.

From the nightstand drawer, I swipe up some paperclips I found buried in one of the kitchen drawers and hid away in case I might need them. Not to mention the fact I’ve already tried them on the room I’m about to attempt entering again. There has to be a phone on this boat, and there’s only one place I think it might be, for sure.

Bending the one paperclip, I head out of the bedroom, I kneel down in front of the office door, where I shove it inside the lock, using the tip of the clip to get a feel for the mechanics. Nothing I haven’t already tried a bazillion times already, but I’ve got new motives now. Desperation riding me this time.

At the sound of a click, I freeze.

It isn’t from the office door, but the exterior door. I pop to my feet and tuck the paperclip away, just as Thierry pushes into the room. Brows pulled tight with suspicion, he steps into the kitchen, that black bag strapped across his body. “Comment ça va?”

“You’re home early.”

“What were you doing by my office?”

“Oh.” I snatch a quick glimpse of the hallway behind me, slightly terrified by the realization that he could probably see me through the window from outside. “Saw a spider. Skittering across the floor. Killed it with my bare hands.” Holding them up for his inspection, I catch the slight tremble in my fingers and clear my throat. “Feel like popcorn?”