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Chapter Fifteen

Saturday morning, 5:17 a.m., three and a quarter hours later

Emmy, the park ranger

“Hey, Emmy Bemmy.” Travis smiles eagerly at me, like this is all some sick joke.

I rub my eyes with the heel of the hand that isn’t holding the gun, to see if they’re deceiving me. There’s no way Travis Stevens is on my island. He’s older, yet somehow he looks exactly the same—rueful smile, lanky limbs, shaggy hair beneath a camouflage hat.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw him at the pool hall, the way he peered over his stick and drank me in. I knew he was trouble. For the first time in my life, I’d wanted that rebellion.

That night, Travis took longer to approach me than I had expected, longer than I’d hoped, but that was his way. He knew how to leave you wanting more. When he did approach, he was shorter than he appeared from across the room, his voice softer than I’d anticipated. Everything about him was kind. That’s what made me believe him when he said he didn’t usually go up to girls in bars. It made me trust him when he promised he would call me. It made me know, when I agreed to meet him a week later without my friends at the wings, that I’d be safe.

And he was safe. Gentle, when I told him it was my first time. Respectful of my parents’ rules, even as they refused to hide how much they disapproved of me dating someone four years older. He was understanding when I didn’t want to bring him to prom, when I wanted to keep him separate from my teenage life. Instead, we created a world for the two of us, one that felt sacred.

Travis was so subtle, I still can’t pinpoint when that gentle man turned manipulative, when he began convincing me to do things I didn’t want to do. And what was the difference, really? We were already having sex. I was on the pill. He’d taken me to Planned Parenthood, stayed in the car while I went inside alone. Maybe that was the first coercion, because unlike my friends, I didn’t want to be on birth control. I didn’t want it to be an extra precaution, then a justification, for not using a condom. Just a little taste, he’d said, when he was already inside me. I didn’t want to have sex in parking lots and movie theaters and once a Cheesecake Factory bathroom because it turned him on.

The day it ended wasn’t any different from all the other times. We drove forty minutes to the coast, where he pulled into the parking lot at the beach. There were no other cars, and I thought, Please, no.

“Let’s go get a milkshake,” I said, running my fingers through his hair, trying my best to be coquettish. “I’m starving.”

“We’ll go after,” he said, reaching for my hand and putting his lips to it, gentle, always gentle, such that it made me feel silly for the discomfort that blossomed inside me.

Travis hopped out of the car and bounded around to open my door, holding his hand out until I followed.

I remember that the full moon was bright enough that we could see through the night. I told myself that the scene was romantic, that my boyfriend loved me, that I was wrong for not wanting this. But my body knew. I did not want what would happen if I followed him onto the beach.

“Travis, please. I don’t feel great. Let’s go get some food, all right?”

“What, are you scared the crabs will watch us?” He tickled me, and the touch felt too violent.

“Please, Travis. Another night, all right?” But we were done talking. He was, at least. He guided me down the beach, where he laid out a blanket. This should feel romantic, I told myself again. You should want this. I didn’t.

I could have walked away. I could have said no and insisted he take me home. That’s what Travis argued when my parents pressed charges. It’s taken me years to realize that that was another manipulation. From the start, he convinced me to do things for him, to him, because I loved him. From the start, he knew I didn’t want to. I didn’t need to say no, because it was plainly there every time he said those words that still make my skin crawl: This is what you do for someone you love.

So, I followed him onto the beach. I lay down on the blanket. I was a lifeless body, waiting for it to be over, as he undressed me. He didn’t notice how frozen I was, how uninvolved, as he kept telling me it felt good, insisting that I liked it when he pushed so hard into me I could feel him hammering my insides. I gasped a few times from the pain. He heard pleasure. A request for him to push harder. And then a light shone in our direction, causing us to squint.

That was the last time I saw Travis. Rather, it was the last time that he saw me. A week later, I watched him from my bedroom window when he came to our house, begging to talk to me. I heard him fight with my father when my dad refused to let him in. I heard the rocks later that night when he tossed them at my window, the hiss of my name, then the sound of his car speeding away when my father flipped on the hall light. After that, we got a restraining order, which worked better than I would have guessed. He stopped showing up at our house. While he never admitted what he did, he offered my family a settlement they couldn’t refuse. I’ve always assumed it was Sandy, that she convinced him how serious this all was, that he needed to let me go.

Sandy Stevens was a mythical figure in our relationship. The older sister, living in New York, Travis’s only family. Their parents had died when Travis was eighteen. He rarely spoke about them, and I could tell that even before their car accident, they weren’t close. But Sandy. Travis loved his sister. He was so proud of her and how creative she was. This was before we carried our lives on our phones. I must have seen a picture of her, although Travis wasn’t the type to wallpaper his apartment in family photos. For as long as our relationship felt, it was only three and a half months. January through April. Sandy never came back in that time.

The lawyers took care of everything, the nondisclosure with its non-disparagement clauses. The settlement agreement. No depositions. No mediation. I never had to be in a room with Travis. When it was all over, my parents simply told me that there was money for college in a fund. The NDA made it easy for us to never talk about it again.

But I never stopped thinking about Travis. I never stopped worrying that he was always on the periphery of my life, watching. Waiting.

And now, here he is, on my island.

Travis keeps his arms raised as he inches toward me. I tell him to stop—at least in my head I do. Fear burns through my chest as he steps into clear view. Even as I feel the cold, hard metal of the firearm in my hands, I can sense him seizing control.

“It’s good to see you,” he says, breathing me in like he did when I was sixteen. As a teenager, that feeling was wildly exciting. Now, it enrages me that he still has the ability to make me feel small. “I’d prefer it was under different circumstances, you know, when you weren’t pointing a gun at me. You look good, though. A ranger. And a cop.” He whistles. “Impressive.”

My gaze shifts from Travis over to Cassie and the woman whose face is mangled. She’s wearing the school jacket, but I’m certain I haven’t seen her before. My attention returns to Cassie Bent. The other parents had said that Travis was Cassie Bent’s sister. Travis’s sister was named Sandy Stevens. How could Cassie Bent be his sister? That doesn’t matter right now. I focus back on Travis.

Did he recognize me earlier, when he had his binoculars fixed on me? Is that why he wouldn’t come out of his tent? Why he hid behind it, so I couldn’t see him? I grip my service pistol tighter, reminding myself that this is real. This version of me, the one that doesn’t go weak at the sight of Travis Stevens—she’s real. This version of Travis, aged yet still cruel—real. Us, here in the woods—real, real, real. Only this time, I’m in command.

The seconds elongate as I debate what to do next. My arms are growing weak from being extended for so long. I have cuffs on the back of my belt. I can call him to his knees and read him his Miranda rights, which I know more from television than training. I can arrest him and end this now.

As I step toward him, another thought occurs to me. I’m not wearing my body cam. There will be no recorded evidence of this encounter, of what I do to him.

Out of nowhere, I hear a scream. It’s coming from the battered woman.

“Watch out,” she shouts, before Travis collides with me and sends me hurtling to the ground.