Chapter 22: The Kitchen Table

Minnow hit the side of the cousin's boat so hard she nearly knocked Margie over the rail.

Margie hauled her aboard by the armpits, dripping and silver-tailed, and wrapped her in an oilskin.

By the time Jet and I reached the boat, she was sobbing into Margie's bibs.

"I'm sorry," she kept saying. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"Hush," Margie said. "You've got nothing to be sorry for, honey. Not one thing."

My palm burned all the way home.

The next night, at nine, we sat around Margie's kitchen table with everything we had.

The yellow hose.

The camera card.

My laptop, with the bargain recording on it.

Two frozen pizzas, because Minnow had asked for pizza every day since April and Margie had finally driven to the store.

Minnow sat wrapped in the bathrobe with a slice in each hand.

"Oh," she said. "Oh, this is the best thing in the whole world."

"It's a frozen pizza, honey."

"I don't care."

Jet sat beside me with his knee against mine under the table.

He kept looking at the red line across my palm.

It hadn't faded.

When I made a fist it stung.

"Does it hurt?" he said.

"Only when I punch things."

"Then don't punch things."

Margie put a legal pad on the table.

"Right," she said. "Two days. What've we got against us?"

"Barrows, the donors, and her," I said. "And if I say yes to Jet on the tide, she sings every man on the island into the sea."

"Is that all?" Margie said. "I've had worse Tuesdays. My wedding, for one."

Minnow laughed with her mouth full.

Jet didn't.

"She'll do it," he said quietly. "Whatever she says she'll do, she does. She's never once lied about killing someone."

"I thought you said she lies."

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Taught a Siren to Court... Then Became His Mate from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.