Chapter 7: Viral

By eight o'clock, the clip had four hundred thousand views.

I sat on the boathouse step in dry clothes, with my wet hair dripping down my neck, and watched the number climb.

The video was a short clip.

It showed a pale figure rising from black water, then a blur, then Brent's caption.

Under it, the comments ran.

"Fake, obviously."

"CGI. Look at the shadow."

"This is the crab guy's daughter, the one who talks to herself."

"Poor thing. Somebody check on her."

Maya read over my shoulder.

"He's calling it a fake," she said slowly.

"I know."

"But he saw it. His drone saw it. Why would he say it's fake?"

I thought about Brent on my porch, with his folder and his soft voice.

"Because if the town believes it, they'll all come," I said. "Everyone with a phone. The press. The police."

"And he wants him for himself."

"He wants me to look crazy, so nobody listens when I say no. Then he takes my inlet, and the pool, and whatever's in it."

Maya's mouth went thin.

"Then we can't let him write the story," she said.

"No."

"What are you going to do?"

I stood up.

It wasn't bravery.

It was the same hot, flat feeling I had gotten on the porch, the feeling of a door finally closing behind me.

"I'm going to get breakfast," I said.

The Harbor Rest was a narrow café on the main road with seven tables and a coffee machine older than I was.

My father had eaten there every morning of his life.

When I walked in at ten past eight, every head in the room turned.

The talking stopped.

It was a small town, and I knew almost everyone by sight, and they all knew exactly who I was.

A woman at the counter had her phone out, and I could see my boathouse on the screen.

Brent was there.

He sat in the corner booth in his aquarium fleece with a stack of pancakes.

Across from him sat a woman in a blazer, his PR director.

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