Betrayed, I Rise novel · Chapter 14 of 32

Chapter 14: The Boat Girl

I didn't open it.

I wanted to so badly my fingers went numb.

But she'd written "not before," and she'd underlined "not."

"Nine days," Troy said quietly.

"Eight. My birthday's the twenty-seventh."

I slid the envelope into the inside pocket of my camera bag and zipped it shut.

Then I checked the zipper twice.

We loaded the Heron onto the trailer at four-thirty Friday morning, under the floodlight.

The oldest man walked around her three times, tugging every strap.

Two of the crew followed in the yard's flatbed with the stands and the tools.

The diner owner was waiting at the gate in her apron.

She handed me a garment bag through the truck window.

"For tomorrow night," she said. "It was mine in 1994. I let the hem down."

"You don't have to."

"I know I don't."

She walked back up the road before I could thank her.

Troy started the engine.

"Pensacola's five hours," he said. "You want the GPS?"

"No."

He looked at me.

"My mom drove me to the Pensacola hotel every June," I said. "Before they closed it for the remodel. We got lost every single time."

"So you know the way to get lost."

"I know the things we passed while we were lost."

He put the truck in gear and waited.

I told him.

A giant fiberglass shrimp on a pole outside a seafood shack. Go past it.

A bridge with blue railings over a brown river.

A water park with a cracked concrete volcano, closed since I was nine.

A drive-in movie sign with only the letters D and I left.

I pointed. He turned.

I was wrong twice.

Both times I knew it within a mile, because the things stopped matching.

Both times I said, "Back," and he turned around without a word.

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