The Night He Left the Syndicate, I Took His Chair novel · Chapter 22 of 32
Chapter 22: Smoke
I shook Zeke awake and shoved the phone in his face.
He was out of bed and into his jeans before he'd finished reading.
From the bow I watched the black smoke over the island get bigger.
The older twin called at half past eight.
"Nobody's hurt," he said, before I could ask. "Nobody. You hear me?"
"The Petrel?"
"We cut her lines and towed her off with the skiff. She's got a scorched rail. That's it."
I sat down on the deck bench and put my head between my knees.
Zeke crouched in front of me and held both my hands until the ferry docked.
By ten the pier was gone.
The new fish house the co-op had built with four years of bake sales was a heap of wet ash.
Half the Lower Wharf was standing on the shore in boots and bathrobes.
The co-op president was at the front, his hands hanging at his sides.
When he saw me coming down the wharf, he didn't come to me.
They looked at me the way they had in November, before the boats.
The watchman's widow stood on the step of the last house in her flannel shirt.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–16 of The Night He Left the Syndicate, I Took His Chair are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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