Page 114 of The Wild Beneath

“Explain it, then! I’m done tiptoeing around.”

“Tiptoeing?”

“Worrying I’ll send you into a spiral if I ask too many questions! All I want is to help you feel like yourself. I’ve tried so fucking hard, Annie. For so fucking long.”

“I’m sorry.” She really is sorry. She’s trying not to cry.

His voice lowers. “Just tell me what it is.”

It all hangs there between them. Evan waits. Annie realizes that she will not—­cannot—­lie to him any longer.

“I think Walker is still alive.” It comes out unprefaced.

“Walker?”

“When we were up at that rescue in Port Alice—­”

“You saw him?” His voice rises.

Annie is sweating. She turns the water on cold and lets it run over her hands.

“He’s dead, Annie.”

Her heart seizes. “There was this sound I could always hear when he was around. I didn’t know if it was him... he said it wasn’t him. But it was something I couldalwayshear when he was nearby.Onlywhen he was nearby.”

Evan drums his fingers on the doorframe.

“It started again up there.” She pauses, unsure she wants to go on. “I can still hear it, Evan.”

“Right now?”

She nods. “But it’s louder by the water.”

“Christ.”

“I know it sounds strange—­”

“It sounds impossible.”

“I shouldn’t have told you.” Annie escapes through the pocket door to the bedroom.

Following her, he says: “Don’t run away from this.”

“You just said it’s impossible. What else am I going to say?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

She turns to face him. “I’ve been going to the beach to listen for him.”

“For Walker?” he asks, even though it’s clear he knows the answer.

“Yes.”

Evan backs up and slides down the wall to sit on the floor. “He’s been gone for years.” He bows his head, then looks up at her. “I watched him die with my own eyes. I could never tell you all of it—­it was too brutal.”

“You told me you blacked out. That you didn’t know what happened.”

“Iwent over,” he says. “It was me.” He balls up his fists. “My life jacket didn’t inflate. He dove in after, pulled me up. But when I got on deck...” Evan pushes himself up off the floor in one forceful move. “For a moment... I saw him. His shirt. Below the surface.”