Authors: Lisa McMann
“What?” Rowan whispers.
I kick her.
“What’s the other thing?” I ask Tori. Rowan pinches me, Trey slugs her, and I realize I could probably just put Tori on speakerphone to avoid this situation. “Hang on, Tori—I’m going to put you on speaker.” I snarl at Rowan and press the button. “Okay, go ahead.”
“The other thing is that there’s a new frame added on after the frame of the two buildings in the distance. I can see more buildings—tall ones. It’s definitely a skyline. So I traced it for you guys.”
“Cool, that’s awesome! Downtown Milwaukee is right there, I think, so that makes sense that you can see the city from the water. Do you want to scan it and send it to Sawyer’s e-mail?” I give her Sawyer’s e-mail address. “Send him the victim list, too, would you? Then he can print copies for us.”
“You got it.”
“You sound a little better today,” I say.
“I’m just relieved there’s more. I feel like I’m not doing a very good job of this.”
“Are you kidding me? You’re doing great!” I say, and the others all chime in with their praise. We need to keep her going in these last few days.
“Okay,” she says, like she’s embarrassed. “Let me know what the plan is when you have one.”
“I will,” I say. We hang up.
“What was the first thing?” Rowan asks.
“Give me a second and I’ll tell you, you little pain in the butt.”
“Nose,” Rowan adds.
I grin reluctantly. “Nice. Anyway, she said in the glassed-in cabin there’s a banner hanging, like one of those kinds you see for birthdays and graduations, you know? She can’t read it, but she suggests that they might use a banner like that on opening day of a new season.” The more I think about it, the more sense it makes.
“Seems reasonable,” Ben says.
“Yeah, I think it make sense,” Sawyer says. He pages through the sketches, and then turns to his computer when it beeps to open up the files from Tori.
I look over his shoulder. “Well, they’re not the most stunning revelations we’ve ever had, but it’s progress.”
Sawyer studies his computer screen as the others come around to look.
Trey takes a look at the skyline picture. He squints and looks closer. And then he shakes his head. “Guys?” he says. “That’s not Milwaukee.”
We all look at Trey,
and then at the skyline sketch.
“Zoom in a little, can you, Sawyer?” Trey asks.
Sawyer expands the page and zooms in.
“If she traced this correctly, and I don’t know how she could possibly mess it up, this is definitely not Milwaukee.” He looks at me. “In fact, I think it’s the north view of Chicago.”
The room explodes in questions. We all talk over each other until Trey emits a shrill whistle with his fingers.
“Knock it off, guys,” he says. “I don’t know how the ferry could be this close to Chicago, but it is. That’s the John Hancock building, and there’s the Sears Tower. Or whatever they call that building now.”
“Willis,” Rowan mutters, but nobody cares. It’ll always be the Sears Tower.
I’m so confused. “Why is the ferry this close to Chicago? Are we sure this is the Milwaukee ferry? It shouldn’t be anywhere near here. It’s almost a straight shot across the lake to Muskegon.”
“Tori saw the ferry’s website, including a picture of the ferry,” Ben says. “She said she was sure that was it. Besides, our only other option for ferries on Lake Michigan is the one that operates even farther north than Milwaukee, and it’s an old nineteen-fifties schooner type—nothing like the high-speed Milwaukee ferry.”
“Okay,” I say, “but Milwaukee isn’t just the next town north of Chicago, you know. It’s like seventy miles.”
“True,” Trey interjects. “But Tori’s sketch shows the skyline quite far away. And Chicago is on the southwest curve of the lakeshore, so it’s possible to see the skyline from quite a distance.”
“But I don’t understand how or why the ferry would venture so far off course.” I know I keep saying this, but it doesn’t make sense. And I’m getting frustrated.
“Maybe there’s something wrong with the ferry,” Ben says. “Maybe it’s not just the storm causing this. Besides, I’ve been thinking about the storm a lot. And if the waves were really that enormous, no captain would take a passenger vessel out to sea. I could see them taking it out in
eight- or even ten-foot waves, but not much higher than that, or everybody would be yakking the whole trip. It must not be as rough as Tori made it out to be. I keep reminding myself that Tori’s personal experience factors into her perspective.”
I lie back on the floor and close my eyes. We’ve managed to come up with more questions than answers. And I’m starving. “Foooood,” I groan.
Sawyer rolls over to me and rests his head on my stomach. “Yep, you’re definitely hungry,” he says. “And I think we can all use a break. Let’s go get dinner.”
“But we need to save our money for ferry tickets,” I moan.
“I’m hungry too,” Rowan says. “Hey, I know—we could go find Mom and Dad. They’ll feed us for free. I think.”
“They will,” Trey says. “Well, maybe not Sawyer.” He grins.
Sawyer shrugs. “I can pay. I’m not some jobless punk like you, you know.” He straightens his collar. “I work with kittens.” He pulls me to my feet and we all stagger to the not-delivery car and go in search of the giant balls.
While everybody chatters around me, I realize the thing that’s so unsettling about the ferry within sight distance of Chicago is that it would take quite a long time for it to travel that far. And if Tori’s spot of potential light low
in the sky is actually the sun, I need to know how low in the sky it really is. And if it’s possible for it to still be “low in the sky” if it takes a while to get from Milwaukee to the location in the vision.
Tori didn’t draw the possible sun on the sketch. I text her.
What would you guess is the angle of that spot of yellow to the Earth?
Sawyer peeks at what I’m doing. He nods. “Yeah, I was wondering the same thing.”
Tori replies:
I was told there would be no math.
“Oh, look,” I say. “Tori’s being funny for the first time in her life. She must be feeling better.”
“I bet it’s because we’re figuring things out.”
We wait, and in a few minutes she has an answer.
Around thirty degrees, I guess.
I glance at Sawyer as Trey pulls into the parking lot for the Friday-night food truck festival. “You up for a little early morning research at North Avenue Beach tomorrow?”
“I don’t start work until one,” he says.
“Cool. I can probably get the car. I’ll pick you up at five?”
“Oof, that’s early. Yeah, sounds good. It’ll be cold out there by the water.”
“We can snuggle,” I say. “I’ll bring a blanket.”
He wraps his arms around me and kisses the side of my head. “I like it. We can do more sexy time.”
“You don’t
do
sexy time. You have it.”
“Yes, yes, I do,” he says.
“Please stop now,” Rowan remarks. “Gross. It’s time to eat some juicy balls.”
“Dot-com,” I add. Hey, it’s good to mix things up a little.
“There’s probably a math problem
that will tell us the answer here,” Sawyer says. We snuggle together under a blanket on the beach facing the water, looking toward Michigan even though we can’t see it, and watch the sunrise.
“Yeah, but any math problem that relies on the rotation of the Earth makes my head explode,” I say. “Besides, this is more fun.”
Sawyer rolls onto his side, facing me, and rests his hand on my stomach, his fingers tracing the stitching on my pullover. He nuzzles my neck. My skin tingles. I close my eyes and suck in a breath. My brain argues with my body, but my body wins. I turn toward Sawyer and slip my arm under his head, and my lips find his.
His hand travels to the small of my back and pulls me close, our legs entwining. In all our layers of clothes and blanket, we kiss, gently, softly. We touch our foreheads together and exist, for a moment, only in each other’s eyes. I pull the blanket over our heads and we lie there, just kissing and touching and being close and safe and free of all the stress. I would lie like this forever if I could.
“I love you,” I whisper.
“Yes, yes, you do.” Sawyer grins and kisses me, and I grin too and our teeth click together. “Ow,” he says, laughing.
The spell is broken. The brain wins round two. I pull the blanket off our faces and check the sun. Not quite there.
We wait and watch, mostly in silence amid gentle, somewhat absentminded caresses, cool fingers on bare skin, as the Earth turns us. As we focus on the task we’re here to do, my mind moves to logistics. I think we’re both trying to visualize this rescue and how it has to happen.
“We just need to put our life vests on first,” I say at one point. “That’s what’s going to keep us alive.”
“I know,” Sawyer says.
“I wasn’t telling you. I was just talking out loud.”
He turns his face toward mine with the hint of a smile. “Oh.”
Later, he says randomly, “Rope.” He sits up. “Are you free tomorrow afternoon?”
“Duh.” I shield my eyes from the sun with my hand. It’s getting close to the thirty-degree-angle mark.
He pulls out his phone and sends a few text messages, then settles back down.
I pull out my protractor, scoot out from under the blanket, and set the tool on its edge on a mostly smooth portion of sand that looks like it’s pretty level. Then I lie on my stomach and put my face in the sand next to it. I use a thin stick to project the thirty-degree line and wait.
“It’s close. What time is it?”
Sawyer checks. “Eight fifteen.”
I dig a little hole in the sand for my face, to make sure my eye is lined up with the protractor. My eyes water. “Should have brought sunglasses,” I mutter.
“What exactly are you doing?” Sawyer asks. I can hear the amusement in his voice.
“I don’t know! I’m just trying to think logically.” I sit up and wipe the sand from my cheek. “The ferry leaves at six. It is now eight fifteen and the sun is in the position where Tori believes it to be behind the clouds. The question is, could the ferry get this far in two hours and fifteen minutes? I say absolutely yes, but only if it intended to, and at a reasonably high speed.”
“But that is not the normal intent of this ferry.”
“Correct. So what would have to happen to make the pilot of the ferry go so off course?”
We contemplate.
“All I can think of is the mafia,” Sawyer says, half joking.
“Maybe it’s hijacked. It can go wicked fast, you know. Or,” I say, “I know—maybe there’s a different vessel in trouble, and because the ferry can carry so many passengers, and because it’s fast, the Coast Guard calls them to assist.”
Sawyer drums his fingers on his thigh, considering. “That actually sounds plausible. Remember when that plane landed in the Hudson River in New York? Didn’t the ferries come to help pick up people?”
“I don’t know. But,” I say, thinking of something new, “if the weather is too windy and the lake is choppy, a helicopter wouldn’t be useful. Plus they can only rescue one person at a time.”
We both think about it.
“And then,” Sawyer says, “maybe in the act of saving the people on the other vessel and riding the crazy waves, the ferry smashes against a breakwall. It takes on water fast, plus the waves are getting higher and water rushes in over the sides, too, and in a matter of minutes, it’s the
Titanic
.”
“Man, that would suck for those people from the other shipwreck to be rescued and then immediately be in another one. Two shipwrecks in a matter of hours? Now that’s a bad day.”
“But the irony makes it feel right, doesn’t it? I mean, unbelievably tragic shit like that happens all the time.”
I stare out over Lake Michigan, which is deceptively calm this morning, with light waves washing ashore. I check the weather on my phone. The chance of thunderstorms has increased to 50 percent on Monday, and decreased to between 0 and 10 percent the rest of the week.
“Sawyer,” I say, “based on the weather forecast and the banner Tori saw, I’m convinced this is happening on Monday. I think we should plan on being on that ferry in Milwaukee at six a.m.”
We do a quick conference
call on the way home from the beach. I explain my reasons for believing the ferry disaster is happening on Monday, and after a short discussion, everybody agrees. Ben, who has a credit card, buys five tickets for Monday at six a.m. We plan to pick up Ben at four (groan) and drive up to Milwaukee together.
Saturday night, after Sawyer gets done playing with kittens at the Humane Society, he and I meet up at Tori’s to see how she’s doing.
Her mom lets us in. “She’s a wreck,” Mrs. Hayes says fretfully. “Are you sure this will go away?”
“If we have all the clues right and we manage to save some people, it will go away.” I’m still a little wary of her.
I don’t need her obstructing things now. But she doesn’t argue and she stays out of our way.
Tori is sitting in the same recliner as last time we were here. Her eyes are closed. “I’m awake,” she says. “Just resting. Trying to get away from it for a bit.” The vision must be playing out everywhere.
“How has it been?” I ask.
“A little better starting this morning.”
Sawyer and I exchange a glance. Did we do something right today by deciding to buy tickets? Sure seems that way.
“Is there anything new?”
“No.”
I take in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We bought our tickets for Monday.”
Tori nods slowly. “That makes sense to me.” She opens her eyes. “I wish this didn’t have to happen at all, but since it does, the sooner the better.”
“We’re going to need to be in touch with you,” I say. “Call or text my phone if anything changes. I want you to watch the vision Monday morning starting at six, okay? Watch it like crazy, and send me a text now and then even if nothing’s changing.”
“I will, Jules. I promise.”
“Okay.” I look at Sawyer and he nods. I squeeze Tori’s hand. “We’re going to let you rest now. I’ll call you if
anything changes, but plan on this happening Monday morning.”