Page 107 of Driftwood Daffodil 3

Then again…

My eyes fell down to the folded blanket and black duffle bag Gio grabbed from the back of his Range Rover. That bag was a little suspicious. I had no idea what was in it. So, murder could still be a possibility.

“You want to know what’s in there?”

Gio must’ve seen me looking. I really needed to work on my nonchalant skills.

“Go ahead,” he nodded at the bag. “Look.”

That felt too easy, but who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth. Plus, I was a nosy bitch. He’d barely finished speaking before I reached out and unzipped the bag. Let me just say, the contents were not what I was expecting.

There was rope, a knife, some band aids—both the kind with smiley face and cloth wrapping up kind—a sock, some kind of rubber ball on a belt, 3 chocolate bars—one of which I ate while continuing to rummage through—a cloth, hand sanitizer, a bottle of lube—which I carefully nudged to the side—a pair of sweatpants and matching hoodie. Those made me stop.

Not only were the clothes nowhere near Gio’s size, but they were dark brown with a smiley face emoji on the shirt.

“Whose clothes are these?” If they were Carissa’s I was going to toss them in the swamp. I might keep the shirt though. That smiley face was cute.

“They’re yours.”

Nice try.

Holding up the pants, I said, “these are not mine.”

I think I would remember buying something like that. Maybe. It would depend on how drunk I was at the time. That’s how I wound up with the cat clock that sounded like a dog and my sequin orange running shoes. Never go shopping after a bottle of tequila.

“I got them because you keep fucking up your clothes.” Gio explained.

“You got them for me?”

“Yes.” He nodded.

“But they’re brown.” I would expect him to get something pink or purple.

“Your favorite color is brown.”

He wasn’t wrong. Brown was my favorite color, mostly because no one else liked it. Brown was the shit hue on the color wheel, and I thought it could use some love. But how did he know that?

Wait a minute…

I looked back at the contents. Chocolate, change of clothes, hand sanitizer, and Band-Aids.

“You have a Nova go bag?” Awe, that was so sweet.

No one had ever prepared for me before. There were a few questionable things, like the rope and knife, but given who packed the bag, I understood it. Well, I understood most of it.

I held up the ball belt thing. “What is this?”

“Keep running your mouth and you’ll find out.”

I didn’t like the sound of that or the look on his face, so over the boat it went.

“Hey,” Gio said as it plunked in the water, forever to be swallowed by the murky depths of the bayou. “You’ll pay for that.”

“You have no one to blame but yourself.” He was the one who told me I could go through his bag. What did he think wouldhappen? I was tempted to dump the whole thing over the side. If that shirt wasn’t so cute then I might’ve.

I sat back and enjoyed some chocolate as Gio steered the boat towards an island in the middle of the bayou. It was so small and tucked in that I almost didn’t see it. Not necessarily unusual out here. There were lots of patches of land and structures forgotten over time. But as we got closer I noticed a few strange things.

The first of which was the lack of sound. There were no croaks, or chirps in the distance. No lighting bugs flying in the air or owl staring back from a tree. It was quiet as if the animals avoided the area.

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