Page 80 of The Library on Plum Island
Harriet scanned the crowd with her eyes and raised an eyebrow at Daniella. “I have a plan, come on.”
Daniella and Harriet pushed their way through the crowd and stopped at Finn’s shiny new pickup. They looked in the window and saw his emergency light, which made Harriet grin. “Yes, this will do nicely.”
“This is Finn’s tuck,” Daniella hissed.
“He volunteers to rescue people, doesn’t he?” Harriet reasoned as she tried the driver’s door, and it opened. Harriet climbed into the driver’s seat and pulled down the visor, catching the keys as they fell out. “Bingo.” She buckled up, glancing at Daniella. “Well? Are you getting in?”
Daniella cleared her mind of her guilt about stealing or, instead, borrowing Finn’s car without asking. She glanced toward the sea, and her need to get to Alex outweighed her sense of right and wrong. She hopped into the passenger seat, buckling up, her heart racing. It was not until Harriet had figured out how to use the emergency light to clear their way through the police barriers on both ends of the road that Daniella remembered that Harriet had a suspended license. While she was an excellent driver, Daniella was sure her fingerprints would forever be embedded in Finn’s dashboard. Harriet drove like a Formula One racer, not slowing to take corners toward the lighthouse.
When they pulled up at the lighthouse, Daniella had to stop herself from dropping to her knees and kissing the ground in gratitude that they’d survived the drive. She’d barely had time to catch her breath as they made their way to the locked wrought iron gate that closed the front of the property off from the back of the house. A large silver padlock seemed to mock them as they stood staring at it in disbelief.
“I’ll try the back door,” Daniella said and started rushing toward it.
She’d only taken a few steps when Harriet yelled. “It’s open.”
Daniella spun around and watched in awe as Harriet slid the hairpin back into her hair, which was springing loose from the once neat knot at the nape of her neck.
“What did you do?” Daniella asked as she and Harriet dashed through the gate.
“Who knew the lock would just spring open in my hand like that?” Harriet shrugged.
Daniella didn’t have time to ponder the number of felonies the two of them were piling up in their endeavor to save Alex. She led Harriet to the side of the house that opened up toward the sprawling ocean. This side of the house had always petrified Daniella. While she had a healthy respect for the sea, Daniella preferred her feet to be firmly planted on the ground and not have her lungs filled up with gallons of salt water as the sea sucked her to certain death.
She stopped at the top of the few treacherous stairs, and Daniella couldn’t figure out how emergency services scaled at the speed they needed to get to the dock.
“Are you okay?” Harriet looked at Daniella with worried eyes.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Daniella lied. “I just don’t like these steep stairs.”
“I’ll go first, then if you fall, you can land on me,” Harriet stepped around Daniella, navigating her way to the docks, and the bright red rescue boat stood. “Oh. Awesome.”
Harriet and Daniella thudded over the wooden dock to the boat.
“We don’t have the keys?” Daniella said, knowing it was a stalling tactic. She wanted to save Alex, but her fear of boats and the sea suddenly ballooned, screaming in her mind:Hi, remember me? I’m your gut-wrenching fear of boats and the sea.
“Daniella!” Harriet’s voice cut through her panic like a hot knife through butter. “Are you okay?”
Daniella swallowed, trying to dampen her parched throat, and she nodded.
“Good, then help me with these ropes.” Harriet barked orders, and Daniella followed along like a robot as she tried to push back her fears.
When they were on the boat, Daniella left Harriet in charge, and for the first time since she’d realized Alex had been taken, Daniella wondered what the heck she’d have done if Harriet hadn’t found her. She watched in awe as Harriet skillfully got the engines on the boat started, and the next thing Daniella knew, they were roaring off into the ocean in pursuit of Alex’s yacht.
Daniella stood next to Harriet, who was clearly having way too much fun despite the grave situation. Daniella clung to a console handle, trying to keep herself steady as Harriet bounced them over the waves even faster than she had bounced them along the road. As the boat flew over the water, Daniella’s stomach started to roll. She swallowed down the sick feeling, keeping her mind razor-focused on getting to Alex.
“There it is!” Harriet shouted, pointing to Alex’s yacht, which was still quite a distance away.
It wasn’t until Daniella saw the sheer size of the superyacht that she realized how ill-thought-out their plan to get to the yacht was. Actually, they had no plan at all and had acted on sheer adrenaline with no thought to what they were going to do when they got to their goal—like a dog chasing a car that suddenly caught it and had no idea what to do with it.
“What do we do now?” Daniella was in uncharted territory here. “How the heck are we going to get on that boat?”
“There are ladders that run from the sea up the side of it,” Harriet told her. “I’m going to get as close as I can, and then you’re going to jump onto one of them.”
“I’m going to do what?” Daniella spluttered, staring at Harriet as if she’d grown two heads. “Are you insane?”
“You can steer, and I’ll do it.” Harriet shrugged. “It’s not as difficult as it looks.”
“This isn’t a movie, and I’m not a stunt person,” Daniella pointed out. “I hardly did any sport at all at school or after it, and my sporting achievements did not include the flying trapeze.”
