SADIE
THE BEACH SHACK WAS REMOTE.
Surrounded by overgrown vegetation, the only thing I could see for miles was the sea grass-dotted dunes that swelled between the sand and the water.
I walked up the path and was careful as I pulled my sweatshirt tighter around my body. My ribs were bruised, but not broken. The swelling and discoloring had gotten worse, but Simon gave me some painkillers he had, and it helped ease the constant, gritty sensation I felt under my skin. He assured me I would heal in less than three weeks. The pain was the worst when I breathed in too fast or coughed, but I didn’t care about my own pain.
It was someone else’s I cared about.
I glanced at my watch. It was close to three, and I needed a shower. I needed to make sure that someone else would be okay. Today, I was finally going to see him. See the boy I’d hit.
Simon was in the hammock that hung between two green posts. It was old and rusted but still worked. I’d spent hours in that thing as a kid. It was one of my favorite things about coming to see Harvey.
Harvey’s place.
My safe place.
Simon had been staying with me since that night. Like old times when we both ended up here as kids, he slept on the couch, and I stayed in the bedroom.
As soon as he spotted me, he lowered his sunglasses. “They’re predicting that hurricane I told you about earlier will be hitting the east coast in a week. I think we should drive to Atlanta today and start getting prepared.”
Getting prepared didn’t mean buying flashlights or water. Instead, it was something I had no interest in doing, but something Simon insisted on.
The truth was, it was the only way.
“But today I was going to the hospital to see him.”
Simon shook his head. “Yeah, about that. I honestly don’t think it’s a good idea. You’re still way too wound up. We can’t chance drawing attention.”
That wasn’t inaccurate.
I was emotional.
I was a wreck.
I tipped my head to the October breeze that pushed hair from my face and closed my eyes. It had been seven days since that night. One week of waiting and worrying. A quarter month of utter hell.
The only thing that kept me sane was Simon. He’d always had a way about him, and he used that stealth to get what he wanted. That hadn’t changed.
Not only had he somehow found the little boy the day after the accident in Savannah Memorial Medical Center, he’d managed to get a glimpse of him.
There was a nurse on the floor who gave him information regularly. I didn’t ask why she was doing that. I didn’t have to. I was certain Simon had used his charm and good looks to win her over, or maybe he even told her he was related to the boy.
Either way, I knew he’d had to lie to find out the truth, and I couldn’t judge him for that. I needed to know. So did he.
This time he used that spellbinding charm for something good, at least.
Simon’s guilt was almost as heavy as mine. And because of this, every morning since the day he located the little boy, he’d taken the Caddy and drove to Savannah to check on the condition of the boy I’d hit.
What that little boy was doing out on the road at night I might never know. Moon Island was a vacation destination, and who knew, maybe he was late getting back to his parents. Maybe he’d gotten lost. Or maybe he was running away. Like I said, I might never know.
What I did know was the little boy was alive. Alive but injured. He needed a spinal cord operation to ensure he would walk again. Without the operation, his chances of walking were fifty/fifty. The family was uninsured, and the cost of elective surgery was just over one hundred thousand dollars.
They couldn’t afford it.
Neither could I.
Neither could Simon.
Turned out, Simon had less cash than I did. He didn’t even have a car. He’d left it in the Caribbean.
Even if I could settle the estate and sell the small beach house Harvey had left me, I wouldn’t get the money in time.
All we had was Simon’s past knowledge. He knew airports. He knew how to steal. And he had a plan of how to get what we needed. A plan that involved bad weather, an airport, and me.
It wasn’t anything I ever thought I’d be involved with.
It wasn’t anything I wanted to do.
I was no Bonnie to his Clyde.
And yet, every day for the past week I’d allowed him to teach me the ins and outs of pickpocketing. How to slide my fingers into a pocket undetected. How not to rush it once I made contact with the goods. How to take it nice and slow.
How to become an expert thief.
The reason I was doing this—time was running out. There was only a short window of time that the surgery could be performed before everything healed and possibly healed incorrectly.
That meant we had to do something, fast.
The entire situation I was in made me physically ill to think about. That was until I thought about the fact that the old Folgers tin in the kitchen only had thirteen thousand five hundred dollars in it for Riley Houston—the little boy in the hospital.
The little boy I’d hit.
Between the laptop I’d pawned, the car I’d sold, and my personal items I’d hawked, we still weren’t even close.
In fact, we had eighty-six thousand, five hundred dollars to go.
And we weren’t going to raise that kind of money on Moon Island, or in Savannah for that matter, not without getting caught.
Atlanta was the plan.
I was the plan.