“No, they’re not—”
“Yes, they are! She got them with me yesterday. She has to be here,” I say, barreling up a wooden gangway, then boarding the boat.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” a man shouts in an American accent.
I look up to see him standing on the deck of the boat, wearing a silk robe. “This is private property!”
“We’re looking for my friend. These are her shoes!” I yell back, waving Lainey’s sandals at him.
“I don’t know who your friend is, but this is private property, and you need to get off my goddamn yacht!”
“Look, sir. We’re so sorry to bother you,” Hannah calls up from the dock. “But we’re really worried about our friend. Will you at least look at her photo and tell us if you remember seeing her?”
The man looks down at Hannah and sighs, clearly disarmed by the pretty white girl. “Fine. Show me the picture.”
I pull up Lainey’s photo on my phone and hold it up for him. The look on his face gives me chills. He’s definitely seen her.
“Yeah. I saw her. She was a disaster. Out of her mind drunk. Thank God she left—”
“She was out of her mind drunk, and you just let her leave?” I say.
“That girl was not my responsibility. I didn’t invite her onto my boat in the first place. She was trespassing. Like you are right now,” he says, getting angrier. “Now I’m going to ask you to leave, one more time, before I call the police—”
I glare at him, trying to contain my fury, as another man approaches us. Wearing pressed khaki shorts and a white polo with a nautical logo, he appears to be a crew member.
“I’ll handle this, sir,” he says in a low voice with an Italian accent.
“Don’t worry. I’m leaving,” I snap back at them both.
As I walk back down the gangway, Alessandro starts speaking to the crew member in calm Italian. Their conversation couldn’t be more different from the one I just had, and I listen hopefully and prayerfully.
After several seconds, Alessandro thanks him profusely, then turns to us and says, “We need to go. I think I know where she is….”
Chapter 32
Hannah
On our frantic jog back to the car, Alessandro gives us the update.
According to the deckhand, Lainey was so intoxicated that she fell down one of the ladders on the yacht and injured herself. While he and his colleague were administering first aid, Lainey vomited, and the owner threw her and her friends off his yacht.
“Her friends? What friends?” Tyson asks.
“Two Croatian girls. I think I know them—”
“How do you know them?” I ask.
“Everyone knows them—” He gives us a look that I quickly translate. “But they’re very nice girls. I’m sure they took care of Lainey.”
“Do you know where they live?” Tyson asks. “Or how to get ahold of them?”
“I could probably track them down,” Alessandro says, as we all get back in his car. “But I think we should check the hospital first.”
Tyson nods in numb agreement as I start to cry. He looks at me over his shoulder and tells me it’s going to be okay.
“Do you really think so?” I ask, my heart pounding in my chest.
“Yes,” Tyson says, staring into my eyes. “It has to be.”
—
Fortunately, there is only one hospital on the island, and it’s very close by. Unfortunately, it also happens to look more like a small, run-down health clinic than a proper hospital. There is trash in the parking lot; paint is peeling off the walls; and the small waiting room is loaded to the gills.
“This place doesn’t look equipped to handle serious injuries,” I whisper to Tyson. We are hovering behind Alessandro as he talks to the lady at the front desk.
“If she’s here, she probably just needed stitches or something small,” Tyson says. “Otherwise, I’m guessing she would have been airlifted to the mainland.”
“Tyson!” I say, my heart in my throat.
“My point is—I’m sure she’s getting the care she needs. Italy has good doctors.”
I take a deep breath, but inside I’m freaking out. What if Lainey hit her head when she fell down the ladder? She could have suffered a traumatic brain injury, and they might not have realized the extent of her injuries until it was too late to get her to a better hospital.
Just as I start to really spiral, Alessandro turns to us and says, “She’s here.”
“How is she?” Tyson asks.
“I don’t know. She just confirmed that Lainey is here. Someone is coming out to talk to us—”
