The Fixes (31 page)

288.

Jordan and Haley are waiting on the dock when E pulls up. Jordan frowns when he sees E is alone. “Where's Paige?”

“I couldn't find her,” E lies. “She didn't answer her texts, and her house was, like, deserted. I don't think anybody was there.”

(E isn't sure why he's lying. But it has something to do with that little voice in his head.)

Jordan doesn't say anything. E can practically see his brain working. “She's in hiding.” Jordan starts pacing. “Shit. I was afraid this would happen.”

E doesn't say anything. Neither does Haley. They're just waiting for Jordan to decide what to do.

(
You're his fucking sidekick.
)

(
You're drunk on his Kool-Aid
.)

Abruptly, Jordan stops walking. He straightens. Smiles. “Let's get out on the boat,” he tells E and Haley. “Let's figure out what we're going to do.”

289.

Nobody says anything until they're out past the bay. They go ten, fifteen miles from the city, almost halfway to the islands that lie to the west. It's windy on the water, and the waves are pretty choppy. The boat rocks back and forth in the swell.

There's nobody around, not this far out. They're miles past the pleasure boats and the cargo ships anchored in the bay. There's nobody to see them. Nobody to listen.

Jordan powers down the Sundancer. Turns the boat into the waves and jogs along, pretty slow. It's quiet enough to talk now. Jordan breaks the silence.

“Paige is a liability,” he says. “It's only a matter of time before she sells us out.”

“We'll be okay, though, won't we?” E asks him. “You said you could get us out of anything.”

“Yeah,
us
. I said if we stuck together we'd be fine. If Paige goes rogue on us, we're like a table with only three legs. We fall over.”

“It's the stuff about the effects guy that's freaking her out,” Haley says. “I don't even think she cares about
anymore. She just wants to make sure no one else is getting hurt.”

Jordan doesn't say anything. He's leaning against the front of the cockpit, between the controls and the stairs into the cabin. He's looking out over the water like he's thinking about something.

“I think we can get Paige back on board,” E says. “We just have to figure out once and for all what happened to Mike.”

“Mike
.
”
Haley frowns. “You knew him?”

“We bought the explosives from Mike,” Jordan says. “He was my dad's demolitions guy.”

Haley's face kind of drains of color. “Oh.”

“Mike was getting scared. That first bomb we set off had him freaked. Just like Paige. He wouldn't play ball anymore.”

“So what happened?” E asks, even though he doesn't really want to know. “Did you pay him off or something? What did you do?”

Jordan looks at E, and he's serious now. “What did I do?” he repeats. “I did what I had to do to protect us. To protect the Pack.”

(I guess this isn't a surprise. You must have seen this coming. But E didn't—and there's really no way to adequately prepare for when your best friend-slash-boyfriend springs you with this kind of news.)

“You killed him. You
killed
him?
Shit
, Jordan.”

“This is all going to be fine.” There's something really strange in Jordan's voice. It's sickeningly calm. “We're going to make it out of this, I told you. You just have to trust me.”

Haley stands. “So you just fucking
killed
somebody else, Jordan? You didn't think that was something we would maybe, like, want to
talk over,
first?
What the
fuck
were you thinking?!
”

Jordan ignores her. He's looking at E. “That day on the boat. You said you were with me. Did you mean it?”

“I mean . . .” E hesitates. “Dude, I'm just trying to process—”

“Yes or no, E. It's not a hard question.”

(It's not exactly an
easy
question, though. Not with Haley losing her shit in the back of the cockpit, and Jordan so spookily
calm, and E's head spinning.)

“E. Do you trust me to get us out of this?”

(I mean, what do you say? E can't exactly tell him
no
, can he?)

“I trust you,” E says, fast, before he can stop himself.

Jordan nods. “Good. Then I'm sorry this next part has to happen.”

“Wait, what?” E shakes his head. “No. What are you doing?”

Jordan reaches into the cabin. Comes out with a long piece of wood with a spike on the end, like for fishing—

(a
gaff
).

“I'm sorry,” Jordan says, and it's not clear who he's talking to. “I'm doing this for us.”

Then, before E can react, Jordan takes two steps across the cockpit toward where Haley's standing in the stern. He swings the wood like a baseball bat and catches her in the midsection. She stumbles, and he hits her again.

The second hit knocks her off the back of the boat.

290.

E kind of blacks out.

(He's pretty sure he's screaming.)

E starts scrambling. Haley's splashing in the water and yelling for help, and E's looking around for a life preserver or a life jacket or some kind of life-saving device, a rope, anything to help her get back on board.

He's thinking this is a joke, or some weird demonstration, that's all, and now that Haley's learned her lesson they can all go back to Capilano and, like, get stoned or something.

(He's still not really registering what's going on.)

There's a life preserver on the sundeck, at the front of the boat. E's crossing to the stairs to get it when Jordan stands in his way. “Leave it.”

“What? But we can't just leave her out here.”

Jordan doesn't move. “I said leave it.” He reaches for the controls. Pushes the throttle higher. The engine gets louder and the boat picks up speed, churning white water behind.

“What the fuck are you doing?” E tries to reach around Jordan for the throttle.

(Behind the Sundancer, Haley is still splashing, still shouting. Every time a wave comes, she disappears behind it. She's coughing and sputtering. There's nobody around.)

E makes another grab at the throttle. Jordan blocks him, shoves him down to the deck. E scrambles back to his feet.

(The Sundancer is like forty, fifty feet away from Haley now, and putting in distance. Haley's hard to pick out in the waves.)

Jordan pushes E backward again. “Don't test me, E.”

His voice is still calm. Way too calm. It makes E even more desperate.

He gathers all of his strength. Launches himself at Jordan, knocks him into the control panel. His back hits the throttle and pushes it to full bore. The boat surges forward. E and Jordan are both knocked off-balance.

Jordan recovers first. Pushes himself to his feet and picks up the gaff hook. Waves it around like he's the leadoff batter. “I told you not to fuck with me,” he says.

Then he swings.

291.

E's thinking three things as that gaff connects:

1.
Haley is going to die,

2.
I'm going to die,
and

3.
This might not actually be a love story after all.

292.

But Eric doesn't die.

He wakes up in the cockpit of the Sundancer. Jordan's at the controls. The engine is howling. The boat's slicing through the water.

They're racing the waves back to Capilano.

Eric is alive.

Haley is gone.

293.

Eric throws up.

He retches and pukes all over himself, and then he rolls over and pukes some more. He can't stop seeing Haley in the water. Can't stop hearing her scream.

“Oh, for god's sake, E, grow up.”

This is Jordan. He's still standing at the controls, but he's looking back at Eric, his features are hard.

“Pull yourself together, dude,” Jordan tells him. “We're almost back in town, and we have some serious shit to cover before we get there.”

Eric sits at the back of the cockpit and stares at his shoes, and tries not to puke any more. Tries not to think about Haley. Jordan slows the boat to an idle and ducks into the cabin, and Eric's afraid he's coming out with the gaff again, but he just hands Eric a bottle of Fiji water.

“We had to do it,” he continues. “You get that, right? The police were onto Haley. They have her
picture
. If they tied her to
's murder, they know she's part of the Pack. And that makes her a liability.” He looks at Eric, his eyes wide and earnest.

“I couldn't let her lead them to us, E,” he says. “There's too much at stake here. We're not finished yet. You understand that, right?”

Jordan motions to the Fiji water, tells Eric to drink up,
but all the designer water in the world isn't going to make Eric feel better. He cranes his head above the side of the boat. They're a few hundred yards from the entrance to the Capilano Marina. The city is spread out before them, the lights twinkling on as the day comes to an end, the mountains behind it turning purple in the evening sun.

(It still looks like paradise.)

“I did this for us,” Jordan's saying. “I know it seems crazy, but I need you to trust me. If we stick together, we can fix this whole fucking town.”

294.

(As if that makes Eric feel any better.)

295.

Haley's mom's Porsche is parked in the shadows at the back of the marina lot.

“These next few minutes, hours, they're important,” Jordan says. “We need to be smart, and we need to move quickly.”

Eric doesn't answer.

Eric's thinking,
I don't want to do this anymore.

But Jordan reads his mind. “I need you here, E,” he says. “And you need me, too. They'll burn you for the movie star just like they'll burn me. And then the Pack will be finished and this town will be fucked.”

“But that's bullshit,” Eric says. “I didn't kill anyone.”

“You think that matters? You were in the room when
died. You were part of the plot to cover it up. Nobody's going to care that you didn't swing the vase. And let's be honest, there's no real proof that you didn't.”

Eric doesn't say anything.

“You were there with Mike, too,” Jordan continues. “You really want to face down two murder charges alone?”

E feels numb. This isn't happening.

(Haley's dead.)

(
You're his sidekick
.)

“First thing we need to do,” Jordan says, “is ditch this car. Follow me in the Tesla.”

He holds out the keys. Eric hesitates. Jordan takes Eric's hand and presses the keys into his palm.

“Hey,” he says. “Just do what I tell you and everything's going to be fine.”