The Night Birds E-Book

Christopher Golden

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 437

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

The next gripping, atmospheric horror novel from NYT bestselling author Christopher Golden, set in a deteriorated, half-sunken freighter ship off the coast of Galveston, TX. Charlie Book and Ruby Cahill have history. After their love ended in heartbreak years ago, they never expected to see each other again. Now, as part of his work for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Book lives aboard the Christabel, a 19th century freighter half-sunken off the shore of Galveston. Over many years, a massive forest of mangrove trees has grown up through the deck of the ship, creating a startlingly beautiful enigma Book calls the Floating Forest. As a powerful storm churns through the Gulf, he intends to sleep on board as usual. But when he arrives at the dock, he's stunned to find Ruby there waiting for him. And she's not alone. With her are a mysterious woman and her infant child, asking Book to hide them safely aboard the Christabel while they're on the run. Only it isn't the police who are after them, it's a coven of witches the woman, Mae, has fled, stealing away the helpless infant for whom the coven had hideous plans…or so Mae claims. It's lunacy and Book wants nothing to do with it. But after the way he and Ruby ended things, and the unspoken pain between them, he can't refuse. Yet even as he brings them out to the ruined ship and its floating forest, there are shadowed figures looming back in Galveston, waiting out the storm. And despite the worsening wind and rain, the night birds are flying, scouring the coastline for their prey.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

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Acknowledgments

About the Author

Praise for

THE NIGHT BIRDS

“A tense, chaotic horror novel that moves like a thriller.... another outstanding read.”

New York Times

“A magnificently atmospheric, dread-soaked page-turner. Terrifying and entertaining. Pure nightmare fuel.”

RACHEL HARRISON, USA Today bestselling author of So Thirsty and Black Sheep

“Atmospheric, deeply unsettling, and irresistibly captivating, The Night Birds is a masterful and unforgettable, tautly written supernatural thriller from a literary titan.”

ERIC LAROCCA, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

“The derelict ship at the heart of this unnerving novel may be shipwrecked, but the Christabel has set its course across my dreams night after night ever since I finished reading it. A true voyage into dread.”

CLAY MCLEOD CHAPMAN, author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes

“The Night Birds restores witches to their rightful place as grim, bloodthirsty queens of the horror genre—and cements Golden’s already immensely impressive reputation as king of the horror-thriller writers. This is an engrossing, fast-moving, and richly imagined book with an unforgettable setting and lore. You won’t be able to put it down!”

ALLY WILKES, author of Where the Dead Wait

“No one combines action and horror better than Christopher Golden. In The Night Birds, Golden throws everything he’s got at his isolated heroes, the only thing standing between mankind and ancient evil. Bring a tank of oxygen, because once the pages start turning, you’ll be gasping for breath.”

ALMA KATSU, author of The Fervor

“A page-turning nightmare full of eerie characters, dreadful twists, and visceral horror in one of the most haunting settings I’ve yet to experience.”

BROM, bestselling author of Slewfoot

“The Night Birds is a uniquely terrifying slice of witchy horror that will surprise and delight horror fans who think they’ve read it all. Visceral, dark, pedal-to-the-metal action makes Golden’s newest a ride that readers won’t soon forget.”

PHILIP FRACASSI, author of Boys in the Valley

“Golden showcases his gift for eerie scene setting in this outstanding horror novel... A tense, atmospheric thriller.”

Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Combines the thrill of survival horror, the wince of body horror, and the spine-tingling chill of the occult. Golden’s skill is on full display here as he crafts crackling action scenes, a horrifying creature, great dialogue, and an inclusive cast of characters.”

Library Journal, starred review

“Heartbreakingly beautiful, filled with action, evil, shape-shifting witches, superior world building, and visceral terror, this is a tale where every detail matters.”

Booklist, starred review

“Golden’s clean narrative keeps the mystery moving right along, with some compelling twists and turns along the way.”

Variety

THE

NIGHT BIRDS

Also by Christopher Goldenand available from Titan Books:

The House of Last Resort

All Hallows

Road of Bones

Titan anthologiesfeaturing Christopher Golden:

Dark Cities

Cursed: An Anthology of Dark Fairy Tales

Hex Life: Wicked New Tales of Witchery

Christmas and Other Horrors: A Winter Solstice Anthology

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The Night Birds

Print edition ISBN: 9781835414491

E-book edition ISBN: 9781835414507

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: September 2025

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Christopher Golden 2025

Christopher Golden asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

EU RP (for authorities only)eucomply OÜ, Pärnu mnt. 139b-14, 11317 Tallinn, [email protected], [phone]

Designed and typeset in Plantin Std by Richard Mason.

This one’s for Daniel,who was on my mind every day

1

Out in the dark, the crickets were screaming. It sounded like every cricket on Earth had descended on Ruby’s property. There’d been one hell of a lot of rain in the spring, and her grandma always said that meant a mighty swarm of crickets as summer wore on. Now here was evidence that the old lady had known her stuff.

September had sped past, but summer lasted longer these days. It was early October, and the heat and humidity still blasted Texas, forcing her to keep the air-conditioning running at least till sunset. A lot of older folks seemed to thrive in this weather, endured it with a hard-edged pride. Ruby admired their fortitude and considered herself lucky.

Tonight, she sat out on her screen porch, guitar in hand. A warmth pulsed through her, and her muscles melted, thanks to the raspberry-flavored gummy she’d chewed just before she’d come out here. The day had been hot as hell, and after dark, it didn’t seem much cooler, but the humidity had withdrawn for a time, and she wanted fresh air. The pregnant blonde who tried to predict the weather on Channel 42 had said to expect a mess blowing in from the Gulf—a tropical storm, maybe a hurricane—but Texas had seen a hundred storms worse than this, so nobody seemed worried. Ruby felt grateful the storm was coming. Its approach had vacuumed all the moisture from the air like the water receding the moment before a big wave crashed onto the sand.

The humidity would come back worse than ever, but tonight, she could breathe. She strummed a couple of chords she’d been toying with, trying to find the song in her head. At night, it grew so dark she had to rely on the stars to illuminate the patch of yard back there, but she didn’t need to see the strings to find the notes.

After a lifetime knowing this house, it felt strange to live alone here. Her grandfather Bill Cahill had died and left it to her, along with his guitars and his vinyl music collection. Ruby had a younger sister named Bella, but she was off in Louisiana somewhere. There’d been the occasional phone call for the first few years after she’d left and one strange postcard from a place called Breaux Bridge that gave them a return address.

When lung cancer had snuck up on Grandma Dot and killed her in a week, Ruby had sent Bella a letter and tried to track down a phone number. She’d even called the police in Breaux Bridge to see if they were willing to make a notification. They were able to confirm Bella was alive and living locally, and they promised to pass on the message. Even so, the wake and funeral came and went without an appearance from Bella. Not so much as a flower or a card. Not even a phone call.

Grandpa Bill never mentioned Bella’s name again after that, but when he followed Grandma Dot to the grave, Ruby learned her sister hadn’t merely been left out of the will—their grandfather had explicitly disinherited her. Anyone gives that girl anything of mine, either goods or cash, I’ll haunt them to the end of days, he’d written. Don’t give her so much as a dime from my sofa cushions or a tomato from the garden.

Not that it mattered. When word reached Bella Cahill that her grandfather had died, she’d written her sister another postcard. I’m sorry, Rubes, she had scrawled. I know you loved him.

That was that. No call, no visit, no flowers or other remembrance. Just the postcard. Grandpa Bill hadn’t left her anything, and it seemed Bella didn’t want anything from him. Which left Ruby without family, alone with her music and her memories.

“Ah, hell, old man,” she whispered to Grandpa Bill now. She didn’t know whether he’d ended up in heaven or hell, or just turned into a ghost, floating around and keeping an eye on her. That would have been just like him. Whatever had become of his soul, she missed him. Grandpa Bill had left her a house full of memories, including all the records he ever played her and the guitar on which he’d taught little Ruby her first chords.

During a momentary lull in the cricket chorus, she heard a clink of ice shifting in a glass. It was a pleasant sound, a reminder that she’d come out here to do more than tinker with a new song. She’d come out to drink, even taken the time to fix herself a small pitcher of sweet tea margaritas.

Ruby plucked her glass off a little metal table. She twisted the glass around to find the spot with the most salt still on the rim. If a woman troubled herself to mix sweet tea margaritas, she ought to get the most out of it. Of course, that meant finishing her drink before melting ice diluted it any further.

A challenge, but she was up to it.

She took another sip. Shivered with the pleasure of the alcohol’s burn. Set the glass down and pondered the chords again, shifting on the cushions, missing the old buzzard as she always did. When Ruby had ditched college halfway through freshman year to pursue music, Grandpa Bill had been the only one who didn’t treat her like she’d just stepped out into traffic. He’d had faith in her, and when the rent on her shitty little apartment in Austin was overdue, Grandpa Bill had always paid it.

Times had changed. She’d inherited this house just when she’d started earning enough money from her music that she could’ve afforded to buy one. The irony hurt.

With the crickets for company, Ruby sipped her sweet tea margarita and enjoyed the solace of loneliness. She’d written a song called “The Gift of Grief” and was surprised by how many people couldn’t accept that the pain of losing loved ones could be a gift. It cut deeply, carved out bits of your heart that you could never get back, but that pain meant you had loved deeply and fiercely, and been loved in return. Without love, there was no grief, and despite the pain, that was beautiful.

Her eyelids grew heavy. The sugar in the sweet tea wasn’t enough to balance out the alcohol and the gummy and the screaming song of the crickets. It was too loud to be a lullaby, and yet she felt she could nod off easily. The guitar lay across her lap, waiting.

Then the crickets fell silent.

Ruby blinked, suddenly alert. She frowned at the darkness beyond her porch screen. The metal mesh reflected back a bit of the glow from her lamp, which made it even harder to see anything out in her yard. The quiet seemed unnatural. Folks went to sleep early out here, which often meant the only ones awake with her after midnight were hound dogs and horses stabled at least a quarter mile away.

Tonight, she had no company at all. Not a whinny or a bark. Not even the crickets, now.

Ruby ignored the last dregs of her drink. She rose from her chair, set aside her guitar, and went to the screen door, trying to see out into the dark. Nothing made crickets go quiet like that except maybe the roar of thunder or the sudden arrival of an unexpected predator. Not that they were in any danger from predators. They were just crickets.

But they knew when to hold their breaths.

Out in the dark, something moved. Footsteps shushed against the tall grass.

“Ruby,” a woman’s voice rasped. “You have to hide us.”

“Who the hell is that?” Ruby asked, one hand on the handle of the screen door. She peered into the dark and saw a pair of frightened eyes staring back. “Bella?”

“Not Bella,” the voice said.

Ruby could make out the shape of her in the dark and the small, squirming bundle in her arms.

A baby.

It began to cry.

Frightened eyes blinked in the dark.

“For his sake and for your own,” the dark shape said, “let us in.”

And Ruby did.

2

The windows rattled at the front of the Gumbo Diner. When a big gust hit, the plate glass seemed to breathe, straining against the window frames. Galveston had a long history with hurricanes trying to blow the city off the map—just blast across the island and sweep every trace into the Gulf of Mexico. Locals had been worried for a week, but if the latest forecast proved correct, they were in the clear. The hurricane had shifted to the east, expected to ease down to a tropical storm by morning. They were only going to get the outer edges, a lot of rain and bluster.

Even so, there’d be no work tomorrow.

Book felt like the only one unhappy about that.

“Come on, man,” Gerald said. “Don’t be stupid.”

Luisa tapped the table. “That’s a little harsh.”

“You’re right.” Gerald raised both hands. “Stupid’s the wrong word. But staying out on the Christabel during this storm is not smart. I’m not going to say it’s irrational, but this decision and irrational are definitely neighbors.”

Book smiled. Somehow, Gerald always managed to needle him without making it hurt. It seemed strange that he was an only child, because Gerald Coleman would have been the perfect little brother.

“I’m aware you guys think I’m nuts,” Book said. “But I’ll be fine.”

He felt confident about that. Relaxed, even. Book appreciated the way stress and calamity narrowed options to just a few. He glanced around at the team.

Gerald sighed. “Your funeral, Book.”

Luisa Hidalgo hadn’t taken her yellow raincoat off throughout the meal, just sat there dripping as she ate. “I know better than to try talking you out of something stupid.”

The fourth member of their team sopped up the remainder of his jambalaya with a piece of bread and popped it into his mouth, chewing as if none of this were any of his business. Alan Lebowitz sipped his homemade root beer and then dabbed at the corners of his mouth with a napkin. He behaved as if he were sitting at the next table over.

Book had known and admired all three of them before starting on this project, but he had assembled this team based on more than just their credentials. The project required they spend an awful lot of time together, much of that time in close quarters and isolated from the rest of the world, so he had chosen colleagues whose company he thought he would enjoy. There had been moments of friction in the early days, but time had shown the wisdom of his selections. In a relatively short time, they had become a bit like family, with all the teasing and bickering that word often entailed.

If they were a little like family, then Alan was the lovably grumpy uncle. Book might be the project manager, but Alan had decades on the rest of them, and often a single grumble or sigh from him would set the others laughing, even as he kept them focused. People talked about the wisdom of age as if it were something every senior citizen acquired with time. Book thought that was bullshit—assholes and fools never grew wiser, they just became old assholes and old fools. But as much as they teased him, what Alan had to say always mattered to the rest of the team.

“Alan?” Book said. “You going to chime in here?”

He issued something half grunt and half chuckle. “There any point?”

“Come on,” Book replied. “I know you’ve got something to say.”

Alan leaned back in his chair, hands on his belly as if he had a gut worthy of Santa instead of being slim as a fence post. “My view isn’t going to change your view, is it? Men my age are known to be stubborn as mules, but I’ve never met anyone as stubborn as you.”

Luisa hugged herself as if the gusting wind outside had blown right through the glass. Her raincoat crinkled loudly. “And if you thought he would listen, what would you say?”

“I’d say Gerald had the right word,” Alan replied. “Sleeping out on that old junker is stupid as heck. You don’t know how bad this storm’s gonna get, but it won’t be fun. The docking platform may be welded in place, but there’s no telling what a strong-enough storm could do. If it breaks away, getting you off the ship after the storm will be a nightmare. There are too many variables.”

Book opened his hands like a preacher, about to explain the research that went into installing the stairs and the docking platform on the hull of the ship, but Alan shook his head.

“No, no, Mr. Book. I’m not trying to persuade you,” the old professor said. “Just answering Luisa’s question. And now that I have, I’d like to get some coffee in me and go hunker down in my bed until this storm blows over.”

Alan glanced around for their waitress and grumbled when he didn’t see her. He reached into the pocket of his baggy pants and tugged out his phone. In a moment, he would be lost on Instagram or down some other rabbit hole. At sixty-seven years old, Alan spent more time vanished into his phone than the rest of them put together. Gerald had nicknamed him “the screenager.”

“I appreciate the concern,” Book said, looking around the table. “Whether it comes as questions about my sanity or otherwise, I recognize it, and I’m grateful. But I promise you, I’ll be fine. That freighter has been out there forever. It’s been through multiple hurricanes that caused significant damage, and this storm is nothing in comparison.”

Luisa nodded. “I know. You’re looking forward to it. You’ve already said.”

“I look at it as just more research.”

Book spotted the waitress and waved her over. As she approached, he caught Gerald giving him one last admonishing glance.

“I know you’re stubborn as hell,” Gerald said. “But if you change your mind, you come and sleep on the sofa in my hotel room. I promise not to give you shit about it till the storm blows over.”

Book nodded his thanks but wanted to move off the subject, so he was glad when the waitress arrived. The Gumbo Diner’s menu offered dessert, but somehow none of them ever ordered anything but coffee after dinner. They ate there nearly every Friday night, after a long week out on the water, and by the time coffee arrived, everyone seemed eager to retreat to their respective corners.

Luisa had rented a tiny apartment outside the city. Alan lived in a B&B patterned after an old-fashioned boarding-house, where a seventy-five-year-old woman made his bed and gave him breakfast every day. He liked being taken care of but didn’t have anyone in his life willing to do the job. Gerald had spent these months in a midrange hotel in the midst of downtown. He liked to be in the middle of things, to eat good food, drink good whiskey, hear live music, and shop for hats and shoes and expensive clothes.

As for Book, he had started out in that same hotel, but soon afterward, he had moved on board the Christabel. They all thought he was out of his mind, and Book understood. The freighter had been sitting belly-deep in the water off Pelican Island since the Big Blow of September 1900, and the ship wasn’t going anywhere. You couldn’t sink a boat that had already been sunk.

The freighter had run aground way back then and been towed to Pelican’s eastern shore not long after. Its dismantling and removal had been planned a dozen times, but there was nothing government did better than steal money from itself. Every time it seemed this eyesore was slated for removal, the funds had been diverted elsewhere.

Over the years, in a stunning example of nature laying claim to something forged by human hands, the ship had been infiltrated by mangrove trees. Roots from the nearby shore grew underwater and up through the rusted iron hull, around broken masts and smokestacks. The trees spread, growing across the still-intact deck, braiding themselves into something beautiful and seemingly impossible—a small mangrove forest that rose forty or fifty feet above the deck. There was something spiritual about it all, but Book didn’t dwell on that element of the floating forest. He was here for the science.

Book liked to call it the floating forest, but when the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department put together the funding request, someone in the statehouse started referring to it as “the Christabel Project,” and it stuck. Book had gotten over it quickly. The beauty of this strange phenomenon brought him serenity—which was the main reason he had been living on board the Christabel instead of in a Galveston hotel like the rest of the team.

Peace. Nature. An experience no one else could claim. As a scientist, he didn’t believe in magic, but sometimes the world around him offered moments and places and extraordinary experiences that filled him with a sense of wonder and delight, and that was magic enough.

So he would sleep out there tonight, just as he had every night since he had departed the hotel more than three months ago.

The check came, and Book paid. Texas Parks and Wildlife would reimburse him.

Alan stuck his phone back into his pocket. He sipped his café au lait and glanced around at the rest of them. “Weird being here on a Wednesday night.”

Gerald smiled thinly. “You’re not used to you and Book being the only white people in the place.”

Alan shrugged. “There’s that. It’s also just quieter.”

“Might be because of the storm as much as it being a weeknight,” Luisa said.

“I don’t mind,” Alan added. He searched Gerald’s face. “I actually prefer it quieter. I also don’t mind being one of the only white faces in the joint. Feeling out of place is not new to me.”

Gerald gave a knowing look, raised his coffee mug, and the two men clinked cups.

Book’s mug was still half-full when he slid his chair back and stood. “You all take your time. I’ve got a little bit of a drive, so I’m going to head out. Assuming we don’t have a miraculous change of weather, just stay home and enjoy the day off tomorrow, and I’ll see you out on the wreck on Friday morning.”

“Book,” Luisa chided him.

He smiled, nodding. “I know. If we want the funding for this thing, I need to stop calling it the wreck. I’ll see you in the forest, then.”

The floating forest. That magical place, on a bed of rusted iron and seagull shit.

As he left the Gumbo Diner, the door blew out of his hand. A bell above the door jangled angrily as he managed to wrestle it closed. The rain pelted him at an angle as he darted across the parking lot toward his decade-old Subaru Forester. It had been a deep green when he’d bought it, but now in the rain and the dark and with the years gone by, it looked like the dusty chalkboard in the old Pennsylvania schoolhouse in the town where he’d grown up. He loved the Forester the way he’d loved that schoolhouse.

The car started right up, reliable as ever. The radio came on, but static grated on him, and he clicked it off. The rain and the windshield wipers kept him company as he backed out of his parking spot, then pulled into the street and headed for the bridge to Pelican Island, happy to be on his own again.

Some people hated isolation, but Book thrived on it. The last thing he’d want tonight would be company.

But the universe had been spoiling Book lately, giving him exactly what he wanted. Tonight, that was going to change.

3

Book drove with the radio off. Despite the rain, he kept the windows down an inch to let in the fresh air. The wipers beat their familiar rhythm while the tires whispered through the slick of water on the road. Somehow those sounds comforted him.

The team worried for him, but he eagerly anticipated the night at sea. The Galveston weather hadn’t even reached the strength of an average tropical storm, but it was enough to make him feel wonderfully isolated. How simple the world became for someone at sea with nothing but a yellowed paperback book and a light by which to read. The world had been sliding into darkness for years so that it had become difficult to enjoy literally anything without some kind of mental footnote that tarnished that joy. Out on the Christabel, he could focus on work and the water. He could not stop the world from decaying, but in solitude, he could still hold on to the sweetness life had to offer. He would never understand why Alan spent so much time doomscrolling on his phone. The world was ugly enough without seeking out more ugliness.

Book drove north over the causeway that led to Pelican Island and then out toward Seawolf Park. Kids loved the playground there and the opportunity to see the submarine that had been embedded in the ground at the naval museum. Every time he drove out here, Book promised himself he would visit the museum sometime, but he never seemed to manage it.

There were only a few other vehicles on the road, and by the time he reached the small inlet where Parks and Wildlife had their dock, his were the only headlights flashing through the rain. He parked beside a too-large pickup truck belonging to Otis Halstead, the dock manager. Book didn’t bother with an umbrella—just locked his car and darted across the lot to the gate, where he tapped his code into the keypad. A loud buzz and a click, and he pushed through, making sure the gate clanged shut behind him.

Then he heard the footsteps. Running in the rain. Splashing across the parking lot.

Someone called his name.

It wasn’t Otis. Otis would be in the little shack at the end of the pier that served as both his home and office, and this voice belonged to a woman. Book turned and stepped back to the gate, one hand on the latch. He peered through the chain link, watching the dark figure run, slightly hunched, through the rain. She carried a small black umbrella that hadn’t been made to withstand the wind. Spokes jutted out of one side where the fabric had torn. Another few heavy gusts and the thing would be ready for the trash bin.

“Charlie!” she said again.

As she spoke, she lifted the edge of the umbrella. Despite the rain and the dark, the lamp above the gate emitted just enough of a glow to reveal the contours of her face.

Book took half a step back, hand still on the latch. “Ruby?”

She ran to the gate, laced her fingers into the chain link. Beads of water ran down her face as she peered at him from the other side. “I know how crazy this seems, showing up like this after . . . shit, after everything. I swear I’ll explain it all. But right now, I need your help.”

Book stared. Rivulets ran down the back of his shirt. He shivered, though he wasn’t at all cold.

Ruby. This was Ruby. He hadn’t thought he would ever see her again, but eighteen months later, here she was. Images fluttered in his mind, a deck of cards tossed into the air. When they’d met at that club in Austin, after he’d seen her perform. The first time she had sung to him, alone together in her hotel room. The way they’d laughed after he’d spilled red wine on his favorite chair while celebrating the two of them moving in together.

The look of betrayal in her eyes when he’d let her down.

The way he’d felt his heart carved out on the morning she’d left.

Book twisted the latch. He pushed the gate open. “What’s the matter? You look . . .” He was going to say scared but didn’t want to use the word. Ruby had gone through a lot during their relationship—they both had—but he had never seen her frightened, and he didn’t like it.

She took his hand. “Come with me. Five minutes, I swear. Then if you don’t want to help, I’ll go away.”

Book did not want her to go away. He never had. But after things between them had fallen apart, he had figured they had nothing left to say. Yet here she was, and just one look at her brought it all back. The pain still resonated, but all he had ever wanted was to make her feel the way she made him feel. He thought, for a while, he’d achieved that. During those months, when he could see himself through her eyes, he’d never been more content.

Now she needed him.

“Let’s go,” he said.

She led him across the parking lot, back the way she’d come. He stepped into a puddle. The gate thunked shut behind him, and that was good, because Otis would have been angry at him for leaving it open.

Across the lot, beside an old equipment shed, was a dented Jeep Cherokee that looked at least twenty years old. He wanted to ask who it belonged to and what she was doing driving the old beast, but Ruby hurried to the driver’s door and gestured for him to climb into the passenger’s side.

The wind blew her umbrella so hard it turned inside out. Ruby flinched as the rain swept her dark hair across her eyes. He saw the resignation in her expression as she released the umbrella. The storm plucked it into the air, and it went over the fence behind the equipment shed and vanished into the bushes on the other side.

She looked so beautiful that his heart broke all over again. Mostly because he knew what they’d lost could never be regained.

Ruby climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door.

Book got in on the other side. The Jeep creaked as he slid onto the seat. When he hauled the door shut, its hinges squealed, and then they were alone in the confines of the tired old Cherokee, rain drumming on the roof.

Only they weren’t alone at all.

Another woman sat behind Ruby. He did not recognize her. She clutched a baby’s rattle in one hand, prompting him to crane around and see the infant car seat strapped in beside the stranger.

Book turned to Ruby, testing out a smile. “You can imagine all my questions.”

“Charlie Book,” she said, “meet Mae Cunningham.”

The woman in the back seat, Mae, gave a wary nod as if she might be waiting to see if a bomb would explode. Book said, “Hey,” quietly and politely, like they were in church.

“Short version. Mae used to date my little sister. The baby belongs to her—to my sister, Bella—but right now, we believe we’re in danger.”

Book took that in, focused on the last word. It felt like the world tilted a bit. The fear and worry in Ruby’s expression had warned him there was trouble, and though he hadn’t taken a moment to ponder it, he had felt pleased that she would come to him in times of trouble. But this was something else.

“What do you mean ‘danger’?”

“We need somewhere to crash for a night or two where nobody would ever look,” she replied, ignoring the question. “I thought of you and your project.”

“Makes sense,” he said. “Unless you find a cabin on a mountaintop, it’s hard to get more isolated than out on the Christabel.”

Had he successfully hidden his disappointment? Hard to tell. In the midst of his surprise at her arrival, he’d let himself wonder if they might not be as finished as he’d believed. Now he put aside such thoughts. Ruby wouldn’t have come if she’d thought of a better option, which meant she really did need his help. It saddened him, but clarified things.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“The short version, like I said.”

Book studied Mae. She had a spray of freckles across her nose and hair a shade of red that looked like it came from a bottle but did not. In the dark, inside the car, it turned nearly black. A copper penny dark with the passage of time.

The baby murmured contentedly in his seat.

“Where’s Bella now?” Book said, craning his neck to try to get a better look at the infant. “Why do you have the baby instead of her?”

“Because she’s dead. Murdered.”

Book whipped his head up and stared at her. “Are you . . .” But of course she wasn’t kidding. “Christ, Ruby, I’m so sorry.”

He watched her fight to control her emotions. If he pushed sympathy on her, that would only make it more difficult. If Ruby wanted to keep her grief inside, he had no business digging for it.

“The baby have a name?” he asked.

“Aiden,” Mae replied. The first time she’d spoken.

“Aiden,” Book echoed.

Awkwardness began to fill the inside of the Cherokee like helium inflating a balloon. Book knew he should be speaking but then realized it wasn’t really on him to break the silence. He had tried to make things right between them, back when it had all fallen apart. Ruby had made it clear that Book didn’t have the words to achieve that miracle, that those words didn’t exist. So if someone were going to defuse this moment, it would have to be Ruby.

“The Christabel’s not exactly a hotel,” he said. “And there definitely isn’t anything appropriate for a baby.”

“We have what we need for Aiden,” Mae said.

Ruby nodded her agreement.

“I didn’t expect to see you again,” he said, trying to untangle his thoughts. “And I definitely didn’t expect you to show up with a baby.”

“Don’t make it about that,” she said. “This is me asking for help. You know I’d never have come if I had another option.”

Outside the Cherokee, the wind and rain picked up, gusting hard enough to rock the vehicle.

Mae smashed her fist against the back of Ruby’s seat. “Say something! We don’t have time to waste on this high school shit.” She took a breath and gave him a desperate glare. “You’re either going to help us or you’re not. If you’re not, just say it so we can figure out what’s next.”

Book couldn’t find the words to reply. Ruby showing up would have blindsided him even on his best day. Add in the storm, and this other woman, and baby Aiden, and he could barely gather all the pieces of the puzzle they made, never mind put it together.

“We should go,” Ruby said, exhaling.

She sounded disappointed, but Book knew her as well as he’d ever known anyone. This wasn’t disappointment. The lines on Ruby’s face, the way she exhaled like that—she was frightened.

“We’ll go,” she repeated as if to convince herself. “Sorry to stir things up.”

“I have some questions,” Book said.

Ruby and Mae both looked up at him in hopeful surprise.

“You’re going to let us stay?” Mae asked.

“Of course I am.”

“Then can you ask the questions on the boat, Charlie?” Mae said. “We’d like to get the baby somewhere warm and safe.”

So many questions, Book thought. But he nodded. “Fine. But call me Book, okay? My first name has old echoes that I don’t like.”

“Book. You got it.”

The baby began to fuss. Book wondered if Aiden needed a diaper change. Then he wondered what the fuck he was thinking, agreeing to take these two women, and this baby who didn’t belong to any of them, on board the Christabel in the middle of the night. In a storm, after a surreptitious conversation in a car parked as much in the darkness, away from prying eyes, as they could have managed.

“I need you to do something for me,” Ruby said.

At which point, he couldn’t help but laugh. “Something more?”

Ruby didn’t share in the laughter. Her gaze locked onto his. “I need you to follow us back a couple of miles to the used car lot we passed. It’s across from that taco place with the parrot on the sign.”

A chill went through him. “You’re planning to ditch the Jeep there?”

“Like I said. We’d like not to be found.”

He searched Ruby’s eyes, then looked back at Mae again. The baby fussed.

“Fuck,” he whispered, closing his eyes.

As far as Book knew, it had been years since Ruby had seen her sister or even heard from her, and somehow that had turned into this shit show. Bella Cahill had been murdered, and these two were on the run with her baby. He should have insisted on calling the police.

And yet.

“Let me get my car. We’ll transfer the baby’s car seat here,” he said. “Mae and the baby can ride with me while you drive this heap to the back of the lot and ditch it. Quicker that way. Less chance of someone spotting you.”

Ruby shuddered in relief. She reached out and squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”

“Let’s just do it fast, before the storm gets any worse,” Book said. “And once we’re on board, I want answers.”

He opened the Cherokee’s passenger door, hinges creaking, and slid out. Rain pelted him. When he went to close the door, the wind gusted hard enough to make it slam. Book bent his head against the rain and jogged across the lot toward his Forester.

Inside the car, he started it up. The rain refracted the beams of his headlights as he drove across the lot and pulled up beside the Cherokee. As he jumped out to open the back door and help transfer the baby seat, he thought about that used car lot, wondering how long it would take them to realize there was an extra vehicle in stock.

“This is nuts,” he muttered to himself as the rain began to fall harder.

But it was Ruby, and so he would do whatever he could to help her. She was afraid, and the Ruby Cahill he’d known had never been much afraid of anything. If Ruby was scared . . . well, that scared the shit out of him.

He had so many questions.

He felt pretty sure he wouldn’t like the answers.

4

As soon as she had driven away from the bright colors of the Gumbo Diner, Luisa had felt more herself. She enjoyed the food and the company, and the routine of gathering with her colleagues away from the Christabel Project, but there were layers to her life—to her self—that only intimacy would reveal. As much as she trusted Book and Alan, there were parts of her they would never see.

Gerald, on the other hand . . . well, she hadn’t let him see her deepest self, but he’d certainly seen a lot more of her than the other members of the team.

It wasn’t love. In her most honest moments, Luisa didn’t see love as even a possibility between them, but she didn’t mind. Gerald made her laugh, knew when to be quiet and when to talk, and he always smelled fantastic. A little arrogant at times, but he was smart and eager to experience life. They laughed together in bed, where the sex was hungry and athletic, and he seemed dedicated to finding out how many times she could come before she collapsed. Luisa admired his dedication. They weren’t planning on a future, but they were stuck here together for at least two more months. Beyond the immediate release of sex, sleeping together felt good, and convenient, and safe.

Sleepy but happy, she burrowed beneath the clean sheets and heavy duvet of his hotel bed. Humidity had lain heavily on the room when they’d first come in, prompting Gerald to mutter about the hotel maids turning off the air-conditioning. He kept it running just to take some of the moisture out of the air, but the cleaning staff always shut it off. Gerald took it as a personal affront. He had clicked on the AC the moment they entered the room and had wanted to close the windows, but Luisa loved the sound of the storm and the way the wind turned the curtains into swaying, billowing ghosts.

They had showered together, dried each other off, and then Gerald had carried her to the bed, where things had quickly become urgent and loud. Now the only sounds in the room were the storm outside and the ebb and flow of their quiet conversation.

“You really think they don’t know?” he asked, running his palm along her belly beneath the covers.

“Not unless you told them.”

“I wouldn’t do that. I know the consequences.” He smiled.

Luisa had been insistent about keeping their arrangement a secret. Any time the four of them were together, she and Gerald drove their own cars.

“You think it’s weird, me wanting to keep this to ourselves,” she said.

“Not weird. I just wish it weren’t necessary. We’re both single, consenting adults, and we haven’t let anything interfere with the work we’re doing. I don’t think Book would judge us.”

Luisa turned on her side, facing him, and reached up to stroke his face. He looked like a man who did not suffer fools, a man with a hard edge, until you looked into his eyes and saw the gentleness there. She knew he wanted more from this thing between them, but she liked things the way they were, and she wondered how long it could last before that silent push-and-pull became too much for them.

“It’s not Book, so much,” she admitted.

Gerald cocked an eyebrow. “Alan? I have a feeling we’d have to do a lot more than this to shock him.”

“I guess I just look up to him. I can’t help thinking he’d disapprove,” Luisa confessed. “Not of the sex but that we’re being unprofessional or whatever, and the whole team dynamic would change.”

“But why Alan and not Book?”

She gave a tiny shrug, the covers rustling along her shoulder. “Daddy issues, probably. Alan’s got that grumpy paternal thing going. It makes me not want to disappoint him.”

Gerald blinked. “Wow.”

“Too honest?”

“Nope. As usual, I’m just impressed by how well you know yourself.”

“I thought you’d tease me about it,” she said.

“We teased you enough at dinner,” Gerald replied.

“True.” Luisa poked his chest. “You’re lucky I’m such a forgiving woman.”

They often teased her for being so tiny a human being. As a teenager, Luisa had been massively self-conscious about being so little, but at the age of thirty-two, she found that she appreciated being different. At dinner tonight, Alan had said her yellow raincoat made her look like a little kid masquerading as an old-time fisherman for Halloween. Luisa had been good-natured about it, mostly because she loved that raincoat. She had purchased it from the children’s section at a Dillard’s department store in Fort Worth, but she kept that to herself.

He kissed her softly, and she nuzzled against his chest, and they lay together for a time. His breathing evened out, and she thought he must have fallen asleep until she glanced up and saw his eyes were open and his brows knitted.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Just thinking about Book taking unnecessary risks.”

“He’ll be fine.”

“I know. He’s just stubborn.”

Luisa laughed. “And you’re not?”

“You don’t see me out on that boat tonight, do you?”

“I’d hope you wouldn’t choose that over this,” she said, wrapping one leg around him. “Anyway, it’s creepy out there. You couldn’t pay me to stay overnight.”

“What, you think it’s a ghost ship?”

“Of course not. But at night, with the mangrove forest . . . no thank you.”

It was a foolish thought. They were scientists. Luisa had a PhD in plant biology. She knew better than anyone else on the team that, while the floating forest might be strange, there was nothing unnatural about it. Even so, it sometimes unsettled her. She would never understand Book’s choice to live out there for the months of their research.

“Well, good thing you’re here with me, then,” Gerald said.

“Oh, you’ll save me from the spooky trees, big man?”

“You’re safe with me, honey.”

Luisa slid a hand between his legs. “But am I safe from you?”

“Oh, definitely not.”

*   *   *

Later, she lay beside Gerald and listened to him breathing. He mumbled sometimes in his sleep, but she could never decipher the words.

Sometimes insomnia would sneak up on her in the middle of the night. Luisa hoped this would not become one of those nights, but for the moment, she didn’t mind being awake while he slept. She felt content and comforted, intent upon spending tomorrow in bed with room service meals and British TV murder mysteries. And Gerald, of course.

The wind howled, and she could hear the rain hitting the carpet just inside the windows. Reluctant as she was to get out of bed, Luisa didn’t want the rug to get soaked. Slipping from the covers, she crossed the room and slid beneath the curtain on the left, enjoying the way it flapped behind her as if she were the heroine in some gothic novel. The rain that had already fallen on the carpet felt cold beneath her bare feet, and she slid the window shut.

Without the wind, the curtain draped over her, clinging as she peered through the glass. The streets were abandoned. Anyone with sense had gone to bed or taken shelter. A single vehicle passed below, a massive pickup truck. She watched it until it reached a blinking yellow traffic light, and then it turned onto a side street and was gone.

She moved to the other window and was about to lower it when she saw something moving on the road below. She had to crane her neck to one side, trying to get a better vantage. A dark, slender figure darted into the street, like the shadow of a person rather than a person itself. A second emerged from between a bar and a bakery across the street and joined the first, and now she saw they weren’t merely shadows. They were women, lithe figures with long, dark hair plastered to their backs and shoulders by the rain. One had her hair covering her face so completely, it seemed impossible that she could see.

The two women were thin as scarecrows, and they spread their arms out behind them as if racing in the rain. The way they ran, so swift and light, she thought they meant to take flight. It seemed whimsical, but Luisa watched them and wondered why instead of delight, the sight caused a wary flutter in her chest.

A third one joined them.

The three women swept through the rainstorm, darting here and there, pausing to look in the windows of parked cars and to lightly touch shop windows with the tips of their fingers as if they were in search of something and they would know it the moment they were near enough.

One of them paused, hung her head, and then turned to look up at the Belmont House Hotel. Luisa held her breath. Through the rain and the dark, there was no way the woman could see her, up in this window, with no lights on in the room. Yet suddenly, it seemed very important to Luisa that she not be seen.

Seconds passed, and then the woman joined the other two, rushing like birds along the street, in search of something or someone. Whatever they sought, Luisa felt glad it wasn’t she.

When the women were out of sight, she closed and locked the window and went back to bed. The bottoms of her feet were damp from the wet carpet, but she climbed beneath the covers without hesitation, feeling slightly ridiculous. How many times had she seen videos on social media of fools out in the midst of a hurricane, daring the storm surge or the gale-force winds, feeling wild and courageous instead of stupid? These were just young women playing in the storm, wild and free.

She told herself that.

It took hours for Luisa to fall asleep. She huddled closer to Gerald but didn’t want to wake him. If she shared this with him, it would be much harder come morning to tell herself it had all been a dream.

5

Otis Halstead spent most of his time around fishermen. And fisherwomen, an inner voice reminded him. At sixty-two, he often found himself being schooled by younger folks about being inclusive with his language. That sort of thing grated on him. He’d spent a lifetime on the Gulf of Mexico, working on and around boats, dragging up nets, cajoling tourists, or carousing with sailors and career fishermen. And fisherwomen.

He knew women had a lot of shit to deal with that men never did, and he supported equal pay, women making their own health care decisions, and pretty much anything else the world could do to offset the grim shit. But for fuck’s sake, rewiring his brain to speak so as not to offend anyone wasn’t easy at his age, especially when the rules kept changing. He just wanted to be kind, have other folks be kind to him, and be left alone to read his mysteries and listen to the waves crash against the pilings on the wharf.

Rain sprayed his face, and the wind plucked back the hood of his coat. Otis didn’t bother pulling the hood up again. He kept his hands plunged deep into his pockets and trudged across the parking lot. The wind gusted hard enough to cause him to stumble—at least he told himself it was the wind and not the whiskey. He had spent the past several hours at the Three Sheets Pub, where the fish stew had warmed his insides and a whole lot of Jameson had numbed the rest of him. In weather like this, it wasn’t as if anyone would be foolish enough to take a boat out. That hurricane might be losing steam and turning away from Galveston, but the Gulf would still be churning something fierce.