Who Do You Trust Now? (A Disappearance Mystery Thriller Book 5), Laura Greene [notion reading list txt] 📗

herself and Josh shows her to Nell’s room, which they have prepared for her to sleep in.

It pains her that strange men who barely knew him were the last ones to see her father, not his own family. She grieves the unknowns of how he died – probably, he was alone, afraid and tortured. It was more than she bargained for and she falls asleep weeping.

When she wakes up, her eyes are puffy from crying. She washes her face then comes back to the room. Up on the dresser are pictures of a mother and her baby.

Taking one picture in her hands she sees Nell’s fiery eyes and she knows this was Nell’s mother holding her. In some of the pictures, Neil is also posing with them and she can tell there is a carelessness about him that is no longer there. He is now more serious and responsible – a result of raising his child on his own.

Melody realizes like Nell and her mother, her relationship with her father has been reduced to pictures of their time together in her youth. This is all the memory she now has of him.

Emotion builds up inside Melody and she knows staying on this island is not good for her anymore. She has come and found out what she needs to know. Now, she must leave. How am I going to get off this island?

Now that she has gotten to know the sailors and infiltrated seamlessly, Melody moves on to the second part of her plan.

Soon, she finds a solution to her problem – a skill her father taught her early on in life.

“So, what’s for dinner tonight? Rat stew?” Melody quips with Earl as she helps him gather wood from the back. She holds a barrel in place as he loads it and it gives her a chance to get to know him better.

Earl laughs remembering her reaction to haggis last night. “We’ll find out soon enough. Josh is out catching it.”

“Oh,” Melody realizes her mind was on her dinner coming from the store not directly from the wild and onto her plate. Here she feels, is another instance of academic whiplash. She is now in a place where the wild is her store. “I hope you don’t mind me asking Earl, do you have a family of your own somewhere?”

“No, Miss.” Earl responds. “Neil’s situation just put me off having a family of my own. The sea and my fellow seamen are my family and I’m very happy.”

“I understand.” Melody says, wiping sweat off her brow and tying her sweater around her waist.

“Hurry! Come quickly!” Neil shouts, beckoning Earl and Melody to him.

Earl drops the logs in his hands, sprints to Neil and Melody leaves the barrel and follows suit.

“It’s Josh, he’s hurt.”

“Where is he? I heard him shout from this direction.” Neil points into the woods.

Earl grabs his gun, cocks it and leads the way. Neil, who has a small pistol at his side and Melody follow behind him.

“Josh!” They each shout periodically, and for a while, they cannot hear anything from Josh.

“Are you sure it was in this direction?” Earl turns and asks Neil.

“Yes. Certain of it.”

“Josh!” Earl turns, shouting, and continues to run ahead. The woods hide Josh away from view and mask his voice. It’s as if he has been swallowed by the woods.

“Should we split up and look for him?” Melody suggests, thinking it may be more efficient.

“No. Sailors stick together.” Neil and Earl both answer in unison.

A faint cry of hope pierces through the trees to the worried housemates. “Argh,” and it dies out again.

“It’s Josh.” Neil says, overtaking Earl for a moment, his instinct telling him which way the cry came from. “We’re coming, Josh!” As Neil runs towards Josh, Melody can see that he has great endurance. He is in his sixties, easily keeping up with a strong man in his forties.

Earl cocks his gun again, ready for action.

“I’m here!” The cry is louder this time. Josh is only a few feet away. When they arrive, Josh, in his jovial manner, cracks a joke, “Dinner is served.”

Melody pushes past the trees and stands next to Earl, who has now lowered his gun at his side. Josh is lying on the ground, bleeding from the side of his calf. She can see a cut along the gastrocnemius muscle, where the blood is flowing out from.

Quickly, she grabs her sweater from her waist, wraps it around Josh’s calf and tightly squeezes it over the opening to slow down blood flow into the muscle. “This might hurt a little.”

“Argh! Too late.” Josh says sarcastically.

Melody quips, “If you can still joke around, then you’re just fine.” And she tightens the sweater a little more.

“Hey!” He jerks his leg back.

“Are you okay?” Melody says, only smiling slightly.

Josh seeing that she was just musing, says, “You should have seen the other guy.” Then he chuckles.

Now, Melody takes a closer look at “the other guy.” Next to Josh, is an adult deer that was dead on arrival. By the looks of things, Josh is doing better than the other guy. Neil and Earl grab a branch at about Josh’s height and form a crutch for him. Then they grab a couple of big branches, take off their shirts and run their shirt sleeves through them. Neil takes the deer by its antlers, Earl grabs its legs.

Instinctively, Josh tries to get up to help. “Uh-huh, not you.” Melody stops him from stressing his leg too soon. “What happened?” She asks, helping him slide over to a tree for back support.

“I shot down the deer and thought it was dead, but when I got closer, the little guy nicked me with his antlers. He got me good too.” Josh says looking over at his