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I clear my throat. “Yeah, I think if I look at all the evidence at the same time, I might be able to get a better picture.”

He tilts his head. “Will that make you tired or worn out?”

“I can handle it. We just need a space large enough to lay everything side by side, so I can try to read it the same way I would a book.”

His eyebrows arch over those mesmerizing eyes. How can anyone look at his face for more than a few seconds and not get lost?

He gets up and looks around the space. “I can’t remove anything from this office.” Hands on his hips, Jake turns in a circle and looks down at the gray carpet. “The space behind my desk could work.”

“Yes, as long as you have enough room to lay everything out, it’ll work.”

He looks at his watch. “I have a meeting in a few. Tomorrow morning. Can you do it then?”

I’m half elated with the promise of seeing him again tomorrow and disappointed I can’t spend more time with him now. “Yes, tomorrow morning is fine. Nine?”

“That works.” He walks around the desk and stops a few feet away from me. My stomach tightens with each step he takes my way.

I stand up. The pull toward him grows. I force my feet to stay in place and not throw myself at him again. “I’ll bring coffee. And donuts.”

A dimple appears on his cheek. “I like chocolate glazed.”

Who doesn’t? I walk to the door with him at my back. He unlocks and then opens the door for me. “I’ll walk you out. I’ve got fifteen minutes yet.”

We exit the station in silence. That gatekeeper cop smirks at us like he knows exactly what happened in Jake’s office.

A warm breeze ruffles my hair when we step outside. We cross the street to my parked car, and I unlock it with the key fob, then turn to him.

Jake stands next to my car, hands on his trim waist and head tilted to the side. He looks at me. His eyes linger on my face as if searching for something. Golden skin peeks through the first few open buttons on his shirt and the muscular forearms displayed by his rolled-up sleeves.

“There’s something about you . . . I don’t know what exactly, but it nags at me. I feel like we’ve met before, and yet, I know we haven’t.”

Now. This is the time to tell him the truth. I drag in a breath. Air scented with pine fills my lungs. “Fifteen years ago, you rescued a young girl from drowning on a beach in North Carolina. You pulled her out of the water, put her on your surfboard, and paddled to the shore. You gave her CPR and saved her life.”

His eyes widen. He takes a minuscule step back, then stops himself. “How do you know that?”

I want to step closer to him but hold myself in place. Grind my feet into the ground. Tamp down the rush of emotions clawing up my chest and swallow them, blinking away the threat of tears. “That girl is me.”

Journal

She’s a pretty thing. So open and trusting, fluttering around like a sparrow, not a care in the world.

It will be easy to take her.

She doesn’t know she’s already lost.

She doesn’t know she’s already dead—she won’t know until it’s too late.

No one to hear your screams, little bird. I can pluck you feather by feather until there’s nothing left of you but eyes filled with terror and an empty shell.

Chapter25

Jake

Wait.What? Flashbacks flood my mind. Snippets of a memory long forgotten come to life. Part of me always wondered if I imagined the whole thing. I thought about the girl I saved from time to time, but less and less over the years, and not once since Emily went missing.

Summer in North Carolina. I wasn’t even supposed to be at the beach that day. Something needled at me to go. The hairs on the back of my neck stand. “To this day, I don’t know what happened or how I even knew where to look.”

“What do you mean?”