Page 2 of Capturing You

Who in the world…?

Brooklynn stood, brushed sand off her jeans, and shoved her camera and tripod into her small leather backpack.

The boat had come from the north, but it hadn’t moved into view. Where had it gone?

If Brooklynn were smart, she’d hightail it out of there before she got caught trespassing.

But curiosity had her climbing to the top of the rocky cliff. She slipped between the few trees separating this edge of the outcropping from the other and peered inland down the narrow waterway and through the trees to an old, dilapidated dock.

Sure enough, a fishing boat bumped against the rotting wood. Two men carried a box onto the dock. By the way they strained, the box was heavy. They set it on a dolly, and someone else pushed it toward an army-green Polaris just inside the tree line.

A fourth man was returning with an empty dolly.

Meanwhile, a fifth watched the operation from the edge of a small beach.

Maybe the new owners of the Victorian mansion built on the hill above the cove were having something delivered? Though…why on a boat? The house had a driveway. Also, the path where the Polaris was parked led not toward the house but away from it, through the thick woods to who-knew-where.

She took out her camera and zoomed in on the men, the boat, the vehicle, and the boxes. Snapping photographs for no good reason except… Well, she was a photographer. It was what she did.

A weird acidy feeling filled her stomach, but she ignored the distraction. Something was wrong, something…

“Hey!”

The man’s shout was too close.

The ones moving boxes turned toward her.

Shoving her camera into her bag, she scanned the beach below the headland where she stood.

A figure was climbing, barely more than a shadow.

A quick glance back at the dock…

The men were running toward the headland. Towardher.

She had no idea what was happening, but…

Run!

She scrambled across the top of the headland and started making her way down the other side, angling toward shore, toward the path to the road where she’d left her Bronco.

A man shouted behind her.

“Cut her off. Close her in.”

“Don’t let her get away.”

Where could she go? On one side, the cold sea.

On the other, men determined to…what? Capture her? Harm her?

Kill her?

She couldn’t risk the road.

If she could make it around the headland on the northern edge of Shadow Cove, maybe she could flag someone down. There’d be people in town. Maybe someone walking the shore.

But that would mean running across jagged rocks. She’d be exposed. They’d see her.