Page 133 of Our Little Secret

Shep followed her at a trot, then took off like a shot to startle a flock of shorebirds that scattered as he bounded to the water’s edge.

Halfway back to the path leading to the cabin, she slowed to a walk.

A lonely gull was skimming the waves, crying plaintively over the thunder of the surf, and Shep had discovered a wet stick, black and sodden, which he carried in his mouth.

“Kinda gross,” she told him over the crash of the waves. The sky was darkening with the promised storm. There had even been talk of snow, a rarity on the coast, especially at Christmas.

She felt the first icy drops of rain just as Shep, stick in mouth, came loping back.

“Let’s go,” she said, flipping up her hood and jogging across the wet sand to the path.

Shep ran ahead. By the time she came upon the cabin he had dropped his prize on the back porch, where he shook the rain from his coat and scratched at the door. “Hold on. You’re a mess.” But so was she.

The rain was turning to snow now, still gurgling in the gutters and soaking the ground, but the temperature was dropping fast.

She stepped inside, the cabin seeming still. She grabbed an old towel from a hook in the laundry room, then dried Shep’s wet fur. “There ya go,” she said as she straightened and threw the wet towel in the old laundry basket sitting on the dryer. “Neal?” she called and kicked off her sodden, sandy sneakers, leaving them near the back door. No answer. As she hung up her windbreaker, she noted that his parka wasn’t on a hook. A glance outside the dining room window revealed that their SUV wasn’t in the drive.

Odd.

He hadn’t said anything about going out and where would he go?

She found her phone and texted him:

I’m back. Where are you?

When he didn’t answer immediately Brooke said to the dog, “Just you and me, eh?”

As if in answer, a gust of wind rattled against the old windows.

The cabin felt suddenly empty and cold.

“Come on, I’ve got something for you,” she told the dog and he followed her into the laundry room again. She rummaged in a cupboard and found a dog toy she’d spotted earlier, a once-orange crab, one eye missing, a claw hanging oddly because she’d sewn it back into place. “You used to love this—” she started; then her voice faded, eyes rounded.

“Oh Jesus!” She jumped back, dropping the toy and staring at it in disbelief.

Brooke’s world shifted.

Her knees threatened to give out.

Wrapped tightly around the once-severed claw was the bracelet, red stones winking, tiny sailboat charm visible.

“No,” she whispered, denial raging through her brain. “No, no, no!”

He couldn’t have! He wouldn’t have! But how . . . ?

Shep picked up on her distress and whimpered.

“Get a grip,” she said aloud. “Get a damned grip!”

Heart thudding, she reached down and picked up the bracelet. Unwound it from the stuffed toy. She had no doubt who’d placed it here as she studied the little sailboat with the engraved date of her first meeting with Gideon.

Not the same piece of jewelry, she thought; it was too pristine, too shiny to have been somehow scavenged from the murky waters of Elliott Bay. But this bracelet was an exact replica, probably bought at the same shop at Pike Place Market in Seattle and engraved with the date by the same hands.

Her knees threatened to buckle.

Gideon had beenhere.

Inside this cabin.