Page 1 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)

PROLOGUE

AFTER

The grave followed me wherever I went. It didn’t matter that I escaped.

What mattered was they were never found.

At seventeen, I had years of therapy ahead of me.

Years of blocked memories and PTSD from the trauma of being abducted, held, and tormented.

But ten years later, most thought all of that was behind me. That I had moved on.

“Remarkable.”

“Doing so well . . .”

“She’s heroic.”

No I wasn’t. I was a coward. I had run. I had left them behind.

I had moved forward while they—they had disappeared into time.

Missing files closed as cold. Ice cold. Names that were remembered only by those who still missed them, who still believed in that tiny spark of hope that they were still alive.

But I knew the truth that I was not remarkable.

I was not doing so well.

I was anything but heroic.

So I held onto it—the grave—because that’s where they had to be by now. No one could survive what I had. Not for ten years.

But I was determined to find them.

Even if it was just their bones.