Page 101 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)

CHAPTER

SEVEN

The weight in my chest pressed heavy and suffocating as I sat on the edge of Scanlon’s bed, the old yearbook still open in my lap.

My eyes were glued to the photograph of a little girl with wide, laughing eyes and a hand poised mid-sign.

Livvie. She’d been a kindergarten student.

But more, she was a Deaf student. And yet, the Livvie I remembered—the one I played with across the lake—had been hearing. I was sure of it.

Except she could sign better than Becca.

Had she once been Deaf and regained her hearing?

If Livvie had once been Deaf and then wasn’t…then the unthinkable had happened.

Scanlon’s experiments had worked. At least once.

And after that—after her—he must’ve wanted to replicate it. To push his theory, his methods, his obsession further. I thought of the other students. All hearing at birth. All orphaned with the school taking guardianship over them. Now, all dead.

My stomach lurched.

I was the only one left… left to tell .

But my mind drew a blank.

Why couldn’t I remember what he did to me? All the things listed in those files. Why couldn’t I remember anything beyond playing with the girls during those summers ?

But I remember my birthday cake—something nice Scanlon did for me. It was like my mind only remembered the joyful things and blocked the trauma.

Could he have…hypnotized me? Drugged me? Buried the trauma so deep it no longer belonged to me?

I pushed the book closed and rose to my feet. My hands trembled as I smoothed down my pajama pants and crossed to the window.

The lake was calm, unmoved by the storm churning inside me.

But as I stared at the Bishop house across the water, I knew the answers might live there—in whatever memories Becca kept hidden and refused to share.

If Livvie had been chosen, too—perhaps the first of many of us to come—then she had been part of whatever happened in this house.

She may have been the beginning of all of Scanlon’s Dr. Jekyll madness.

His attempt to make the Deaf hear only showed his twisted sense of morality. What had led him to even try?

The Bishops.

The answer came swiftly. Livvie’s parents were Scanlon’s neighbors, separated by a body of water. If their child had suddenly become Deaf, would they have turned her over to Scanlon willingly out of desperation?

I needed to speak with Becca. But would she speak to me? Would she even open the door?

There was only one way to find out.

I quickly changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, grabbed my flashlight and jacket, and stepped out onto the back deck.

The early morning sky was the color of bruised steel, clouds rolling fast and low like a warning.

I hesitated at the edge of the dock, my gaze flicking once to the knife and note in the post. I ripped the blade from the wood and scrunched up the threatening paper, tossing it into the wind. I kept the blade at my side.

Facing the Bishop house in the distance, I took in the faint white shutters and pale walls, almost glowing in the thickening gloom.

But this was the precipice, wasn’t it? I needed to cross this water, even without our signal blinking. Even without the welcome to come over. The answer was on the other side .

Maybe the real truth had nothing to do with what happened in the water but everything to do with what happened on the shores.

Scanlon’s and the Bishops’.

I untied the rope from the cleat and eased into the rowboat.

It tipped sideways beneath me, the old wood moving under my weight and against the current the growing wind caused.

I pushed off. My oars dipped into the water with the familiar rhythm, each pull steady, mechanical from memory more than thought.

The muscles in my arms remembered even while my mind tried to forget.

Midway across, the sky cracked with a distant rumble. The wind picked up more, brushing cool across my cheeks. I paused, looking up. The storm hadn’t broken yet, but it was coming. Thick clouds gathered above like a threat. Should I turn back?

No. Not now.

I pulled the oars harder, faster. They cut through the water like scissors in fabric. The lodge grew smaller behind me, swallowed in rolling fog, while the Bishop house drew near.

Closer than it had felt in years.

I reached the shore and stepped out, the water biting cold around my ankles. I pulled the boat far enough to keep it from drifting and climbed the gentle slope to the back of the house. My eyes scanned the windows—searching for movement. A flicker. A face. Anything.

But nothing showed anyone was home.

I waited.

One second. Two. A minute. My heart beat at a dangerous pace. I could feel the organ hitting my rib cage. A breeze passed through the trees, rustling the branches overhead like whispers, and I forced the moment to calm me and clear my vision.

Then—I saw it.

A slight movement. A curtain shifting in the second-floor window. I didn’t see a face, but someone was there. Watching.

I took a breath and approached the deck, my footsteps careful on the worn planks. Every step felt like a dare. A plea. A memory trying to become real again.

I stopped at the top to see the door was ajar. Wide enough to be an invitation .

Or a trap.

I froze, breath held. I didn’t know what waited beyond the threshold. But I had the sense, the eerie certainty, that someone had been waiting for me to come all along.

“Becca?” I signed the name in the air as I called it out, more from habit than hope.

I gently pushed the door the rest of the way open with ease.

Too easy.

The foyer yawned before me, dim and still. The house smelled of old wood and lavender. Faded memories. Stale grief. The wallpaper, yellowed and peeling at the corners, looked older than I remembered it. And smaller now, the way places from childhood often do.

“Hello?” I called out—controlled and firm.

I stepped inside, waiting for Becca to reveal herself to answer my call. If she said anything, I wouldn’t know.

So I called out again. “It’s Scarlett. Can you come?”

The floorboards shifted beneath my feet.

I was sure they creaked in their oldness, announcing my presence as well.

My eyes scanned the living room. The furniture had been draped in blankets, the way people do when they need to get more time out of a worn piece.

A large fireplace sat at the center wall, blackened with ash, looking unused for years. Dust shimmered in the air.

I took a cautious step toward the hallway leading deeper into the house.

Then, a movement.

I turned, staring to my right. Someone was on the stairs. I peered into the shadows.

“Becca?” I tried again, louder.

My gaze fell to the staircase. The same one I remembered sitting on, two girls giggling beside me, brushing damp hair from their faces after sneaking out to swim.

A wave of emotion crashed into me—grief, confusion, longing. For what we had and what we lost.

The sight of bare feet appeared at the top of the stairs, slow, measured, coming down.

I stepped back instinctively, spine hitting the wall as an older version of Becca appeared. Taller than I remembered. Her dark hair tied back, silver now at the temples. Her face was thinner, eyes sharp and guarded. But it was her.

And her dulled gaze locked on me like a pin on a map.

She stopped at the bottom step. Neither of us spoke for a long moment.

Then her mouth moved.

“You came.”

I nodded slowly. I swallowed, unsure of what to say. “I…I had to.”

“You shouldn’t have,” she snapped back. But her eyes didn’t hold anger. Maybe something closer to…resignation. She’d had years to come to grips with the truth and chose to hide herself away.

“I think you know why I did,” I said. “I think you know what I’m trying to find. I need to know what happened to Livvie. To me.”

She exhaled slowly and looked away. Her hand gripped the stair rail…and trembled.

Looking back to face me, her eyes now held a deep sadness. “So, it’s true. You don’t remember.”

I felt my stomach tighten. “Remember what?”

Her expression cracked—not much but enough to show something underneath.

“You should leave, Scarlett,” she said. “Go back to your life wherever that it is now. Live it, blissfully ignorant. You don’t want to know. Trust me.”

“I need to know. I can’t leave until I do. Too much has happened.”

Her jaw tensed. A long pause followed. Then, at last, she stepped down fully and walked past me toward the living room.

I followed.

She pulled a blanket off an armchair and sat, covering herself like a child but also poised like a queen, reluctantly reclaiming her throne. She motioned to the sofa across from her.

I sat too.

“You want to know about Livvie,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll tell you. You killed her.”

“They said it was an accident,” Becca continued as I sat dumbfounded and in denial, shaking my head back and forth.

I could barely focus on her lips while my mind blared with inner turmoil.

It couldn’t be true. “They said she drowned after her boat capsized. A witness said she was racing against another rowboat when it tipped. But she was a strong swimmer. You know that. You both were.”

I nodded, a lump rising in my throat. “She went out alone. I remember seeing her, I think. I don’t know what’s real anymore and what’s a dream.”

Becca hesitated, her gaze flicking to the window that looked out over the lake. The storm raged, splattering drops against the window and producing a bubbling cauldron on the water’s surface. “Nightmare. It was a nightmare.”

The word hit like a stone.

“Who else was with her?” I asked.

She looked at me as if I had three heads. “Just you.”

I felt the world tilt beneath me.

“I—no. I don’t remember that. I waited for you both during the entire fireworks display. You never showed. Livvie rowed out after to tell me not to come. She’d lost her flashlight, so couldn’t signal me. I gave her mine. Then I left…I think. It was so long ago, I don’t remember what came after.”

I rubbed my temples where I felt an ache settling in.

Becca gave a sad laugh. “That’s what they wanted. None of you were supposed to remember anything. But Livvie did. She knew what they did to her and kept it a secret.”

I backed up on the couch, heart in my throat. “What? What did they do?”

Becca stood, trembling more now. “He showed up here. After school started that year. Scanlon said she’d been selected. A genius in kindergarten. He invited her to his lodge for the summer gifted program before you even arrived. She was already there. Already starting on his… program .”

Becca sneered at the word while I processed all she shared .

“I remember her. On the stairs, I can still see her…I thought it was in my dreams, but now, I know it’s my memory. Bits and pieces of her.”

“He studied her. Conducted tests. So many tests. More…things I didn’t understand. I was only ten then. Just like you when you arrived in that first summer—another chosen one. And more of you continued to come every year. But you, you came every year.”

Her words cut deep, reminding me of how the kids at school made me feel for always being selected.

If they only knew it wasn’t anything positive.

It was an experiment, and I was a test subject.

There was nothing to be jealous about. When they went home to their families for summer break, us chosen ones were… what? What was happening to us?

“Did your parents agree to let Scanlon test Livvie? The rest of us were orphans. Scanlon had free range on us.”

“He made promises that he couldn’t keep.

My father believed him. He believed Scanlon would make her hearing work again.

He was embarrassed when Livvie signed. Slapped her hands when no one was looking.

” Becca looked at a desk against the wall and stood to approach it.

In the top drawer, she pulled out a faded notebook.

“I found this in Livvie’s room years later.

My parents moved away shortly after, unable to cope with their part in her abuse. ” Becca handed the notebook to me.

I flipped through the pages—Livvie’s handwriting. Scrawled notes. Drawings of cochlear implants. Diagrams of the ear. Pages labeled with test numbers. Words like Memory Lock and Post-Hypnotic Recall . And finally, I remember everything. I can’t let them know.

My fingers trembled. “She remembered what he did to her. He hypnotized her to forget, but it didn’t take.”

Becca nodded. “She wrote it all down. There are other notebooks, too, with more details. She was going to tell. But then…the night she met you on the lake, she died.”

I closed the notebook gently like I was burying all she knew with her body. “Did she get to tell anyone?”

Becca paused, studying me with intense scrutiny. “I don’t know. Did she tell you anything that night? ”

“I think she was trying to,” I said. “But I don’t know. I was so upset that you didn’t come for the fireworks. I felt rejected.”

“Enough to hurt her?”

“No,” I said loudly, signing the quick retort to end the accusation immediately.

“You wouldn’t remember if you did. That’s the point. You’ve blocked it all out. Just like Scanlon trained you to do. You were malleable. The perfect specimen.”

The room spun in the opposite direction of my swirling stomach. Could I have hurt Livvie? Was I Scanlon’s puppet to cover his tracks? Was that why I was still alive while all the others weren’t? “Why would he do that to me?”

“Because he saw something in you,” Becca replied. “Same as he did in her. You were both once hearing. He thought he could…fix you.”

Lightning cracked across the sky outside the window, and the wind shook the windowpanes.

“I need to know the truth,” I signed. “All of it.”

Becca stepped back for the stairs, and for the first time, she signed something in return—haltingly, slow. “Then you’d better remember what happened that night.”