Page 102 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)

CHAPTER

EIGHT

The storm hadn’t broken yet, but the air had changed. Heavier now. Charged with the electricity zigzagging across the sky.

Becca hadn’t come back downstairs, leaving me to face all she had told me…and yet, I still had no answers to my questions. I still felt left in the dark.

I sat curled up on her old couch, knees tucked beneath me, the moving hands of a clock marking the strange passage of time.

I’d been here for hours. Left to watch the curtains stir in the breeze from an open window somewhere in the house.

I studied the dust patterns on the mantle, trying to distract myself from the gnawing unease that had crept in ever since she left me alone.

She said Livvie had remembered.

Not just flashes or dreams. Not just the vague sense of dread I carried in my bones. Livvie had remembered what Scanlon did to her. Whatever tricks he used to bury her memories, they hadn’t stuck.

Did she die because of it? Was she silenced for what she knew?

My mind ran in circles, looping over possibilities I didn’t want to believe. If she remembered, had she confronted him? Did she try to go to the police? Had she come to me for help? Was I the last person she trusted?

It appeared I was the last one to see her alive.

I stared at the cold, empty fireplace and tried to remember something—anything—about that night. But my memory was a locked door. I could press my palms against it, bang with fists, scream inside my head, but nothing opened.

Could he have hypnotized me, too? Did that mean I would never remember, no matter what I tried to recall the truth?

I didn’t want to believe that. I still held onto hope that the memories would return. But the more I unraveled, the more questions I had. All I knew was how obvious it became that all of us who came to that lodge had been handpicked. We all arrived after Scanlon took charge of the school.

And now, they were all dead.

All except me.

My throat tightened. I felt like a stain had spread across my skin, invisible but inescapable.

Scarlett red.

Tainted and marked forever.

I picked at the edge of my sleeve, grounding myself in the feeling of the fabric between my fingers.

What had Livvie said to me that night? What had she wanted me to know? Becca had said there were notebooks. I needed them.

I reached the stairs and called out as I took the first step.

“Becca?” I waited for her to appear. Counted to ten. “Becca,” I called again, louder this time.

Maybe she had gone to bed. Maybe she thought I would leave. Maybe she didn’t care anymore.

I took each step slowly and carefully. The light at the top cast long shadows that danced with every flicker of the wind through the windows. The first bedroom was empty, still made up like someone expected a guest who never came.

The second was darker. The curtains drawn. A bookshelf stood crooked in one corner. A long-abandoned hairbrush rested on the vanity.

The third door was open.

I found her there.

Becca sat in an old rocking chair near the window. The curtains behind her billowed, dancing around her. Her arms were wrapped tightly around a doll—one I vaguely remembered Livvie carrying in summers past. A hand-stitched face. A pink dress stained with time.

Becca’s eyes were closed.

The chair rocked.

Slow. Methodical. Back and forth.

She wasn’t asleep. I could feel her tension from the doorway, the way her fingers clutched the doll too tight, the way her shoulders shook ever so slightly.

I stepped forward, my voice soft. “Becca.”

Her eyes flew open. Vacant eyes.

She shot to her feet as if pulled by wires, the doll tumbling to the floor.

“You killed her!” she screamed, her face sharp and raw and instantly red. She must have shouted so loudly, because I felt the vibrations hit me in the chest. “You killed her! Get out!”

She bared her teeth and came for me.

I stumbled back, stunned. Her face was twisted with grief, with fury—but worse than that, with certainty.

I had killed her sister.

I didn’t have to hear the rest. Her mouth kept moving, and even without the sound, I knew she was still screaming.

I ran.

Down the hall. Down the stairs. Through the front door, leaving it wide open.

The wind whipped across the porch as I sprinted toward the dock. Her contorted face chased me in my mind, fierce and broken, a soundless scream that clawed through my skin.

I didn’t look back.

The boat beckoned, and I threw myself inside, clawing at the dirt to push it into the water. I fumbled for the oars to push me farther into the tumultuous lake.

The sky above had darkened further from when I made the trek across earlier.

Streaks of lightning split the clouds as I pushed away from the shore.

Thunderous vibrations rolled in me. The water was the last place I should have been, but I had no choice.

I let the rain drench me, wash my eyes from all I had seen .

Becca’s image faded, but the echo of her accusation stayed in my mind in cadence with the thunder.

You killed her.

Had I?

No. I loved her. Like she was my sister, too. I knew that to the core of my bones.

But something had happened that night. Something my mind refused to show me. And until I remembered, I would never really know the truth.

And I would always be running.

After what had just happened, I accepted my fate.

I burst through the front door of the lodge, soaked to the skin and trembling from more than just the cold.

I barely remembered tying the boat to the dock or running across the gravel drive. My legs carried me on instinct, my hands already reaching for the staircase.

Upstairs. My room. Get to my room.

I climbed the stairs two at a time, my breath ragged, my heartbeat thudding in my head. Once inside, I threw open my suitcase and began shoving my clothes inside. Drawer by drawer. Sweater. Shirt. Jeans. It didn’t matter how neatly they went in—I just needed them packed.

I zipped it shut and yanked it off the bed.

I was leaving.

I didn’t care about the house or the inheritance or the secrets buried in the walls. I didn’t care what Scanlon had meant when he gave it to me. The truth wasn’t worth this.

I didn’t want to remember anymore. Especially if the truth meant I had something to do with Livvie’s death.

I dropped to the edge of the bed, breath catching in my throat.

No. I wouldn’t believe it.

But the only way to be sure was to find out what really happened. Even if it meant condemning myself as a killer .

But who would know the truth? Who had been there that night? If someone knew, why keep it secret all these years? Why not report it? Why not speak up for Livvie?

Either Scanlon killed her—and took it to his grave. Or I did—and my mind buried it so deep I couldn’t reach it.

Or the actual killer was still out there. Watching. Waiting.

Perhaps Scanlon left me this house not to torment me but to finish what he couldn’t—to find them. To find the one who took Livvie from us.

Or he left me this monstrosity to break me until I turned myself in for a crime I didn’t remember committing.

I leaned forward, head in my hands. Rain poured from my hair and onto the floor.

Scanlon had chosen me again.

But this time, not as a subject. Not as a test case. This time, he chose me to find Livvie’s killer…or to take the blame.