Page 104 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)

CHAPTER

TEN

I pulled into the Sheriff’s Department parking lot as a low-hanging cloud stretched over the town like a veil, dulling the colors of everything in sight.

I sat in my car for a long moment, watching the front doors.

My conversation with Clarice had left me rattled, though I shielded my feelings from her.

Her cold secrecy was exactly what I needed to confirm my growing fear.

Someone had covered up what happened to Livvie.

And Sheriff McNealy might know more as well, especially if he had been a part of the case.

I stepped out of the car and walked across the lot. Through the glass doors, I caught a glimpse of the front desk and stopped short.

Inside, Sheriff McNealy was mid-argument with his receptionist. He didn’t notice me, but I had a front row to read his lips shouting at the woman. The receptionist, with her silver hair pulled tight in a bun, stood behind her desk, eyes red, trying to hold her composure as he towered over her.

“Don’t ever speak of a case, closed or otherwise! Do you understand me?”

As the woman nodded, her lower lip quivering, I pushed through the door, and he froze.

The energy in the room shifted like someone had yanked the cord on a ceiling fan.

Both of them looked at me. The receptionist quickly turned her face away, wiping beneath her glasses.

McNealy’s face was red and puffy, and he straightened like a man caught doing something he shouldn’t.

“Miss McBride,” he said, trying to regain authority, but his voice cracked slightly. “Didn’t expect you back so soon.”

“Clearly,” I said.

He let out a breath, his jaw tightening. “Give us a moment, Peggy.”

The receptionist nodded stiffly and disappeared through a side door. McNealy turned to me, rubbing a hand down his face like he was trying to scrub away the last five minutes.

“You always yell at your staff like that?” I asked.

He flinched but said nothing.

“You don’t look like the man I remember,” I continued. “You used to be kind. Soft-spoken.”

“I still am,” he said, settling behind the counter, looking remorseful.

“Then what was that?”

“That… that was a moment of…frustration. All because of that case.”

“Livvie’s case?”

He met my eyes but said nothing.

“I’d like you to reopen it.”

His mouth dropped open. “With what evidence?”

“A hunch. What if it wasn’t a drowning? What if it was murder? Would that change anything for you?”

His eyes narrowed. He stepped up to a filing cabinet and unlocked it, reaching inside a drawer to pull out a manila folder, flipping through it slowly as if buying himself time.

“You think I haven’t asked myself those questions every day for fifteen years?” he said. The folder trembled slightly in his hands. He placed it flat on the counter but didn’t open it. Didn’t offer it to me. “But a hunch isn’t evidence.”

“Then why the anger?” I asked. “Why yell at your receptionist for giving me basic information on a closed case?”

“Because that case ruined careers, Miss McBride. My boss quit right after it. I became sheriff by default. Not because I earned it.”

“How convenient,” I muttered.

His head snapped up, eyes flashing. “You think I wanted that? You think any of us did? The investigation was a mess from the start. We had a half-dozen locals pulling her out of the lake before we even got a perimeter set up. Someone moved her body. Another covered her with a blanket. You know what that does to a scene?”

“Contaminates it,” I whispered.

“Destroys it,” he corrected.

“Who was there? Who touched the body?”

He snorted bitterly. “It was the Fourth of July, McBride. Who wasn’t there? The entire town showed up to watch the fireworks across the lake. Someone saw a body floating, and the place turned into a circus.”

“But someone had to get there first,” I pressed. “Someone found her. Who?”

He rubbed his temples. “Her father. Paul Bishop. He was the first one to spot her. Swam out himself. Brought her in. Then the paramedics arrived. Then the sheriff. Then half the town.”

I remembered the fireworks, but none of this fiasco he spoke of. The lights flashing across the lake. The smell of smoke and lake water. The girls not showing up…then Livvie was there, alone.

And that’s all my mind replayed.

“She wasn’t breathing when they pulled her out,” he said. “No pulse. They tried CPR. Nothing worked. No autopsy could determine if it was drowning or something else. The water had washed everything away. Or someone else had.”

“She was a good swimmer,” I said. “We both were. We swam across that lake for fun.”

“I know.”

“Then how do you explain it?”

He looked down at the folder, then slowly pushed it toward me. I opened it.

There were photos—black and white, grainy. Livvie’s pale face. Her wet hair. The blanket draped over her. A line of people standing behind yellow tape. Some crying. Some staring blankly.

“They said it was an accident,” he said. “That she might’ve hit her head. That she had a seizure. That she was alone. That she was racing against someone. Too many stories to know which was true. None of them added up. ”

“So why didn’t you keep digging?”

“Because I was told not to,” he snapped. “By her parents. By the school. By people who didn’t want the attention.”

“Scanlon?”

He hesitated. “He wasn’t headmaster for much longer after that. Retired early.”

“Do you think he knew something? Did something?”

Sheriff McNealy stared at me for a long time, then gave a small nod. “I think a lot of people did. I think a lot of people decided it was easier to look the other way and did a whole lot of nothing.”

“But you didn’t.”

He looked at me, old sorrow softening his expression. “I tried, Scarlett. I really did. But there were too many closed doors. Too many people protecting themselves.”

“And now?” I asked.

He leaned forward. “If you’re digging into this again, you need to be careful. Not everyone will appreciate it.”

“I don’t care.”

“You should.”

I stood, folder in hand. My fingers curled around the edge of the paper. “If I find out who killed her—if it was someone at the school, someone we trusted—I won’t care. I’m not stopping until the truth is out.”

“Then you’re stronger than I am.”

I looked at him one last time. “Can you tell me who else was there that night? Anyone specific?”

He sighed. “Scanlon was. Her parents. Mine, for that matter. Some of the other staff from the school. The Bishops’ neighbors. You’d need to go back and dig up the roster of vendors from the July 4th event. I might have it archived.”

“Please find it.”

He gave a slow nod. “Give me a few days. And Scarlett…if you really want to know who was there that night,” he said without looking at me, “ask the other Bishop girl.”

“Becca?” I whispered.

“She knows more than she’s letting on. Always did. The fact that she lives up there now, all alone, tells me everything I need to know. Whatever happened that night, she had something to do with it. Her and that boy she was sneaking off with.”

My breath hitched. “What boy?”

He turned back to me, expression blank. “No idea. Never saw him before. Never saw him again.”

With that, Sheriff McNealy walked past me and into his office, shutting the door behind him.

I stepped out into the parking lot, folder under my arm, the wind cutting colder than before. I had to return to Becca’s house, and that chilled me more to the bone.