Page 105 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

The sun had begun its descent, casting long shadows across the road, and the pines that lined the shoreline of Flathead Lake whispered in the breeze like they were trying to warn me off. But I didn’t listen.

Becca Bishop had the answers I needed.

She’d been there the night Livvie died. Sheriff McNealy might not have known the name of the boy she was with, but he was sure of one thing—Becca knew more than she let on. And now, I needed to know what she knew.

I parked on the gravel drive and turned off the engine, letting my pounding heart calm down before I climbed the steps and stood before the old wooden door. I knocked once, then again. Nothing.

“Becca,” I called, my voice steady, hopefully loud and clear. I wouldn’t let her scare me again. “I know you’re in there. We need to talk.”

Finally, the door opened just a few inches. Becca’s face appeared, framed by shadows, her expression unreadable.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” she said.

I met her gaze. “We both know that’s not true. You have something to tell me. And I think part of you wants to.”

She opened the door fully now, stepping into view. She was composed, hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail, and her clothes were neatly pressed. Her eyes, though, betrayed the tension simmering underneath.

“I have nothing to say to you,” she said. “You shouldn’t have come back. I blame you for what happened to Livvie.”

I flinched, but I held her gaze. “But I didn’t kill her. And you know that. In fact, you know more than you’re saying.”

Her jaw tightened. I stepped closer.

“Who was the boy you were with that night?”

Becca blinked, and for a moment, her expression faltered. But she quickly recovered. “I wasn’t with anyone.”

“You’re lying.”

The words hovered between us like smoke.

“He was just a friend.” Her eyes darted, not in guilt but as if reciting the excuse from memory. Like a script. A line she’d practiced until it felt like the truth.

“Who told you to say that?” I asked. “Your parents? Him?”

Becca’s lips thinned. She said nothing.

“What happened to him, Becca? To both of you? Who was it?”

She looked away, her hands clenching at her sides.

“Why did your parents leave town?” I pressed. “They ran away from this place. From you. I consider that odd.”

“They never wanted to see this place again,” she said with a bitter snarl. “Who could blame them?”

“But they left you behind,” I said softly.

The words hit her like a slap. Her shoulders dropped slightly, her eyes welled with something between fury and grief.

“They think you had something to do with it, don’t they?” I said. “Your own parents. That’s why they left you here.”

Her mouth opened, but I didn’t think a sound came out. She looked away again. She was hiding something. Protecting someone. Even now, all these years later.

But who?

I let the silence stretch for a beat before I softened my voice. “Tell me about Livvie. Please. I want to understand. I don’t even remember her, Becca. It’s like…something wiped her from my memory. ”

Becca’s gaze snapped back to mine. A soft longing filled her eyes. “Not something,” she said. “Someone.”

Goosebumps rose along my arms. “You remember more than you’re telling,” I said.

Becca stepped back into the doorway. “You need to go, Scarlett. Leave this place. Don’t come back.”

“Becca—”

“You won’t be safe for much longer.”

She shut the door before I could respond.

I stood there for a long moment, realizing Becca knew everything. But she wasn’t going to tell me—at least not yet.

As I turned to go, a single name echoed in my mind, the answer to reaching Becca.

Livvie.

The girl who stood between us.

If I wanted to reach Becca, maybe the only way was to go through Livvie—the girl I was forced to forget.

Becca’s words echoed in my mind long after the door closed on me. You won’t be safe for much longer.

The weight of her warning settled into my chest like the heaviest boulder on the lake’s edge. It wasn’t just a deflection. It was fear. And if Becca Bishop—who had spent years barricading herself away from the world—was afraid, then I had every reason to be terrified.

I walked down her front steps with leaden feet, my eyes scanning the treetops and the empty gravel road beyond. I climbed into my car and sat for a moment, hands on the wheel, trying to calm the buzz of anxiety fraying the nerves under my skin.

Becca was protecting someone. That much was clear.

Her excuses were too smooth, her composure too practiced.

But the guilt in her eyes when I said her parents had left her behind—that was real.

That wasn’t the look of someone who didn’t care.

It was the look of someone caring too much—knowing too much .

If I was going to get her to talk, I’d need to give her something first. Something she wasn’t expecting and needed.

I’d told Becca I didn’t remember her sister, and that was the truth. Or maybe a half-truth. Livvie existed in fragments. A sweet smile, a flash of pale hair, a sense of warmth in the summer sun. But I didn’t remember her as a person. I didn’t remember loving her. But I know I did.

Somewhere deep inside, Livvie was a part of me.

I leaned my forehead against the steering wheel, the leather cool against my skin. Somewhere inside me, Livvie waited. Somewhere in the dark, behind the walls forced around my mind.

If I tore them down, what else would I find?

What had happened to me?

What had I done?

I drove back to the lodge in a daze, barely seeing the road. The lake glimmered off to my right, deceptively beautiful. Calm. Still. As if it hadn’t once taken a child.

I pulled into the driveway and shut off the engine. The wind rustled through the trees, sending shivers down my spine. I couldn’t go back to Becca without bringing her something. Something real. If she was stuck in the purgatory of guilt, she couldn’t grieve her sister. She couldn’t move forward.

Neither could I.

Inside, the lodge was dim and stale. I hadn’t opened the windows in days. I hadn’t dared.

I wandered into the room with the false door, the secret study. The one where I’d found the files, the yearbooks, the truth.

I hadn’t looked through all of it. I still had no key to that one cabinet. Maybe part of me didn’t want to find out what was in it. Maybe part of me already knew what I’d find.

I turned on the desk lamp and sat down, opening another file from the other drawer. Inside, there was a photograph.

Me and Livvie.

We were sitting on the dock, legs dangling over the water. I had my arm around her shoulder. She was grinning, her front teeth slightly crooked, her hair tied back with a ribbon. I was looking at her like she was the center of the world.

A knot formed in my throat. I traced the edge of the photo with my finger.

I had loved her.

I just couldn’t remember how.

My breath caught in my chest, tears stinging the backs of my eyes. There was more. A list of names. Notes scribbled in the margins. Olivia Bishop was the first name on the page. Next to it: recovered speech comprehension; partial auditory return. Must replicate.

Then, one by one, every other name had been crossed out.

All except mine.

Scarlett McBride: long-term memory gap; no auditory recovery; shows unique adaptation.

Unique adaptation? What did that mean?

That I was malleable?

Controllable?

I stared at the photo again. If Livvie had been the first, and I was the last, we were bookends to Scanlon’s experiments.

I took the photo and drove back to Becca’s house right away. I wouldn’t wait until the next morning. I didn’t care if she slammed the door. I wasn’t leaving without trying.

I stood on her porch and knocked. Once. Twice.

No answer.

“Becca, I brought you something,” I said through the door. “Just look at it. Please. Then I’ll go.”

There was a pause, and then the door cracked open. Her eyes peered through the gap. Then she opened wider.

“What is it?”

I held up the photograph.

Her eyes widened in surprise and longing. She opened the door wider, her fingers trembling as she took it from me.

“I didn’t think I had many pictures of her left,” she said.

“I don’t remember her,” I said. “Not really. Not the way I should. But I can feel her. In my dreams. I know I cared for her. ”

Becca said nothing. Just stared at the photo like it held the last bit of her soul.

“If you’re protecting someone,” I said softly, “I get it. I’ve done that, too. But you can’t grieve Livvie while you’re still holding all this guilt. You can’t move on. And I can’t remember unless I understand what you know about her…and that night.”

Becca’s eyes met mine. Softer this time.

“She was bright,” she said. “Too bright. Like a firework. Everyone loved her. Especially you.”

That twisted my heart inside. “Then why would anyone hurt her?”

Becca didn’t answer. But she didn’t close the door either.

I waited. Hoping.

Finally, she said, “It wasn’t supposed to happen. We were just trying to have fun. She wasn’t supposed to be there.”

My heart pounded. “Be where?”

Becca shook her head. “On the water…never mind. I told you, I can’t. It’s not safe. Not for you, not for me.”

I nodded, backing away slowly. “Okay. I get it. But if you change your mind…I’ll be at the lodge.”

She closed the door again but not with a slam. It wasn’t a breakthrough. Not yet. But it was a crack in the wall.

And maybe, just maybe, Livvie could help us knock the rest of it down.