Page 3 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)

Have you ever wanted to run from the thoughts in your head?

The kind that swirl like a kaleidoscope and become more convoluted and confusing the faster they spin?

I spent the rest of the day in my recliner that I’d gotten from Goodwill for twenty bucks a few weeks back.

I’d arranged a yellow and gray comforter over it to hide the unattractive rose-colored velour.

The comforter felt safe to me, I don’t know why and I’m not sure I could ever explain it to anyone.

I wrapped a second comforter around myself—this one was also a pale yellow with little white paisley swirls—and then I assumed the fetal position for several hours.

There were no tears and not really much emotion.

I felt dead inside. Dead and bewildered.

I think sometimes that state of being is far worse than finding one’s self raw and broken.

At least then you know you’re alive. You’re not robotic in how you approach situations, and you’re not like a cardboard cut-out figure maneuvering your way through life.

In some ways, I wanted to bleed again. I wanted to feel that bleeding terror, the pain, and even the horror.

I wanted to know that I was alive, and that he had not won.

But ten years later, it seemed I’d sunk so far into the emotional capacity of an AI generated best friend that nothing could throw me.

Until today.

Perhaps it was the snake under the missing woman’s window, or that sudden slap of realization that maybe—just maybe—he had come back.

But whatever the reason, it didn’t send me into a spiral.

It sent me into a conscious comatose state.

I was awake. I was aware. I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t do anything else but stare at the door to my apartment and watch the doorknob.

Wait for it to turn. To rattle. To be wrestled into submission by someone who would break in and violate me all over again.

Prove to me that I was powerless. At the end of my story, I was, and would always be, a victim. The one who lived.

When the door finally did rattle, somewhere around four in the afternoon, I just watched it. A brass doorknob. The kind that was polished and reflected your distorted image.

A knock.

“Noa Lorne?”

It was a man’s voice.

Of course it was.

Why not make my worst nightmare worse?

I didn’t like men. I hadn’t before I was taken, and I certainly didn’t after.

There were lots of reasons why, but they didn’t matter.

I wanted to trust men—or some of them anyway.

I knew in my head they couldn’t all be bad, considering I knew some women had unashamed confidence in their significant other.

The knock reverberated again. This time, a firm rap that I immediately interpreted as a perceived sense of authority and self-confidence.

I stayed curled up in my chair, staring at the door, willing him to go away. I knew who it was. I recognized the timbre of his voice, and I had expected nothing less but to have him at my doorstep today.

Detective Reuben Walker, or “Ghost”, as most people had coined him, had developed quite the reputation in the state for solving cold cases.

He was in his in late thirties and anytime someone turned up missing, he compared the case notes to the old case files on the Serpent.

It was his obsession. He wanted to be the one to crack the case. The one who helped me remember.

“Noa?” Another strong rap. “I know you’re there.”

“Get a search warrant.” I raised my voice just enough for him to hear, but not enough to signal any emotion other than disinterest.

A long pause.

Then, “There was a snake under the window of the young woman who went missing.”

I didn’t answer. I knew that already. He hoped to entice me like someone tempted a child with a lollipop.

Try again, Ghost.

He did. “She’s eighteen.”

That wasn’t new information, but it did remind me that this was not a child abduction case. That would change things a bit. How the case was investigated, the urgency, the probability of calling in the FBI, Amber Alerts, etc.

“Do you know Sophia Bergstrom?” Detective Walker’s voice echoed against my door.

That must be the name of the missing woman. I didn’t know her.

“I wanted to compare notes.” He tried again.

This time, I unwrapped myself from the comforter and managed to stand up. I padded across the floor, unhooked the bolt, twisted the lock on the doorknob, and open sesame .

We stared at each other for a thick moment filled with unmet expectations. His, that I would somehow supply the magic missing piece to bust wide the Serpent’s file. Me, that Detective Reuben Walker would somehow disappear. For good.

“I don’t have notes to compare,” I finally stated. “You know that.”

There was a flicker in his brown eyes. A shadow of whiskers on his lower face.

Tousled dark hair. He’d been ten years old when I was born, but the pitfall of living in a small town, was that you were only ever separated in life by one or maybe two people.

I’d gone to high-school with his younger sister, Taylor.

We’d not been friends. At all. She was popular.

I hung out in the corners . . . and then I’d vanished.

“Shouldn’t you be out searching for the woman?” I tried to press a hot button in hopes the detective would get irritated and leave .

“That’s why I’m here. If there’s any way Sophia’s disappearance could be related to?—”

“It’s not.” I stated it emphatically, at the same time acknowledging I didn’t really know that for sure and also recognizing that I probably was a very unlikeable human being in moments like these. I didn’t show empathy. I didn’t have empathy. I had guilt. A lot of guilt. Which didn’t help at all.

“But —”

“I know about the snake.”

“How do you know about that?” He drew back in surprise.

Livia had told me, right? Yeah. “Everyone knows about it,” was my answer.

Detective Walker seemed to digest that information for a second.

I figured I might as well ask, so I did. “Was it under her window?” I raised my eyebrows, having regurgitated Livia’s words.

He gave a short nod.

I shook my head. “That’s what I’m saying. It’s not him. It’s not the Serpent.”

Please God, don’t let it be the Serpent.

“Why do you say that?”

I fixed my eyes on the green ink of a tattoo on his collarbone that peeked out of his shirt.

He was supposed to wear a tie, but he never did.

He always left his collar unbuttoned, the hint of a white t-shirt underneath, and that mysterious v of a tattoo piece always making me wonder what it was if I could see it in its entirety.

“Because”—I didn’t lift my gaze—“he doesn’t leave dead snakes behind. That’s not his—thing.”

“No. But killers can evolve after a decade.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“Would you be willing to?—”

“No.”

“You didn’t let me finish.”

“I know what you’re going to ask.” I hugged my arms around my t-shirt clad torso. “I’m not coming down to the station.”

“I wasn’t going to ask that.” His response silenced me. That was a surprise. I figured he’d want to talk about the case, any evidence they had, and see if it rang any bells in my sketchy recollection. “I was going to ask if you’d be willing to come help us search.”

“Are you crazy ?” I couldn’t help but snap at him, and I could feel my face contort in complete incredulity.

Then he did what Detective Reuben “Ghost” Walker did best. He lowered his voice and chin, lifted his brown eyes, and puppy-dog-eyed me. It was an unfair move, because no one would expect an alpha male to suddenly turn pitiable. If he had a tail, he would have wagged it too. I was sure of it.

“You’re a manipulator,” I stated.

“Did it work?”

“I—can’t.” I moved to close the door.

He wedged his foot in the entrance. I’d have to break his toes to close it the rest of the way and at the moment, I wasn’t opposed to that option.

“Look, Noa,” he cleared his throat. “This is the third young woman to disappear in the last year.”

I knew that.

“Our town has fifteen-thousand people, and Wisconsin has the fourth lowest missing persons rate in the nation. We should be averaging three missing per one- hundred thousand people.”

“I guess villains are working overtime, then. Do you think they have to pay taxes? For the people they abduct? Or can they claim them as dependents?”

A dark look washed over Detective Walker’s face mixed with a not-so-subtle expression of disbelief. “Of all people, I’d think you would have the most sensitivity to these situations.”

I met his eyes. Maybe when he looked back at mine, he could see that my attitude was all a front. It was a way to survive. Sarcasm. Cynicism. Numbness.

I didn’t dare go with him to search for Sophia Bergstrom.

If I did, I risked unlocking the part of me that had stayed safely tucked away.

And the worst thing was, I didn’t even know what had been interred in my subconscious, just that all sorts of unresolved and unseen secrets lurked in my psyche, buried the night he shoveled dirt over what he thought was my dead body .

That’s why I didn’t show empathy.

The Serpent had slain my emotions—at least, that’s what I believed.

Only my body, and my will to survive, had risen from that shallow grave after he’d left me to decay.

It’s why I hadn’t looked back.

It’s why I didn’t try to help the others.

It’s why, ten years later, I didn’t dare allow myself to feel. Because if I did, then the Serpent would succeed at long last. I didn’t think I could survive another moment in this world if I ever allowed myself to feel again.