Page 67 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)

“I mean, they took the report, but they said there wasn’t much they could do. I get it. She’s an adult, and like I said, she’d taken off before. They weren’t too worried, but I thought it was weird she didn’t check on the kids. She loves them. So, I thought, ‘better safe than sorry.’”

“What do you think happened to her?”

“I honestly have no idea. I was hoping the cops would figure it out.”

“What happened after you reported her missing?”

“Nothing. Some cop called about a month later to follow up, but I told him nothing had changed. He asked if I’d found out anything else, anything to make me think somethin’ bad might have happened, but there wasn’t.

Other than the fact that she had stopped posting pics on Instagram.

I mean, she was reposting stuff from other people, but that wasn’t like her. She only ever posted her own stuff.”

“That was unusual for her, to not post new photos?”

Serenity nods. “Very.”

I pull up Kamden’s Instagram account on my phone and turn the screen toward Serenity so she can see the last new photo Kamden posted and the caption. “Any idea what the caption means or who might’ve taken the photo? It’s obviously not a selfie.”

Serenity takes my phone and studies the screen.

“I remember this. I’m guessing it means Kam’s gonna party a little more before the night’s over.

After she didn’t come back, I kept looking at it, trying to figure out who she was with, but I don’t have a clue.

Could’ve been anybody. But”—she taps the screen—“something about this parking lot seemed familiar. Still does. Never could come up with it.”

“If she was partying, could it be a bar? And this purplish light?” I point out the color on Kamden’s face. “Is that what’s familiar to you? Maybe from a neon sign?”

Serenity shrugs. “Could be.”

“You think it’s someplace you’ve been?”

“Or just some place I’ve passed by. I told you, I don’t know.”

“Do you travel much?”

She laughs like I’m doing a Netflix comedy special. “Are you kidding? I haven’t left Birmingham in, like, five years.” She jabs a finger at the hall. “Between those three and my job, I don’t have time to travel. The farthest I’ve been is up the road to Pinson to see my sister. ”

“So, it’s reasonable to assume that, if you have seen this place”—I tap the photo again—“it’s somewhere in Birmingham, or at least between here and Pinson?”

She doesn’t answer, just shrugs.

“Did you ever drive around to try to find it?”

She snorts. “I can barely keep up with my own business. I don’t have time to go looking for some place my drug-dealing housemate went to get wasted. I blew three hours going to the police station to make a report about her. That was my attempt at finding her.”

“Kamden was dealing drugs? Not just using?”

“Not out of here. Never out of here. Out there,” she says, shooing her hand at the front window. “After work and whatever. I made her keep the stuff out of the house.”

Nice. I’ll have to put you up for Mother of the Year. “Where did she keep it?”

Serenity shrugged. “As long as it wasn’t here, I didn’t care and didn’t ask.”

“And I’m guessing you didn’t tell the police about her side gig?”

Her face cracks with withering disbelief. “No. ’Course not. I didn’t tell them because I’m not an idiot.”

“Was it dangerous?”

“I mean, not really. It wasn’t that kind of dealing. We’re talking a little here, a little there. Nobody would’ve wanted her dead over that.”

I haven’t officially told her Kamden is dead, but I don’t bother to correct her. She’ll find out the truth soon enough. “Does she have family? Friends?”

Serenity shakes her head. “No family I ever knew about. And friends…there were people she hung with, but I never met them. I only saw her Instagram, same as you.”

“You can’t give me the name of anyone else she might have been with that night, or who might know something about what happened to her?”

“Nah.”

My gaze ventures past Serenity and out the front window. “That Honda in the driveway, is it hers?” I ask, already knowing the car matches the 2006 Honda Accord registered to Kamden .

“Yeah.”

“Has it been sitting there since she disappeared?” It’s a long shot, but if the car’s been undisturbed all these months, a thorough combing could conceivably give us a new angle.

“Yeah. I mean, I used it some. And I loaned it to a couple of friends who had car trouble sometimes.”

Well, so much for that. Still, a search might give us something.

“Did the police ever search it?”

“No.”

“And what about Kamden’s employment? She was a bartender, right?”

“At The Smoked Glass, near the airport.”

“Did she talk about anyone from work? Did she have a problem with anyone, or the opposite—was there someone she was close to?”

“Look, Detective…what’d you say your name was?”

“Walsh. Sophie Walsh.”

“Yeah, well, Detective Walsh, like I said before, I don’t know anything about her friends.”

I resist the urge to sigh in frustration. It’s not her fault she can’t help me. Still, I feel like there’s something here, waiting to be drawn out, if I ask the right question.

“I can guess what the answer is probably going to be, but what about boyfriends?”

“She had a bad ex a while back who stalked her and everything. Hurt her once or twice. Took her forever to shake him off and when she did, she swore she wouldn’t ever let someone have control over her again.

That was”—she glances at the ceiling—“maybe a year and a half or so before she disappeared? She went on plenty of dates after him, but she wasn’t serious about anyone. I never knew their names. Didn’t ask?—”

“Didn’t want to know. I get it.”

“Hey, she had her life, I had mine. I needed the free childcare. I wasn’t in a position to be nosy.”

“What was the name of her ex-boyfriend, the stalker?”

Serenity squints. “Donny. Donny…Mills, Miller…something like that. ”

“Did you mention him to the police?”

For the first time, her eyes widen with just a hint of doubt, quickly replaced by an indifferent sneer. “Why would I? That was almost two years before. She hadn’t talked about him in a long while.”

She thinks I’m judging her for not bringing Miller up to the police.

I need to shift to something neutral. I don’t want to alienate the only potential witness we’ve got. “How long did Kamden live with you before she went missing?”

“Three years.”

“What was she like?”

“Like, her personality?”

I nod.

Serenity’s stare momentarily lifts to the ceiling before returning to me. “Life of the party. Funny. Bold. She never took anything off anyone, at least not after that Donny guy.”

I sniff, lean my forearms on my knees, and fold my hands. I’ve gotten a little from her, but not nearly what I’d hoped and definitely not nearly what I need. She’s shifting in her seat and sighing, playing with her hands. My time’s almost up.

“Okay, I know you said there wasn’t anything bad going on…nothing that made you think something bad had happened to Kamden, but—and take a second to really think about it—was there anything…anything at all…different in the weeks leading up to her disappearance? Different or unusual in any way?”

Serenity closes her eyes, tilts her head and takes ten whole seconds before lifting her eyelids slowly. “I mean, I don’t know if this counts…”

“What?”

“I think she was…happier. I guess that was different. Even caught her humming a couple times. I asked her what fairy flew up her butt, and she laughed. Said she was about to get a big payday.”

My Spidey-senses tingle. “What did she say, exactly?”

“I just told you. That she was getting a payday soon.”

“What do you think she meant? What kind of payday?”

A scream sounds from the back of the house, but we both ignore it. “No idea. I assumed it was a big drug deal.”

Finally…something a detective might call a clue.