Page 8 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)

I opened the door and climbed from my car, shutting it quietly behind me.

A soft breeze blew strands of hair across my face and I pulled them off and tucked them behind my ear.

I could see where the marshy area of the lake was trampled from the crime scene investigation.

The moon was relatively bright—though partially hidden by trees—so I avoided a flashlight.

Something about the impact of a battery-powered illumination of the area felt invasive.

A stick cracked to my right.

I stilled, squinting in that direction. The lake reflected moonlight, shallow ripples and cattails and long grasses daring me to call it what it probably really was—a pond. But no one called it that, so Stillwater Lake it was.

Another stick cracked.

“Sophia?”

I had to ask. Her memory already haunted me. I was already seeing her in my apartment and she was the nudge I’d had to come here in the first place. It stood to reason my psyche would have brought her here as well.

Sure enough .

She came into view. Only not where I’d heard the stick crack. She was up ahead, standing in the marshy area where I’d found her corpse.

I walked toward her, fixing my gaze on her silhouette. “I don’t know what you expect me to find,” I said, approaching.

She squatted down, disappearing behind some cattails.

The place wasn’t cordoned off, so apparently the cops had finished investigating the crime scene. I hadn’t witnessed it, but I could picture what the scene had looked like when they’d finally brought the stretcher, hauled Sophia’s body from the water and enveloped it in a body bag.

I stepped carefully into the marsh. Mud splattered my shoes, but I wore the same ones as before since they’d already been pretty much ruined. I peered through the darkness to the place where Sophia had lain.

I saw her again. This time the vision of her was crouching by her final resting place, her fingers trailing in the water and making loops as though she were writing something in cursive.

“What is it, Sophia?” I breathed, thankful no one else was here to witness me hallucinating.

Sophia looked up. Our eyes connected, and in that moment, light flashed in my vision. A kind of fierce flash, like someone had turned a spotlight on me and then flicked it off again, temporarily stunning me. Only now, I stood off to the side and watched it happen.

Sophia clawed at his face.

His hands were around her throat. White skin, squeezing with a ferocity and a passion that felt impulsive.

Sophia grabbed frantically at his hands, working her fingers between his, gagging for air as the pressure on her throat tightened.

Her feet slipped beneath her and her cropped shirt pulled up as she fell toward him, loosening his grip. Her shirt snagged on his belt, ripping, and she flailed as she fell backward into the lake.

In a swift move, her attacker straddled her, water and muck splashing him as he flipped her onto her stomach, her scream stifling as he pressed her head into the marsh.

Sophia struggled, but he held her down. She reached with her right hand, grabbing in a fruitless gesture for a cattail as though it would somehow save her .

Two.

Two of her fingers—her index finger and middle finger—on her right hand flashed a v shape, indicative of the number two. Sophia’s fingers bent at the knuckle and flashed the symbol of the number two again. As if, in this vision of her murder, she was attempting to send me a message.

Two.

Two.

Two.

“Two?” I stumbled away. The vision terrified me. That was it. I wasn’t doing this anymore. Riddles and nonsense, violence, and brutality?

No.

No!

I sprinted to my car, my muddy, wet shoes making panicked footsteps against the gravel.

“No, no, no!” I moaned as I clawed at my pockets for the car keys. Knowing, the car was unlocked, I dove inside for the illusion of protection, the can of bear spray banging against the door frame. I clutched my taser and reached for the car door, slamming it shut and hitting the electronic locks.

There they were.

The keys.

Sitting on the dash.

That was stupid.

I grabbed for them. Sweat dripped down my face, and my hands shook so uncontrollably I couldn’t get the key into the ignition.

I wished I had a newer vehicle. One that just needed the key fob in the car and I could button-start it.

But no. I had an old car. I had a key. They flipped from my shaking fingers and fell to the floor of the car.

As I bent to retrieve them, a shadow crossed over me, blocking the moonlight. I froze, lifting my face to look out the windshield.

I’d see Sophia. But this time, would it be the brutalized remains of her corpse standing there, instead the pretty more alive version I’d seen of her in my apartment?

No.

I stared at the form silhouetted in the night’s sky .

He stood there.

Right there.

For all my bravado, for all my good intentions, for all my safeguards like bear spray and tasers, I went numb. My body failed to respond the way I’d banked on it reacting.

I fell against the steering wheel and everything went black.