Page 9 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)

CHAPTER

FIVE

I was laying on a bed. The instant I saw the ceiling, the light fixture overhead, and smelled the scent of burnt coffee, I started to scream.

“Noa! Noa!” A man’s voice shouted from down the hall.

Footsteps clapped on a wood floor and I sensed the man’s presence and scrambled to my knees. I wasn’t bound. This was good. I pushed off the mattress, sprinting for the door just as he rounded the corner and caught me.

Two hands on my upper arms.

A hard chest.

I hauled back with my right arm, balling my fist, and its forward momentum was stopped by a man’s palm.

“Noa!”

His voice ripped through my subconscious.

Reuben.

Reuben ?

I shoved off his chest which was void of his typical Oxford shirt and instead was covered by a T-shirt with the most unexpected screenprint of a fluffy cat smoking a pipe.

Not even attempting to comprehend what that was about, I scowled at him.

Confusion rippled through me—and a lot of panic.

I managed to stay standing, even though everything in me wanted to crumple to the floor in a trembling heap of relief and tears.

“How’d I get here?” I demanded, hearing the rough accusation in my tone and not feeling a bit of remorse for it.

He braced his left arm against the doorway and eyed me. “You were at Stillwater, in your car, having a full-blown panic attack. When I found you, I could hardly snap you out of it and when I did, you wouldn’t let me go.”

I couldn’t picture myself clinging to Detective Walker, let alone seeking safety in his presence.

Although, reason said he was a solid bet if I did need protection.

The problem was, when there was that level of panic, that is when I blacked out.

But I had curated my life carefully these last years, and it hadn’t happened in so long, I’d banked on it not happening again.

Not to mention, I hadn’t expected to experience panic tonight.

But I’d been wrong. And I had blacked out. The moment I saw him.

“That was you—at the lake?” I managed to temper the blame in my voice.

“Yep.”

“And you saw me?—”

“Yep.”

“So you know I was?—”

“Yep.”

He was irritating. He’d seen me there, probably heard me mumbling to Sophia, and then watched me sprint to my car where I entered whatever full-blown breakdown ensued.

“And my car?” I asked, trying to attempt some manner of collectiveness by smoothing my wavy hair back and repositioning it in its messy bun.

“I left it at the lake.” Reuben eyed me. No, more like he assessed me.

“How’d you get my car open? I’d locked the doors.”

“I have my magic ways.” He rubbed his thumb against his fingers as if conjuring a magical flame.

“Whatever.” I muttered, pushing past him. I should say “thanks” or give him some sort of gratitude. But his inflated ego and self-imposed ownership of the Serpent Killer’s case had long since soured me against him.

“Where are you going?” He trailed behind me as I tried to find my way through his house to his front door.

“Home.”

“Are you going to walk?”

“Why not?” I quipped over my shoulder.

“Because it’s fifteen miles to your apartment.”

I stopped, turned, and stared at him. “You couldn’t have taken me there?”

“I didn’t have a key to your place and you, Noa Lorne, were not exactly coherent.”

“A hospital then?”

“For a panic attack?” Reuben shook his head. “They’d inject you with lorazepam and send you home to detox.”

I had no words for this man.

We eyed each other for a long second. One of those tense moments filled with a hundred-thousand questions and none of which were voiced.

“I made coffee,” he finally offered.

I snorted an exaggerated sniff. “Burned it too.”

“Don’t rip on my French roast.”

“Ew.” I hated French roast.

“Listen.” Reuben turned his back to me and padded barefoot across his carpeted floor toward his kitchen. He must’ve expected me to follow voluntarily, because he kept chatting. “I’ll be honest, I didn’t think you’d want the attention of the ER.”

Chalk one up for Detective Reuben Walker. I followed him into the kitchen.

“And” —he reached to open a cupboard— “you weren’t in any shape to be home alone.

” He extracted a white cafe mug with a daisy on it.

Who was this guy? Fluffy cats smoking pipes, and daisies?

None of that fit the persona of the Ghost. “So, I brought you here. I figured you could rest and then we could debrief.”

“Debrief?” I echoed.

He poured hot coffee into the mug and slid it across the bar between us. His dark eyes pierced mine, and his shadow of dark whiskers coupled with his dark brows made him look more fierce than friendly. “Yeah. I want to know why you were at Stillwater Lake at 2:00 a.m. having a panic attack.”

“Why were you there?” I countered.

“I don’t owe you that explanation.” Reuben reached over to a pile of belongings on the counter, grabbed something, and palmed it on the granite top toward me.

When he lifted his hand, I was looking at his badge.

“This gives me the right to visit a crime scene and investigate at any time of day. You, on the other hand, need to tell me what’s going on. ”

“What’s going on,” I said, lifting the disgusting brew to my lips and eyeing him over the mug, “is that I’m drinking coffee and then calling an Uber to go home.”

“Have it your way.” He nodded. “I’m not keeping you here. But I’ll be by later to take you down to the station where we can talk. Or”—he glanced over my shoulder and tipped his chin up in a nonchalant gesture—“we can go into my living room and talk where it’s comfortable.”

That was a nice way of saying I really had no options.

I knew that. I also knew when I felt safe and when I felt in danger.

I didn’t like talking, so that made me cringe and my stomach curl.

But I felt safe here. That was a different feeling.

One that didn’t come around too often. And I would never admit it to Reuben—especially after tonight—but I was never in my life so glad that the man staring at me through my windshield had been him.

Because everything in my gut had been telling me that not far off, and likely out of sight, Sophia’s killer had been watching me too.

I’d acquired sugar from Reuben for my French roast coffee. It didn’t help, so I pushed the daisy mug away as I perched at his kitchen island, balancing on a wooden stool painted black.

“I tried.” Reuben shrugged, retrieved the mug and dumped the contents into the sink .

“Do you have some tea?” Chamomile, peppermint, English breakfast, peach . . . anything would be better than the mud he’d served me.

Reuben gave me a blank look. “I have water.”

“That’ll work.” Even water with an edge of city-chlorination was better than French roast.

Reuben filled a glass and gave it to me.

I turned it in my hands.

He leaned his forearms on the countertop and latched his eyes on me. “Well?”

I took a drink.

He waited.

I set the glass down and it clanked against the granite countertop.

“Why were you at the lake?” Reuben’s question was pointed this time. Expectant of an answer.

“There were two of them.”

His eyebrows rose.

All I could see was Sophia flashing two fingers as her killer drowned her, face down in the water.

“Two of what?” Reuben pressed.

I took another sip. I really needed to think before I spoke. “I-I’m not sure.”

“There’s a time and place for riddles, Noa, but this isn’t it.”

“I know.” I snapped with more force than I intended.

I was beginning to feel trapped. Like a mouse backed into a corner by a cat, and it wasn’t sure what its next move should be.

The cat was smarter, quicker, and it was hungry.

Not unlike Detective Reuben Walker. It was apparent he wanted to tie this case to my cold case with everything in him.

The fact he had such an obsession with it was another topic for me to explore another day—if I cared to.

But for now, he stared me down with a dark glower that would intimidate the worst felon.

“I think there were two killers.” I finally managed to spit it out and retreated to taking another unnecessary drink.

“Why do you think this?”

That was a great question. I couldn’t exactly say Sophia had told me. He’d have me sent away for a psyche eval. Not to mention, I wasn’t even sure that was what Sophia had meant .

My gut clenched.

Wow. I sounded a tad nuts even to myself. I was interpreting a hallucination as a message from her directly, and, to be frank, I didn’t believe in communication from the dead. I didn’t imagine that seeing a vision of their murder was somehow going to crack open a case.

“Why two killers?” Reuben prodded.

“Because there aren’t enough similarities between my attempted murder and the murder of Sophia Bergstrom.” Maybe that was what Sophia had meant. Two killers. Hers and mine. Two separate cases.

“You had to drive to Stillwater Lake to draw that conclusion?” Reuben’s question was laced with skepticism.

“I wanted to see it for myself,” I said. “Because I know you want Sophia’s death to be connected to what happened to me.”

Silence.

Reuben cleared his throat. “You make me sound rather single-minded.”

“Because you are.” I met his gaze with a frank one of my own. “And Sophia’s death has nothing to do with what happened ten years ago.”

“How do you know that? I need more evidence than a gut feeling, Noa.”

“Don’t you need more evidence than a gut feeling that it is connected?”

Something flickered in his eyes. There was more that he wasn’t telling me. For all his bravado, Reuben held his cards close to his chest. Maybe it was protocol, maybe it was just him, but he wasn’t going to open the vault of evidence he’d been working on and spill all his theories.

Fine. He wanted evidence? I would give him something. I drummed my fingernails on the half-full glass of water. “Sophia was left there. I was buried.”

A frown creased Reuben’s forehead. “Tell me what you mean by that.”

He was interrogating me, though he’d never admit it.