Page 94 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)

CHAPTER

ONE

Flathead Lake, Montana

Present Day

If houses could breathe, this one exhaled dust. I felt the wooden front doors groan open beneath my palm, revealing the wide cavern of the entry hall beyond.

Everything inside was still and shadowed as though the place had been holding its breath for the last fifteen years—waiting for someone, anyone, to return and stir it back to life.

I stood in the doorway, holding the keys in one hand, the deed in the other. Even now, I wasn’t sure the ownership felt real .

Mine. The lake lodge was mine. Old man Scanlon had left me his lodge.

Why me?

But wasn’t that always the question? I had been chosen every year for five years for reasons I never understood—chosen until the Fourth of July night when the Bishop girl drowned in the middle of the lake.

Then I was never invited back…until now.

And now, I held the keys to Scanlon’s private kingdom as my own.

I stepped inside, feeling the hardwood crack beneath my boots. The scent hit me next—old pine, wax, dust, maybe something metallic underneath. The smell that never quite left my memory, even after years of being gone.

The lodge hadn’t changed. Its ceilings were still high and vaulted, thick beams stretching across like the ribs of some sleeping giant.

The chandelier overhead looked like an iron cage strung with crystals and cobwebs.

To the left was the long hall that led to the kitchen and common area.

To the right was the library, filled wall to wall with books and the fireplace I used to curl up beside on cool nights.

But it was the stairs straight ahead that pulled me forward. The landing flashed with memory beneath the stained-glass window. Sunlight streamed in and covered a smiling Becca— no. Her sister. The little one. The one with the flashlight. The one who drowned.

What was her name?

I squeezed the keyring in my hand until the sharp edges bit into my palm. I couldn’t recollect her name sign, either. It was so long ago.

And I wasn’t here for memories. I was here to clean the lodge out, sell it, and send the money back to the school, the only parent I ever had. Had this been a peace offering from Scanlon? I would never know why he left it to me instead of a family member.

The question circled in my mind the entire flight here, the entire drive up the winding path that led to the lodge like some hidden road to a forgotten castle.

I wasn’t close to Scanlon. I hadn’t spoken to him since I left the school after graduation and moved to Idaho to start my life over.

I never even said goodbye. It made little sense.

Unless the others had been right all along, and I was his favorite in some weird way.

The signs had been there. The looks. The rumors.

How I was always selected. How the headmaster gave me extra attention, extra praise.

Some called me teacher’s pet. Others called me worse.

I didn’t care. Not then. Not when it meant coming here—escaping the school, the way everyone else’s eyes looked right past me.

Here, I had the lake. I had peace and the girls across the water. The summers felt like dreams. And maybe they were.

I started up the stairs. My boots hit the steps, and I felt myself mentally return to these stairs to my own room, something I never had at the school. It felt like I was walking through someone else’s life and not my own memories. At the top, I turned left. Second door on the right.

My bedroom.

I pushed it open. The door stuck for a second like it didn’t want to let me in. Then the hinges gave way, and the room opened around me.

Everything was smaller than I remembered and yet just as I left it.

The bed with the carved posts. The dresser with the sticky top drawer.

The chair in the corner where I used to sit and read books from the library below.

Dust floated in the air like ash, catching the slant of sunlight that poured through the lake-facing window.

And there it was.

Their house.

The sisters’ lodge stood across the water, proud and regal, its white wraparound porch facing directly into mine. Like we were always meant to see each other. Like our lives were connected in some invisible line across the lake.

I took a step closer to the window, peering through the smudged glass.

The house looked unchanged. A little weathered, maybe. The shutters needed paint. But the structure stood strong, the yard still trimmed, the dock still jutting into the water like an arm reaching out.

Were they still there?

Was Becca ?

After her sister disappeared, I never saw her again.

There were rumors, of course. Whispers. That the family moved.

That Becca had a breakdown. That she’d accused someone, but no charges were ever filed.

The authorities deemed the drowning an accident.

The story faded like old paint, and no one ever talked about it again.

But I remembered.

Even if my memories came in pieces—in flashes. Like dreams caught in a broken kaleidoscope. I’d see her—Becca’s sister—standing on the stairs, barefoot, wearing that pink nightgown with the little birds stitched across the hem. She’d look at me, eyes wide and frightened, then turn and row away.

I always followed into the dark. And then nothing .

Always nothing.

I tried to tell myself it was just a dream. That I’d built a memory around the silence of that night, filled in the blanks with guilt and imagination. But part of me didn’t believe that.

Part of me feared the truth.

I took a step back from the window, from the Bishop house, and I shook my head, hard. I needed to focus on the task at hand.

The place needed to be cleaned, appraised, listed. It would take time. But I’d make it fast. I’d find a real estate agent. Sell it off. Donate every penny to the school. Wipe my hands clean.

But a splinter of doubt wormed its way in.

Why hadn’t he left it to the school directly if he really had no one in his family to leave it to?

Was I really…favored?

I didn’t want to think so. Didn’t want to believe there was a reason I was selected every summer while others weren’t. That Scanlon had singled me out, not for my achievements but for something else.

I dropped my duffel on the bed and stepped out of the room.

Back in the hallway, I returned to the landing. Halfway down the stairs, I stopped with the memory surfacing again. A flash—Becca’s sister at the top of the stairs, her small hand gripping the railing. The blink of a flashlight. Her eyes locking with mine.

And then she was gone—vanished like a whisper in the fog over the water.

I gripped the banister, breath held in my throat.

Stop it . You’re imagining things. These walls were soaked in memories.

That’s all this was. Being here was bringing that time—those girls—back to my thoughts.

I turned away and walked toward the kitchen, needing a task.

Something physical. Something real . I found a half-used bottle of dish soap, some rags under the sink, and started scrubbing down the counters and cabinets.

The wood there was rich and dark, smooth under years of polish, now dulled by neglect.

As I cleaned, my eyes kept drifting to the window. To the water between us. To their dock. To their house. I told myself it was just a house. Wood and windows.

It didn’t mean anything .

Still…

Why me?

Scanlon had been meticulous. Cold. Purposeful. He didn’t do anything without reason. Which meant there was a reason he gave me this house. The more I thought about that, the more it felt like the beginning of something I didn’t want to understand.

Something that was best to leave beneath the water’s surface.

The kitchen filled with the low hum of the kettle heating on the old gas stove. I’d found a tin of chamomile left behind in one of the cabinets, miraculously sealed. The scent, once I opened it, felt like something familiar and comforting.

Becca used to drink chamomile. Her sister thought it tasted like dust, but Becca insisted it helped her sleep.

We were ten when we first shared a mug on the dock, our feet dangling over the edge, the sky turning peach above us.

She’d brought a thermos, the steam curling between us as we passed it back and forth.

Now, as the whistle sounded, I poured the water into a cracked mug and stirred the teabag slowly.

The lodge relaxed around me as though adjusting to my presence or mine to it.

I took the mug and made my way through the darkening house toward the French doors that opened onto the balcony overlooking the lake.

The evening had swallowed the light, leaving the surface of the water a sheet of ink, reflecting the deepening indigo of the sky.

The lodge across stood tall across the lake, its silhouette sharp against the tree line.

I squinted, searching for a sign of life—anything.

A lamp in the window, smoke from the chimney, the shape of someone stepping onto the porch. But the place looked…dead.

Still, I knew better than to assume.

I had learned of rumors over the years that Becca never moved away.

That she’d stayed behind with grief like a weight tied around her neck, even while her parents fled from the loss of their youngest. That she’d become a recluse, refusing to speak about what happened to her sister.

Some said she went a little mad. Others said she never spoke again.

I didn’t know which stories were true.

All I knew was that I hadn’t seen her since that summer.

I wondered what she looked like now. We were both thirty. Would I even recognize her? Would she recognize me?

Would she want to?

A gust of wind stirred the trees, and a moment later, the lights inside the lodge flickered once…then died.

I blinked, trying to adjust to the sudden darkness. The cup trembled slightly in my hands as I stepped back inside. The stove light had gone out, and the clock over the fireplace was blank.

Great , the power was out.

I set the tea down on the nearest surface and moved through the dark, hands outstretched to feel my way, now not only Deaf but also blinded to these unfamiliar surroundings.

The lodge had always had its quirks, and the power was one of them.

Scanlon used to say the wiring was old and temperamental—like the house itself.

Still, this timing felt…purposeful. Like the house wanted me here as much as I wanted to be here.

I made my way outside and down the porch steps, navigating by memory down the stone path to where my SUV was parked. I fumbled in the console until I found my phone and turned on the flashlight, cutting a narrow beam through the dark.

Inside, I aimed it down the stairs to the basement.

The air grew colder as I descended, the old stone walls slick with condensation.

I ducked under a hanging pipe and found the breaker box mounted to the far wall from the stairs.

It was just like I remembered—an ancient gray panel with switches that looked like they belonged in a museum.

I flipped the main breaker off, then back on.

Nothing.

I tried again.

Still nothing.

A low thrum of irritation pulsed in the back of my head.

Maybe the estate had shut the power off after the will was read.

I wouldn’t be surprised. The attorney said the Scanlon heir was not quiet in their displeasure that I’d been named in the will.

They didn’t even know who I was. According to the lawyer, they thought I’d “manipulated an old man” into giving me what should’ve been theirs.

I hadn’t spoken to Scanlon in years and had no idea I was in his will until the letter arrived. If I’d known, I might’ve refused it. Now, here in the dark, it felt like a trap I’d walked into willingly.

I sighed and climbed back up the stairs, the flashlight beam trembling slightly with each step.

Back in the kitchen, I retrieved my mug. The tea was lukewarm now. I sipped it anyway, but the taste was bitter, metallic. On the deck, I poured the rest over the railing, watching the liquid disappear into the bushes below.

The lake sat still as glass. I lifted the flashlight, an old instinct bubbling up before I could question it. Three quick blinks, spaced evenly apart.

Come over .

Our signal.

Mine and the girls’.

A childish part of me hoped. Some small, desperate piece of my past that wanted to pretend none of it had changed. That the youngest was still with us. That we could still meet in the middle of the water, to share secrets with friends.

I turned for the kitchen, then one flash stopped me cold. A single blink from across the water.

My breath caught.

Someone was there…Becca.

And she wasn’t inviting me over. Not tonight anyway.

The flashlight in my hand trembled slightly as I clicked it off. No more signals. No more games.

I wasn’t the same girl who used to row across the lake chasing connection.

I was an adult now. One with too many questions and not enough answers, and one with an old house to ready to sell.

And whoever was on the other side of that water—whether it was Becca, or someone else—they didn’t want me coming any closer.

The message was clear.

Stay where you are.

And so I would.