Page 97 of Secrets Along the Shore (Beach Read Thrillers #1)

CHAPTER

THREE

Early morning light poured through the tall lodge windows like spilled milk, soft and pale against the worn wooden floor.

I’d barely slept, tossing on the couch under an old quilt, unnerved by shadows and fragments of dreams I couldn’t piece together.

Something about the water. Something about eyes watching from across the lake.

Was Becca watching for me as much as I was watching for her?

The power was back on thanks to Monroe, though his attitude hadn’t warmed.

He’d left last night without another word after fiddling with the breaker box and muttering about “old bones not liking cold basements.” Although maybe I misunderstood his actual words.

I hadn’t bothered asking him about Becca’s sister again.

He was a dead end, anyway. If he knew, he wasn’t talking about anything important.

Besides, when I accompanied him to the basement again, the compulsion to look around pulled at me and piqued my curiosity.

There were boxes everywhere. Storage trunks, rusted tools, things long tucked away by Scanlon and covered with dust. But what I hadn’t expected to find was the boat.

I headed outside with my eyes on the rowboat that once had given me my summer friends.

In the basement, it had been tucked behind an old armoire and some dry-rotted tarps.

The faded green rowboat with one side streaked with old algae stains and the other crusted with spiderwebs had been wedged tight.

The oars, long wooden paddles with chipped red tips, were inside it.

I pulled the craft free, and it was just as I remembered.

I didn’t even have to think about it. My body moved on instinct, hands brushing away cobwebs, feet pushing against the slick concrete floor as I removed the boat from the house and dragged it up the narrow path that wound from the lodge to the lakeshore.

It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t as hard as it would’ve been in my youth.

The path was still etched into the land, still familiar.

My bare feet pressed into the cold dirt, toes curling over pebbles and twigs.

I’d kicked off my shoes at the top of the trail, knowing exactly where I was going.

To the dock.

It was like I was ten again, not thirty, and my friends awaited me.

Now with the sun shining, I reached the water, and the lake stretched out before me like a sheet of glass, only the smallest ripples disrupting the stillness. The mountains yawned in the distance, their tips kissed by a big lavender sky.

It was August, but the lake was still cold.

I stepped into the water and winced, breath catching as the chill shot up my calves. The old me would’ve shrieked and giggled. The current me clenched her jaw and pushed through.

The boat scraped against the rocky shallows as I climbed in, careful not to tip it. I untied the rope from the dock’s cleat. Once seated, the motion came back to me like muscle memory—oars sliding into their slots, hands wrapping around the worn grips.

Pull.

Push.

Pull.

The rhythm steadied my heartbeat, drowned out the noise in my head. Every stroke was a meditation, a return. The lodge grew smaller behind me, and I didn’t look back.

I knew exactly where I was going.

Midway across the lake, I slowed. The sun was rising now, low and golden, its reflection like a path across the water. I coasted for a moment, letting the boat drift.

This was the place. Right here.

This was where we’d meet .

Becca and her sister would paddle out from their side, usually laughing, sometimes whispering.

We’d bring sandwiches or candy and trade them like currency.

We’d talk in gestures and giggles. They’d taught me how to tie knots and skip stones.

I’d taught them how to sign “tree” and “fish” and “quiet.” The younger Bishop girl caught on instantly, while Becca fumbled, but that was okay.

Now, years later, I sat in the same boat, in the same place, the water lapping against the sides. I turned to look toward the opposite shore to their house.

It was a little older now. Some paint had stripped from the siding. A shutter hung crooked over one window. But it was the same three-story house with the wraparound porch and white-trimmed windows. Same place I’d waved to so many times before.

I squinted, shielding my eyes. And there—there, behind a gauzy white curtain—movement.

A shadow.

Someone was watching me.

My breath caught.

Slowly, I raised a hand and waved.

The figure didn’t move. Then, in one swift motion, the curtain snapped shut, and the shadow vanished.

I stared, waiting, hoping for a sign. A flicker of movement. A wave. Anything.

Nothing.

The rejection was like ice down my spine. Familiar. Cold.

I knew that feeling. The same emptiness from the night the girls stopped coming. The same silence that followed. Not literal silence, but the kind that makes you feel like you’ve been erased.

I dropped my hand.

A flash of motion behind me drew my attention back to the lodge. A car pulled into the driveway—red. It was hard to tell the model from the distance, but it was probably Evan’s Jeep.

I needed to go.

But before I picked up the oars again, a sensation that someone else was on the lake swept over me. I twisted in the boat, searching the surface. There was nothing—no boats, no birds, no other signs of life. Just the lake, wide and deep and far too still.

But the feeling didn’t leave. I looked down into the water—dark and bottomless.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I muttered, but my fingers gripped the oars tighter.

Row.

Row faster.

Pull.

Push.

The boat rocked harder with my urgency, slicing through the lake as my breath came quicker. I didn’t dare look back again at Becca’s house. At her window. At the water. All of it felt threatening now. As if I’d trespassed somewhere sacred. Somewhere I didn’t belong.

Where her sister drowned.

By the time the hull scraped the shoreline, I was shaking. The moment I stepped out and tied the boat back onto the cleat, I felt the knot in my chest loosening.

Still, I didn’t look back at the lake. At the house.

Instead, I grabbed my shoes and trudged up the trail toward the lodge, squinting into the rising sun. Evan stood on the front porch when I arrived, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the lake.

“You went out?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

I nodded, brushing past him toward the door. “I needed to remember something.”

He hesitated, then touched my arm to make me face him. “And did you?”

I paused at the threshold, glancing back toward the water.

“I remembered why I stopped coming here. I was no longer welcomed. Though I still don’t know why.”

Evan followed behind me as I stepped back into the lodge, his eyes scanning every surface like a contractor walking through a ruin.

He said nothing for a while, but I saw the way his mouth pulled tight as he looked at the curling wallpaper, the cracked molding, the way the floorboards gave a little under our weight.

“You want me to be honest?” he asked, pausing near the entryway.

I turned, eyebrows raised. “Please don’t start sugarcoating now.”

He let out a scant breath of a laugh. “Okay, well…this place needs more than just a fresh coat of paint. Foundation’s probably fine, but you’ve got water damage near the back wall, definitely some dry rot in the beams by the sunroom. And I can already smell the mildew.”

I nodded, glancing down at my shoes I carried. “I know. It’s also…bigger than I remembered.”

“It’s a lodge. Not exactly a starter home.”

He moved into the living room, flicking on a light that buzzed and cast a flickering glow over the worn furniture. He walked over to a cabinet beneath the long windows and opened it, peering inside. Empty, except for a few old photographs, the corners curled with time.

I stood near the center of the room, slowly spinning as I took it all in.

The wallpaper was still the same hideous shade of maroon with golden ivy patterns that shimmered in the wrong light.

The chandelier above the dining area swayed gently like it was responding to our movement even though there wasn’t a draft.

I felt…disoriented. Like I was walking through the home of a stranger who looked exactly like someone I used to know.

Evan opened a drawer on the sideboard. It stuck, then jerked open. “Empty,” he said and then, “You plan to clean this place out yourself?”

I nodded. “I can manage.”

He raised a brow. “You sure?”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t.

We moved through the house together. Evan inspected every room like he was cataloging its flaws, but I didn’t mind. Someone needed to face the project head on, someone besides me.

I stopped in the hallway just outside the room at the end.

The door was closed.

Headmaster Scanlon’s bedroom.

I had never stepped foot in there. Not once.

Not when I was ten, not when I was fifteen.

The door had always been shut tight, the kind of shut that meant do not disturb ever .

I’d never dared knock. Even when he brought me here for summer breaks and told me I could treat the place like home, that room had been off limits.

Now it was mine.

I hesitated, fingers grazing the cold doorknob. When I pushed the door open, a wave of cedar and mothballs rushed out. But beneath that, the scent of old metal and ancient books took hold of my senses.

The bed was made—tight military corners, white sheets faded to yellow with age. The oak desk was pristine. No clutter or any sign of life.

The room was untouched.

It reminded me of him.

Headmaster Scanlon had always been stern but never unkind. At least not to me. He spoke with precision, corrected gently, but smiled rarely. He gave me space but not warmth. Structure but not affection. Still, in his own way, he’d made me feel like I mattered.

Chosen.

To the other students, he wasn’t the same man.

I knew that then, even if I hadn’t wanted to admit it.

I enjoyed being invited here but never missed how there was a hardness in his movements when he spoke to the boys in my class.

A strictness in how he punished mistakes.

Some days, when a student cried in the hallway or came back from a closed-door conversation with him red-faced and silent, I pretended not to notice.

Maybe I hadn’t wanted to lose the only person who made me feel like I had a place.

Evan entered the room behind me, but I barely registered him as I approached the desk. An old wooden chair pushed neatly under it had clawed feet and a cracked leather seat. I stepped closer, fingertips trailing across the smooth surface of the desk until I stopped at the drawer. I pulled it open.

Empty.

Of course it was. I was sure his family had gone through the place years ago, taking what they wanted.

But standing there, a memory arose—July 28 th , my birthday. I’d been thirteen. No one at the school had ever celebrated my birthday before, but summer meant I was at the lodge, and Headmaster Scanlon didn’t allow parties. He’d said nothing that morning, only gave me extra time to read on the dock.

But that evening, he brought out a cake to the dining room.

It had three layers and too much frosting.

It was chocolate. My favorite. There were no candles, nor were there any words scrawled on the top, but I knew it was a gift for me.

The other students enjoyed the treat with no thought to the reason behind the dessert, but I caught Headmaster Scanlon’s slight wink in my direction and, for a split second, I felt like I had a family.

For the first time, something belonged to me.

Now, at his desk, I felt the same feeling again.

This whole place, including this desk, belonged to me.

“Hey,” Evan said, catching my gaze and cutting through the realization of Scanlon’s surprising gift. “These books…”

I turned to the bookcase that ran along the far wall. Evan stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling shelves. It was an imposing sight—dark walnut, dusty, filled with old medical journals and religious texts and one cracked leather-bound Bible with gold-edged pages.

“What about them?” I asked, crossing the room.

“Watch this.” Evan pulled one out—a thick red volume with gold lettering for the title I didn’t catch. Instantly, the shelf moved, vibrating the floorboards beneath my bare feet. And then…widened, moving toward me.

We both froze.

He looked at me, eyes bulging. “Did you know about this?”

My heart thudded.

“No,” I whispered.

He tugged at the bookcase, and it shifted, swinging outward with a soft rumble feel of wood against wood. Dust spilled from the edges as stale air hissed from the hidden space beyond.

A passageway, dark and narrow.

My breath caught in my throat. I stepped forward, peering inside.

Wooden walls and flooring. Wooden beams along the top. The smallest beam of light filtered from across the room, angling down through a small hexagonal window.

“Scanlon always had so many secrets,” Evan said, more to himself than me, but I read his lips .

I turned sharply toward him. “What do you mean?”

He hesitated, then shrugged, too casually. “People talk. You know how small towns are.”

I studied him for a moment. “I don’t , actually. I didn’t grow up here.”

Evan looked away. “Just…stories, that’s all.”

My hands curled into fists at my sides. “Stories about him?”

He met my gaze again, but there was something unreadable in his eyes now. “That he wasn’t what he seemed. That this place wasn’t either.” He nodded to the secret room. “I think this proves the locals had been right about the man.”

“I never heard any of those stories,” I signed quickly while I spoke, frustration burning in my chest.

He watched my hands and frowned. “How could you hear what people said behind you?” he asked. “You couldn’t. You were kept in the dark.”

I flinched, not because he was wrong, but because he was right .

I’d lived in silence. I still did. The world spoke in whispers, and I missed half of them. How much information had I missed during the five summers I stayed here?

The cold crept out from the open passage like an exhaling breath. I stepped closer into the dark, letting its next inhale pull me in—into Scanlon’s secrets that awaited me.