Page 166 of Secrets Along the Shore

“This is really great.”

“It ain’t free. I’m expecting you to come down here with an apology.”

At this point, I don’t even care that I have to do it. “If this is the video I’m looking for, I’ll be there.”

“You better. I know where to find you now, Sophie Walsh. I don’t get my apology, I may have to take a little vacay up to Mitchell County to meet you in person.”

I don’t know if it’s a genuine threat or not, but I don’t have the energy to worry about it. “Won’t be necessary. I’ll be in touch.”

“You do that,” he says, and ends the call.

I twist toward the yard-long, curved screen Goat installed, presently hooked up to my laptop. My eyes are glued to the inbox I was cleaning out earlier, my fingertips tapping on my desk…waiting…waiting…

And then, it appears, a chime simultaneously ringing through the screen’s speakers. No message accompanies it, just a shared link to a video on a Google drive. I click on it, and click again when it takes me to a file. A window containing a video pops up. I can see from the thumbnail that it’s a plain, concrete-block building with an enormous neon sign on the wall that reads “The Backroom.” The footage is a washed-out black-and-white, so I can’t make out the color of the neon, but the light cuts into the night and drips over everything.

My bet is it’s purple.

I pull up the saved image from Kamden’s Instagram. The photo is from a different angle than the video, but the same vehicles are captured in both. After about a minute, Kamden Avery exits the club’s front door, wearing the outfit she was buried in.

My heart gallops and I lean closer to the screen.

Kamden’s expression is impossible to read—the camera is too far away—but she doesn’t seem to be in distress. She goes about ten paces, then motions at someone off-screen, apparently standing under or behind the spot where the CCTV camera is mounted.

Kamden grips her handbag and waits, her eyes following someone or something moving toward her that isn’t visible on the video.

Until he steps close enough to enter the frame.

Then he is there, his back to the camera, taking her phone from her outstretched hand. When he backs up out of the shot again, Kamden strikes the same pose from the Instagram photo. Then she breaks her stance and strides out of the frame too.

That’s it.

No car. No face of the mystery man in the video. It doesn’t matter, though. This is enough.

Because I recognize him anyway.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SEVEN

Everything tilts,and I have to grab my desk to stop from going over. I gulp deeply, hyperventilation threatening to kick in. I force myself to hold my breath while I try to digest what I’m seeing.

The man in the video is James. I’ve seen his silhouette from the back a thousand times—followed him a thousand times—on hikes, walking Bilbo, racing bikes, chasing him into the ocean off 30A.

Now I have the answer I’ve been searching for.

Edward’s actions aren’t an attempt to avoid James being associated with something unthinkable that happened on the property Edward tried to purchase.

Edward’s actions are an attempt to protect James from something unthinkableJamesdid on that property.

There has to be another explanation.Anything less than murder would be a better alternative. I let my imagination run wild in a frenzied effort to make sense of things.

What if Kamden and James parted ways after the video, but someone else got a hold of her? That someone could be framing him now…and Edward could be acting to protect James from his…connection…to Kamden Avery—to a murdered woman he had a relationship with.

It’s revolting, but at least it’s not murder.

I clutch this thread like I’m ten thousand leagues under and it’s my oxygen line. It’s something, but it’s tenuous.

A hard knot forms in my center, then grows, fed by anger and resentment and desperation. I’ve been swimming in this sea of uncertainty long enough. Galvanized by determination, I sprint to my Jeep.