Page 177 of Secrets Along the Shore

“Hemurderedpeople, James! Not one murder.Two.”

“I only knew about the one at that point!”

“And if you had come forward then, Teresa Anderswould still be alive.”

James’s jaw goes rigid. He doesn’t argue because he knows I’m right.

I shake my head. “This is over.” I turn toward the door. “I’m going to wait for Cole outside. Bilbo!” I click my tongue, and my dog bounds off the couch to follow me.

“Sophie, please! I didn’t mean—” I hear James coming up fast behind me, and he snatches my arm.

At the same time I spin toward James, Bilbo lets out a ferocious growl and launches at him. Bilbo’s jaws clamp down on James’s arm, and James yelps, stumbling backward as he pointlessly tries to shake the dog off.

“Release!” I order. Bilbo immediately releases his hold and sprints back to stand protectively between me and James, his weight pressing against my legs, every muscle in his lean frame taut.

James cradles his bleeding arm, his face twisted in disbelief that the dog that has been his friend—his walking-buddy, his park-pal—has turned on him.

Kind of how I feel.

“Try that again and I’ll let him have his way,” I say, then walk out the door, Bilbo flanking me. We leave James in my kitchen, holding his arm against his chest, no doubt pondering the thousand ways his life is about to implode.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FOUR

The sun hoverslow in the west, a gorgeous honey dripping down the horizon into the river. I sit on the bank, in a quiet, grassy spot where Daniel and I used to go for picnics. I haven’t been here in a while.

Today I needed to be.

Bilbo brings over the stick he’s been chewing and settles in beside me. “It’s just you and me now, bud,” I say, scratching behind his ear. “Guess we should be used to that by now.”

The waning sunshine warms my face, and a cricket hops on and off my arm. Grace’s words float back to me—the ones she spoke the first time I saw her after I ended things with James.

“I feel so blindsided,”I told her.“I still can’t believe James or Edward—or Matthew—could be tangled up in a murder. It’s surreal.”

She hugged me long and hard, whispering,“Aw, hon. The thing about people is, it’s not what’s on the surface—the part they let you see—that ends up breakin’ you. It’s all that lies beneath.”

Truer words were never spoken.

My eyes move from the sky to my right palm, where my engagement ring sits. A thousand sparkles dance over my skin when I twist it in the light.

James is out of my life now. A cancer cut out of my heart with a hacksaw. It wasn’t clean, but at least it was quick. This ring is what’sleft of almost a year of my life. I hold it up to the sunlight, the river’s never-ending waters flowing in the background.

I’ve seen movies where the woman tosses the ring after a bad breakup. That always seemed crazy to me. Now I understand the compulsion.

I really do.

But I’m not Kate Winslet, and this is a twenty-thousand-dollar ring. So yeah, I’m keeping it. There are some pricey items on my to-do and to-buy lists, and I think it’s only fair that James foots the bill. It’s not like he’ll complain. He’s got his hands full with felony charges and unwinding his doomed campaign.

“I’ve always wanted to take one of those European river cruises,” I say to Bilbo. “What do you think? Good idea?”

Bilbo chews his stick more aggressively.

I’ll take that as a yes.

I heave a sigh. It’s been nice sitting here for the last hour, away from the noise. Away from the well-meaning texts and emails—the “I’m-so-sorrys” and the “It’ll-get-betters.” But I can’t stay here forever. There’s work to do, and the world doesn’t stop turning just because mine has.

“Come on, boy,” I push up from the ground, turn away from the river, and head for the dirt turnaround where I left my Jeep. As soon as I crest the embankment surrounding the turnaround, my Jeep comes into view and I see it—a note stuck under the driver’s-side windshield wiper.