Page 211 of Secrets Along the Shore

“They think you had something to do with it, don’t they?” I said. “Your own parents. That’s why they left you here.”

Her mouth opened, but I didn’t think a sound came out. She looked away again. She was hiding something. Protecting someone. Even now, all these years later.

But who?

I let the silence stretch for a beat before I softened my voice. “Tell me about Livvie. Please. I want to understand. I don’t even remember her, Becca. It’s like…something wiped her from my memory.”

Becca’s gaze snapped back to mine. A soft longing filled her eyes. “Not something,” she said. “Someone.”

Goosebumps rose along my arms. “You remember more than you’re telling,” I said.

Becca stepped back into the doorway. “You need to go, Scarlett. Leave this place. Don’t come back.”

“Becca—”

“You won’t be safe for much longer.”

She shut the door before I could respond.

I stood there for a long moment, realizing Becca knew everything. But she wasn’t going to tell me—at least not yet.

As I turned to go, a single name echoed in my mind, the answer to reaching Becca.

Livvie.

The girl who stood between us.

If I wanted to reach Becca, maybe the only way was to go through Livvie—the girl I was forced to forget.

Becca’s wordsechoed in my mind long after the door closed on me.You won’t be safe for much longer.

The weight of her warning settled into my chest like the heaviest boulder on the lake’s edge. It wasn’t just a deflection. It was fear. And if Becca Bishop—who had spent years barricading herself away from the world—was afraid, then I had every reason to be terrified.

I walked down her front steps with leaden feet, my eyes scanning the treetops and the empty gravel road beyond. I climbed into my car and sat for a moment, hands on the wheel, trying to calm the buzz of anxiety fraying the nerves under my skin.

Becca was protecting someone. That much was clear. Her excuses were too smooth, her composure too practiced. But the guilt in her eyes when I said her parents had left her behind—that was real. That wasn’t the look of someone who didn’t care. It was the look of someone caring too much—knowing too much.

If I was going to get her to talk, I’d need to give her something first. Something she wasn’t expecting and needed.

I’d told Becca I didn’t remember her sister, and that was the truth. Or maybe a half-truth. Livvie existed in fragments. A sweet smile, a flash of pale hair, a sense of warmth in the summer sun. But I didn’t remember her as a person. I didn’t rememberlovingher. But I know I did.

Somewhere deep inside, Livvie was a part of me.

I leaned my forehead against the steering wheel, the leather cool against my skin. Somewhere inside me, Livvie waited. Somewhere in the dark, behind the walls forced around my mind.

If I tore them down, what else would I find?

What had happened to me?

What had I done?

I drove back to the lodge in a daze, barely seeing the road. The lake glimmered off to my right, deceptively beautiful. Calm. Still. As if it hadn’t once taken a child.

I pulled into the driveway and shut off the engine. The wind rustled through the trees, sending shivers down my spine. I couldn’t go back to Becca without bringing her something. Something real. If she was stuck in the purgatory of guilt, she couldn’t grieve her sister. She couldn’t move forward.

Neither could I.

Inside, the lodge was dim and stale. I hadn’t opened the windows in days. I hadn’t dared.