Page 31 of Secrets Along the Shore

Jean and Livia clasped hands.

I watched them and I felt like I was outside of the moment, looking in. Hovering. No longer was Noa Lorne—I—in the room. It was just Jean and Livia. One clinging for support, one trying to imbue hope in the other. And then me, watching from the outside and knowing the truth.

The truth was that Livia was wrong. There were a lot of situations that were hopeless.

Fingers gripping mine in the darkness.

Livia was wrong in trying to encourage Jean into believing her sister would be found.

A clutching grasp, trying to hold on.

Livia was wrong that it took “just one thing”. Sometimes it took millions of “things” and even then, those “things” never fit together to make a complete answer.

Fingers slipping away, and then her scream . . .

“Noa?”

I jerked my head toward Livia who was drilling me with a worried gaze.

“Do you need a glass of water?” Jean pushed to her feet.

“No. No, I’m fine,” I answered.

Jean and Livia weren’t holding hands any more. Instead, they were unified in watching me as though I was coming out of a coma and they were waiting to see if I was all right.

“You totally blanked out on us.” Livia lifted her hand, and I knew she was going to reach for me with her instinct to give comfort.

I drew back in my chair.

She dropped her hand.

“I’m sorry.” I blinked rapidly to clear my eyes. My head. I had been somewhere else and I had been here, both at the same time. It was unnerving. I didn’t want to remember. I didn’t want to feel anything. “I think—I think that’s all the questions I had.”

I pushed to my feet and Jean rounded the desk, her arm out prepared to catch me if I fell.

I didn’t. I wasn’t on the verge of passing out or anything. I was just bewildered. The lies we tell ourselves . . .

It took everything in me not to speak as we left Jean and the florist shop behind. It took everything in me not to turn and tell Jean what we both knew but just didn’t want to say.

Rosalie isn’t coming home.

She’s dead.

CHAPTER

NINE

It wasa creak in the floor outside my bedroom door that jerked me awake. I never slept deeply. Not as a kid and not as an adult. Thingsdogo bump in the night and in my experience, it never results in anything good.

I didn’t move from my position, curled on my side, hugging a pillow. But my eyes were wide open, adjusting to the darkness. To make a floorboard creak in my apartment meant weight had to shift on it. They didn’t just creak because of unseen breezes like in old farmhouses. I had a first-floor apartment, so I ran through my mental checklist of things I’d done to safeguard it before bed.

Doors locked? Check.

Windows shut and locked? Check.

Alarm system turned on? Uncheck. The landlord hadn’t installed them and wouldn’t approve of me paying to install my own.

Doorbell camera on?