Page 4 of Secrets Along the Shore

Haveyou ever wanted to run from the thoughts in your head? The kind that swirl like a kaleidoscope and become more convoluted and confusing the faster they spin? I spent the rest of the day in my recliner that I’d gotten from Goodwill for twenty bucks a few weeks back. I’d arranged a yellow and gray comforter over it to hide the unattractive rose-colored velour. The comforter felt safe to me, I don’t know why and I’m not sure I could ever explain it to anyone. I wrapped a second comforter around myself—this one was also a pale yellow with little white paisley swirls—and then I assumed the fetal position for several hours.

There were no tears and not really much emotion. I felt dead inside. Dead and bewildered. I think sometimes that state of being is far worse than finding one’s self raw and broken. At least then you know you’re alive. You’re not robotic in how you approach situations, and you’re not like a cardboard cut-out figure maneuvering your way through life.

In some ways, I wanted to bleed again. I wanted to feel that bleeding terror, the pain, and even the horror. I wanted to know that Iwas alive, and that he had not won. But ten years later, it seemed I’d sunk so far into the emotional capacity of an AI generated best friend that nothing could throw me.

Until today.

Perhaps it was the snake under the missing woman’s window, or that sudden slap of realization that maybe—just maybe—he had come back. But whatever the reason, it didn’t send me into a spiral. It sent me into a conscious comatose state. I was awake. I was aware. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything else but stare at the door to my apartment and watch the doorknob. Wait for it to turn. To rattle. To be wrestled into submission by someone who would break in and violate me all over again. Prove to me that I was powerless. At the end of my story, I was, and would always be, a victim. The one who lived.

When the door finally did rattle, somewhere around four in the afternoon, I just watched it. A brass doorknob. The kind that was polished and reflected your distorted image.

A knock.

“Noa Lorne?”

It was a man’s voice.

Of course it was.

Why not make my worst nightmare worse?

I didn’t like men. I hadn’t before I was taken, and I certainly didn’t after. There were lots of reasons why, but they didn’t matter. Iwantedto trust men—or some of them anyway. I knew in my head they couldn’t all be bad, considering I knew some women had unashamed confidence in their significant other.

The knock reverberated again. This time, a firm rap that I immediately interpreted as a perceived sense of authority and self-confidence.

I stayed curled up in my chair, staring at the door, willing him to go away. I knew who it was. I recognized the timbre of his voice, and I had expected nothing less but to have him at my doorstep today.

Detective Reuben Walker, or “Ghost”, as most people had coined him, had developed quite the reputation in the state for solving cold cases. He was in his in late thirties and anytime someone turned up missing, he compared the case notes to the old case files on theSerpent. It was his obsession. He wanted to be the one to crack the case. The one who helped me remember.

“Noa?” Another strong rap. “I know you’re there.”

“Get a search warrant.” I raised my voice just enough for him to hear, but not enough to signal any emotion other than disinterest.

A long pause.

Then, “There was a snake under the window of the young woman who went missing.”

I didn’t answer. I knew that already. He hoped to entice me like someone tempted a child with a lollipop.

Try again, Ghost.

He did. “She’s eighteen.”

That wasn’t new information, but it did remind me that this was not a child abduction case. That would change things a bit. How the case was investigated, the urgency, the probability of calling in the FBI, Amber Alerts, etc.

“Do you know Sophia Bergstrom?” Detective Walker’s voice echoed against my door.

That must be the name of the missing woman. I didn’t know her.

“I wanted to compare notes.” He tried again.

This time, I unwrapped myself from the comforter and managed to stand up. I padded across the floor, unhooked the bolt, twisted the lock on the doorknob, andopen sesame.

We stared at each other for a thick moment filled with unmet expectations. His, that I would somehow supply the magic missing piece to bust wide the Serpent’s file. Me, that Detective Reuben Walker would somehow disappear. For good.

“I don’t have notes to compare,” I finally stated. “You know that.”

There was a flicker in his brown eyes. A shadow of whiskers on his lower face. Tousled dark hair. He’d been ten years old when I was born, but the pitfall of living in a small town, was that you were only ever separated in life by one or maybe two people. I’d gone to high-school with his younger sister, Taylor. We’d not been friends. At all. She was popular. I hung out in the corners . . . and then I’d vanished.