Page 42 of Secrets Along the Shore

He wasn’t wrong. None of this was based on anything but a gut feeling. And gut feelings alone didn’t solve crimes. At least, not that I knew of.

“There’s really no one in these that hits you as at least a possibility?” Reuben asked again.

I hesitated. I didn’t want to be vulnerable. I didn’t want to tell him one thing Ididremember, that I’d never told anyone.

“Noa?”

The man could read my face and it was unnerving.

I ducked away and engaged in a deep study of the pages in front of me.

“Listen.” Reuben tried again. “I’m not trying to go places you don’t want to go, but if it could save lives . . .”

Sure. Cast the responsibility of the victims’ lives on me like I was a witness withholding critical information.

But this time, I sensed her.

I sensed Sophia next to me, even though I couldn’t see her

He’s not wrong, she whispered into my subconscious.You know what you did. You don’t remember the details, but you know what you did.

It might have saved my life too. I knew that. I’d always known that. But I didn’twantto know that.

Tell him.

Sophia prompted me. I resisted.

Be our voice.

Those words resonated with me like a chorus from a thousand unnamed victims.

“I knew him.” I heard my own voice, void of tone, of inflection. I sounded dead inside. I was dead inside in many ways. It was how I’d survived for ten years and part of me desperately wanted to go back to that safe place.

“You knew him?” Reuben echoed. “Who did you know?

“My abductor.” My voice had dropped to a whisper. I picked at green paint that was flaking off the picnic table.

I felt Reuben tense. I could tell he was also tempering his reaction.

“You’d met him before?”

“No. Not like that. That’s not what I mean.” How did I explain without losing credibility? Did Ihavecredibility?

I don’t know if Reuben thought it would help somehow, and in normal circumstances, it would have shut me down completely. But he reached out and squeezed my hand. Just for a moment. Then he dropped it.

“It’s ok.”

Those two words were enough. For once, Reuben wasn’t coming at me with a shovel trying to dig into every possible memory. He was giving me some space. Some time.

“When I was kid,” I started, “I watched people, and I studied people. You can learn a lot about what makes a person tick when you do that. What influences them to make the choices they make.”

Reuben nodded.

I continued. “When I say I knew my abductor, I mean, I knew what triggered him. I knew things about how he processed circumstances. I knew by how he interacted with us that he was confident. Sure of himself. So when he was—trying to kill me—I knew if I pretended to die too soon, he’d know it wasn’t real. But if I waited until just before I was going to pass out, I could maybe fool him into thinking he’d succeeded. He was confident in his ability to kill. So I used that. I used that to stay alive.”

Our eyes met.

Reuben’s narrowed. He was digesting what I’d said.