Page 42 of The Sister's Curse

I rested my chin on my knees. “That makes more sense than any theory I’ve got right now. But why now, after so long?”

“When you think an injustice has been committed, there’s no time limit on anger,” Jasper said.

I looked at him.

“We all have cases like that.” He shrugged.

“Chief remembers,” I said. “I guess it’s not a stretch to think that Dana’s alive in someone else’s memory, too.”

“Chief’s a good man. Listen to him.”

I nodded.

“You’ll get it worked out, Koray. I know you will.”

He packed up his gear and left me on the beach. Jasper had confidence in me, but I wasn’t so sure I was any closer to figuring out who the perpetrator was than I was the night Mason drowned.

I heard a car engine above me, on the road. Near the caution tape, a black SUV idled. Jeff Sumner was staring down at the beach, his expression cold and unreadable behind his sunglasses.

Our gazes met, and he drove off.

I didn’t know why he was there. Concern? Curiosity? An attempt to control? It was hard to guess.

Water lapped at the edges of my sneakers. I frowned as I saw something shiny at my feet.

I reached down, into the silt, picked up something green. I stared at its iridescent surface.

A river pearl.

My gaze narrowed. I’d gone my whole life without finding a river pearl…and I’d seen two in three days.

I sifted through the sand, finding nothing else.

I stared at the palm of my hand. In defiance of the gathering summer heat, it felt like an ice cube.

In spite of myself, I shuddered.

—

I needed to get closer to Dana.

Her sister, Vivian, still lived in Bayern County, at theirchildhood address. I coasted over ribbons of two-lane roads. I found the address on a dented rural mailbox and followed a dirt driveway into a forest. After a quarter mile, the drive ended in a clearing where a farmhouse stood. The house likely dated back a century, but it was in pretty decent repair—slate shingles were stained from acid rain, and the windows were still intact, but it looked as if there hadn’t been any updates in decades. Gardens surrounded the house, a cottage riot of orange ditch lilies, catnip, and purple bee balm. A garden studded with tomatoes and sunflowers sprawled out back.

A woman with jet-black hair sat on a porch swing. She was pale, with silver rings flashing on her fingers as she smoked a cigarette and watched me with narrowed eyes.

I climbed up onto the porch. “Hello. I’m Lt. Anna Koray with the Bayern County Sheriff’s Office. Are you Vivian Carson?”

She looked me up and down. “I’m Viv. And I’ve been expecting you.”

Viv leaned forward and gestured to a wicker chair and coffee table between us. There were two glasses of iced tea there, with fresh ice crackling in the heat.

“You were expecting me?” I blurted.

Vivian looked down at a potted plant on the porch. It looked like an ordinary Boston fern, but I saw something moving underneath it, the undulating scales of a black rat snake. A tongue flickered out in my direction.

“Is he a pet?” I’d spent a lot of time around snakes, and I knew this one wasn’t venomous.

“No. He’s an employee. Pest control.”