Two

I didn’t sleep that night.

Every creak of the old cottage felt like footsteps. Every gust of wind rattling the windows sounded like someone was whispering my name.nI kept telling myself I was being paranoid. That the figure I’d seen by the trees was just a trick of shadows and adrenaline.

But paranoia has a way of keeping you alive.

By sunrise, my nerves were raw. I sat at the kitchen table, staring at the broken mug I hadn’t thrown away yet, tracing the sharp edge of a shard like it might give me answers. All I got was the urge to drink.

Two years sober, and mornings like this still whispered just one won’t hurt.

I pushed the shard into the trash and grabbed my jacket instead. If I stayed in the house, I’d drown myself in memories. If I kept moving, maybe I could breathe.

The town was already stirring when I drove down to Main Street. Windemere Bay always smelled like salt and fried dough in the mornings, the fishermen hauling in their catch while the bakery filled the air with sugar and yeast. It was almost enough to make the place feel normal.

Almost.

People glanced at me when I walked into the diner, the way they always did. Not hostile. Not friendly. Just… curious. Like they knew I was here to hide and were waiting to see if I’d fail at it. Maybe I was overthinking it but the looks definitely felt different.

“Morning, Elise.”

Rose, the waitress, gave me a smile too practiced to be genuine. I slid into a booth near the window. The coffee came black and bitter, the way I liked it.

I almost convinced myself I could fade back into my routine. Almost.

Until the bell over the door jingled and Sheriff Kinney walked in.

Our eyes met across the room. He tipped his hat like we were old friends.

I looked back down at my mug.

He didn’t come to my table, but I could feel him watching. And maybe I imagined it, but I swear he smirked when he paid his check and left. Like he knew I hadn’t slept. Like he wanted me to know I was already in over my head.

By the time I drove back to the cottage, my hands were shaking on the steering wheel. I told myself it was nothing. That the figure last night was nothing. That the sheriff’s silent warning was nothing and I was just overthinking.

But my brain has a way of reminding you when you’re wrong.

I found a threat nailed to my door.

A string of fish guts, still wet and reeking, pinned by a rusted nail through the wood. The stench hit me before I even stepped out of the truck.

My stomach lurched.

It wasn’t just a warning. It was a message and who did was lame, they would have found something more interesting to threaten me with.

I yanked the mess free and hurled it into the weeds, then leaned against the doorframe, trying to steady my breath. Whoever left it had been close enough to enter my house.

Few years ago I would not be scared of threats because I was more than able to fight back, but when I left the job I dropped all the weapons. All I have now to fight back is a kitchen knife I hope the person behind this has nothing.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Unknown number.

I hesitated, then answered.

“You should’ve kept walking yesterday.” A man’s voice. Low. Smooth. Unfamiliar. “Stay out of it, Elise.”

My grip tightened around the phone. “Who is this?”

Click.

The line went dead.

I stood frozen, staring at my reflection in the cottage window. My face looked older than twenty-eight. Rough. But my eyes, they looked the same as they had in L.A., the same as they’d been the night Tommy Reyes died. Sharp. Angry. Ready to fight.

I thought I’d buried that part of me.

Apparently not deep enough.

I locked every window. Every door. Pulled the curtains shut and sat with my back against the wall, listening to the ocean pound against the cliffs. The sound had always calmed me before. Today it just reminded me how easy it would be for someone to disappear here.

By afternoon, the fear turned into something else. A pulse of anger that wouldn’t quiet down.

Sadie Cooper deserved better than being zipped up in a bag and written off as an accident. Her parents deserved better. And I deserved better than to spend the rest of my life running from the wreckage of who I used to be.

The town wanted me invisible. The sheriff wanted me to be silent. Whoever called me wanted me scared.

Too bad.

I grabbed my jacket and keys. If I couldn’t shake the ghosts, maybe I could at least drag them into the light.

The library smelled like mildew and dust, the way small-town libraries always do. I told myself I was just there to distract my brain, but I walked straight to the back, to the stacks with the old newspapers.

It didn’t take long.

“Teen Drowns Off Bay Shore. Sheriff Urges Caution.”

“Another Tragic Accident During the Founder's Festival.”

“Family Mourns Daughter Lost to Rough Tide.”

Decades of stories. All the same. Different names, different dates, but always the same conclusion: accident.

Seventeen girls in the last twenty years.

The hairs on my arms stood up.

It was a pattern so obvious a rookie could’ve seen it. And yet no one had. Or maybe they had, and just didn’t care.

I snapped a photo of one of the clippings with my phone. My hand shook as I did it, not from fear, but from something sharper.

Purpose.

It had been years since I felt it.

By the time I walked out of the library, the sun was low, casting the water in a copper glow. For a moment, I let myself breathe, trying not to think too much.

Then I saw him.

A man leaning against the hood of a truck across the street.

Tall. Broad shoulders under a black jacket. Tattoos running down his hands, disappearing under his sleeves. His gaze was fixed on me like he already knew who I was.

He didn’t smile. He didn’t look away.

And something in my chest told me he wasn’t here to read but to see me.