by Cynthia Eden
The cop hadn’t realized a body was stashed in his fort, either.
“Sand and bird shit,” Trey snapped as he jerked off his cap and waved it at them. “That’s all you’re gonna find out there.”
“Then that’s what we’ll find.” Gabe kept his voice mild. Eve was determined to go out to that lighthouse. He’d stopped her from going out in the storm—because that would have been suicide in the dark—but he wasn’t holding her back any longer. Especially since he wanted to search the place, too.
Trey swore. “Do you even know how to handle that boat?”
Gabe smiled. Since he’d owned a boat just like this one when he was fifteen, he figured he could handle it just fine. “I’ll get by.”
“Look . . . don’t stay out there long, okay? The forecaster is saying the storm in the Gulf is stalling, and the longer it stays over that warm water, the better chance it has of turning into a depression, or, hell, even a tropical storm.” Trey ran a hand through his hair. “That’s the last damn thing I need. If a storm that strong comes this way, the power company always cuts off the feed to the island.”
“We lost power last night,” Gabe reminded him. The boat was almost ready.
“For less than an hour—and don’t even get me started on the number of calls I got then.” Trey was still glowering. “And half of those calls were from Pierce.”
From the corner of his eye, Gabe saw Eve stiffen.
“He’s worried about you,” Trey said quietly. “Just like I am.”
Eve crept toward the cop. “Is he . . . here?”
Johnny edged nearer to them, not even trying to hide the fact that he was eavesdropping.
Trey turned to glare at him. “Don’t you have something else to do? Shit, I thought you were supposed to be helping Clay with the search, too.”
Johnny seemed to pale. “I . . . always will help Clay. Always.”
Right, like that wasn’t a little too intense. But Johnny turned and backed toward another boat.
When Johnny was out of range, Trey said, “Pierce was in Mobile an hour ago, so he’ll be on the island by the time you get back. I think . . .” Trey looked down at the cap he cradled in his hands. “I think Pierce was trying to give you space, but he couldn’t stay away. He knows you’re Jessica, just like I do. The guy had to know when he took one look at you.”
But Eve shook her head. “In Atlanta, Pierce acted as if he weren’t even sure I was Jessica. Why show such concern now? Why would he—”
“Fear,” Trey answered flatly. “It can make a man act insane. He’s afraid of finding you, then having to lose you all over again.”
The boat’s motor growled to life.
“I know just how he feels,” Trey said, his words barely rising over that growl. “I found you, then had to watch you go off with this asshole.”
Gabe didn’t exactly like being called an asshole.
“Alexa’s parents are coming in.” Trey pushed away from the boat. “They’ll arrive after lunchtime. And I get to tell them—hell—what? That we don’t know if their daughter ran away or if a serial killer has her?”
“Let the FBI do the talking,” Gabe advised the cop as his hands tightened around the wheel. “That’s the shit they’re good at.”
Trey’s eyes met his. “Keep a close eye on her. That lighthouse is crumbling apart, and one misstep could send someone to the hospital.”
He didn’t plan to make any missteps.
Carefully, he took the boat out of the marina. Eve was silent as they slipped away. He glanced at the boats, taking in his surroundings carefully and—
Gabe’s eyes narrowed when he caught sight of Johnny. Still watching them. Glaring. While Gabe stared at him, Johnny lifted his hand and flipped him off.
Then Johnny hurried inside the marina.
That little jerk was getting on his last nerve. When he came back, he’d deal with Johnny . . . and he’d find out just what Clay Thompson knew about the days leading up to Jessica Montgomery’s disappearance.
But first . . . first he had to let Eve confront a nightmare that had kept her up all night.
The lighthouse waited.
WHEN TREY SAW Johnny stalking toward him, he barely contained an eye roll. I don’t need this shit.
But he wasn’t particularly surprised to see Johnny there. The kid’s uncle owned the marina, and Johnny was always hanging around the place. Clay should have taken the guy out on the search.
“Who is that jerk?” Johnny demanded. His nose was still swollen and his lip was busted.
“Someone you don’t want to mess with again.” He had enough on his plate without having to worry about Gabe beating the shit out of Johnny.
“He a cop?”
“No.” The boat was chugging ahead. The lighthouse. Of all the places, why the hell would Jessica want to go there? No one went out there, not anymore.
Sure, a few years back some folks had gotten together and tried to raise money to protect the place. They’d spent a fucking fortune shoring up sand out there to try and make the island bigger, but then that sand had just broken away—the “new” island had split in two, and folks turned away from the place.
There wasn’t any damn thing out there.
“I know the woman with him. I knew her as soon as I turned around and saw her on the West End.”
Now that wasn’t real surprising. Johnny had been living on the island with his uncle for the last five years.
“You don’t forget a woman who looks like that.”
Where was the guy going with that?
“I remember . . .” Johnny mused as he tilted his head to the side. “You two used to hook up, right?”
“Don’t you have work to do?” He and the FBI agents had commandeered some of the boats and pulled in the locals to help search for Alexa’s body.
Because the options don’t just have to be that the woman ran away or a serial killer took her. We live on a fucking island. She could have just drowned. Every year, some drunk tourist did.
“She left your ass.”
He could totally understand the temptation to punch Johnny in the face. No wonder Gabe had sent the guy flying over the bar. But I’m supposed to be the cop, and people are watching.
Early morning fishermen were all over the place. Too many eyes and ears.
“Heard she caught you cheating on her with some other blonde . . . and she threw you to the side.”
He tried to keep his body loose. “That’s not what happened. You shouldn’t listen to gossip, kid.”
“Then you tried to get her back, right here at the party at the marina, right? But she ran out on you, left in the middle of that big dance.”
She had. He’d called after her, but Jessica hadn’t stopped. What the fuck had he been supposed to do? Beg? So he’d stayed put, watched her leave.
Then she’d vanished.
“Bet it pisses you off that she’s with that other guy now, bet it makes you so mad you want to pound his ass into the ground.”
You’re supposed to be the cop.
“If it were me, I’d go after him. I wouldn’t take no sh—”
“It’s not you.” His voice was low, lethal. When he’d been a kid, his father’s voice had roared every time he got angry. Trey wasn’t like his old man. When he got mad, he went soft. His voice a whisper of hate. Of fury.
Johnny backed up a step.
“Get to work, Johnny. And forget everything you think you know about me and my business.”
He looked back out at the water. Gabe and Jessica were gone.
“When Clay comes back, tell him to come see me. We need to talk some more.” About Jessica. About the past. About the hell that could come calling to paradise.
“When he comes back,” Johnny repeated, but the fellow’s voice was low, hoarse.
Trey gave a grim nod, then he headed toward the boats.
THE PLACE LOOKED just like her painting.
Too much like it.
Eve stared up a
t the lighthouse. Gabe had anchored the boat near the narrow sandy stretch of beach—beach that wasn’t near the lighthouse, or at least not touching it. The narrow strip of sand—Sand Island—was actually to the west of the lighthouse, and she had to cross the water, sinking and struggling as the waves pushed her, in order to reach the rocky spot that was the home of the lighthouse.
Her shoes were in her hands. She wore a pair of shorts, and her legs were wet from the crashing waves. As Eve was crossing that divide of water—the narrow beach on one side of her, the lighthouse on the other—the saltwater stung her skin. It splashed toward her face when she sank deeper, and she remembered—
The taste of saltwater in my mouth. Swimming, struggling to stay afloat even as my limbs burned.
The rocks seemed to bite into her bare feet and she was desperate to get out of that water. And as she trudged forward, she tilted her head back and tried to see the top of the lighthouse.
Seagulls cried out.
“Doesn’t look as if anyone has been here in a while.” Gabe made his way to the lighthouse entrance, or what Eve guessed was the entrance. He shoved against an old door, but nothing happened. Grunting, he tried again.
The door didn’t open.
Eve slowly made her way around the other side. She didn’t see any other entrances. The lighthouse was made of heavy bricks, surging high into the sky.
Above the entrance she saw the number 1871. Must have been when it was built. It was odd to think of this place out there, on the little pile of rocks, lasting for so long.
Gabe turned away from the door. His gaze swept the narrow section of rocks that was their perch. “I need something to pry it open.”
There were two rectangular windows higher up on the lighthouse. For an instant Eve could have sworn she saw someone in that top window, staring down at her. “Gabe!”
He’d grabbed what looked like a long metal pole that had washed onto the rocks. He was pushing it against the door, straining with all his might, his muscles bulging—
And the door opened. It swung in with a hard screech, the cry just like a woman’s scream. Eve froze at that sound.
Gabe dropped the pole. Stepped inside.
Sweetheart, come with me . . . let’s play a game.
Eve hurried forward. She put her hands on the old bricks of the lighthouse. She expected terror to hit her.
It didn’t.
Just as before, when she’d first set foot on Dauphin Island, she had the feeling that she was home. Where I belong.
Wary, she moved inside. The place smelled of the sea, and sunlight trickled through the windows from above. The spiral staircase was old, rickety, and it looked as if one wrong or too hard step would send it crumbling to the ground.
Gabe was at the base of the staircase, about to go up—
“Stop.”
He turned toward her.
Eve shook her head. “I don’t want you to get hurt.” She motioned toward the railing he’d been about to grab. “That always comes loose. Be careful.”
“Always?”
Her breath was heavy in her lungs. “Always.” Because she’d been here. She had the memories. Running up those stairs. Nearly falling when the railing had wrenched loose beneath her hand.
But . . . someone had caught her. Wrapped an arm about her.
Be careful, don’t want to ruin the fun . . .
And she’d laughed. She could hear the echo of her laughter in that place. When she’d painted the lighthouse, she was terrified, but now that she was there, inside . . .
I’m not scared here. I like this place. I belong here.
And that felt wrong.
“I want to go up first,” Eve said.
His dark brows climbed, but Gabe didn’t argue. Good. She slipped by him, didn’t use that railing, and started climbing up all of those steep, twisting steps that led to the top of the lighthouse. The waves pounded outside, loud, rough.
“Watch out for step number nine,” Eve said without looking down. “It’s cracked.” Because she could see herself, jumping over that step, laughing.
You won’t get me . . .
“Just how much do you remember?” Gabe asked as he followed her up.
“Not enough.” She kept climbing. They reached the first window. She looked out. “I . . . that’s the fort.”
His shoulder brushed against hers. “Yes.”
They had a perfect view of the fort from that vantage point. A perfect view of the place where the poor woman’s body had been entombed.
Gabe leaned closer to her. “I’m betting if you use a pair of binoculars, you’ll be able to see the golf course perfectly, too.”
She could already see the beach that led to the old country club.
Eve turned away from that window. Went up higher. Smelled the ocean.
Her hand slid over the scar on her neck.
“Eve.” Gabe’s voice was sharp because—
She didn’t just smell the ocean any longer. With every step she took, she was inhaling a deeper, cloying scent.
“Eve, stop.”
But she was almost running up those rickety steps now, her footsteps pounding so hard they reverberated and—
Someone was looking out from the second window. Eve had thought that she’d seen someone, just for a moment, when she was down below.
Eve staggered to a stop. Her right hand fisted around the shaky railing.
And she stared at the woman who was half tucked in the nook that led to the second window. A woman with blond hair and a bloodstained body. The woman’s head was tipped forward, that length of blond hair hiding her face.
The scent of death—now she understood that cloying scent.
“Alexa?” Eve whispered. Then she reached out. Her fingers slid under the woman’s chin.
“No, Eve, don’t!” Gabe jerked her away from the blonde.
The woman’s head tilted back an instant and—sand poured from her mouth.
“Oh, my God.” Nausea rolled inside Eve and she thought she’d be violently ill, right there. Her cheeks went ice cold, then flaming hot as she stared at the woman.
“Alexa,” Gabe whispered.
Her throat had been cut and . . . sand was there, too. Falling from her wound, mixing with the blood on her clothes.
Eve spun away from that woman. She grabbed for the windowsill because her knees were knocking together. This place—it was too much.
Let’s play, sweetheart . . . His voice, that rasp, but . . .
You’ll never catch me. I’m better at this game. Her nails scraped across the windowsill. That echo of a response—it was her echo. She could actually see herself, shouting back those words and laughing as she ran down the twisting stairs of the lighthouse.
The lighthouse that the killer used.
Her head lifted. She stared out that window. She could see straight across that water, all the way to the fort. There was a faint rustling sound behind her, but she refused to look back. Gabe was checking the body. She couldn’t see that. She wouldn’t.
Eve tried to suck in a deep breath, and then—then a light, a flash, hit her eyes. She raised her hand, blocking the glare instinctively, and that was when she saw the second boat.
A boat that was idling in the water, just a few feet away from the small, sandy island. They hadn’t heard it approach. Because of the waves? Because they were so far up the lighthouse?
“G-Gabe?”
Someone was down there. A man in a baseball cap, running back toward the other boat. A sleek motorboat with a blue covering on the top and blue stripes on the side.
“What the fuck?” Gabe demanded, then he was running back down the stairs, heading below, rushing toward the guy in the baseball cap. Eve wasn’t about to be left behind with Alexa’s body. She ran after him, her feet flying recklessly over those stairs.
Gabe beat her outside, and as soon as she shot out of the door after him, Eve could hear the other boat’s engine as it roared away. The guy was fast—and he w
as driving straight for Dauphin Island.
“Stop!” she shouted. Right. Like that was going to do any good at all. Then she sprinted toward her and Gabe’s boat. He was already in the little stretch of water between the lighthouse and Sand Island. She snatched off her shoes again and followed him, scrambling up the sand.
Their boat was just a few feet away and—
It exploded. The whole boat flew up, sending a ball of fire flashing up into the air, and Eve fell back into the churning water.
WADE WALKED ALONG the ramparts at the old fort, his gaze on the waves in the distance. The skeleton had finally been removed from its tomb in the fort. All of that time . . . trapped in the walls.
He fucking hoped the woman had been dead before the sadistic prick walled her in.
Victoria would do her thing with the remains. How that woman could stand being around the dead . . . he’d never know. And Victoria talked to the bodies. He’d heard her on too many occasions. Talking as if the dead could respond to her.
They can’t, Viki. They’re long gone.
His gaze slid over the water once more—
What. The. Hell.
He could see a black plume of smoke out there, rising high, billowing into the sky. Smoke meant fire . . . and that location, that was where the lighthouse was.
Gabe had gone to the lighthouse. When he’d called Gabe with the news about Clay, his buddy had told him he was renting a boat to go out there. Gabe and Eve.
And the place was burning.
He shouted for the cops even as fear tightened around his heart.
“EVE!” GABE ROARED her name. Their boat had been blasted into a hundred pieces, chunks had flown everywhere, and the blast had sent him hurtling into the waves.
He pushed through the water, standing in depths to his waist, and shouted for her again. “Eve!”
But she didn’t answer. He couldn’t see her. And he was going out of his mind.
That bastard on the other boat was long gone. He’d come, rigged their boat to explode, then gotten the hell out of Dodge.
“Eve!” He swam to the left, heading closer to the rocky shore of the lighthouse. Eve had been on that side—hadn’t she? He’d been so determined to get to the guy who’d blown up the boat that he hadn’t paid attention to Eve.
Now she’s gone.