Suddenly aware of what she was doing, she stepped back. “Sorry.” Her cheeks flushed, and she tossed him the jeans. “Personal boundaries.”
“It’s okay.” He chuckled and cleared his throat, his gaze darting down to the pants he’d caught. “I like these.”
“Then you’ll like this pair and, here, these are cool.” She tossed more to him, then moved along to the shirts. “So are you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?” He glanced around.
“The ‘bits and pieces’ you remember.” She held up a T-shirt and then hurled it over her shoulder to him. She glanced back in time to see him catch it while struggling to control the growing mountain of fabric in his arms.
“I already said—”
“A boat wreck, I know,” she said. “But there are a few obvious holes in your story. How is it that the amount of blood I saw on your shirt came from ‘barely a scratch’, as my mother put it. Unless the blood wasn’t yours.”
“I have thin blood.”
“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”
He shifted his weight to the other foot, his lips spreading to grin at her. “And you’re full of questions, aren’t you?”
“It’s not every day a mysterious stranger washes up on the beach.”
He laughed nervously. “Look, I can see why you’re curious.” He looked around the store again, lowering his voice. “I was in an accident, and my boat was all I owned… And okay, I’d made some people mad.”
“You told my mom nobody was after you.”
“Nobody is. They gave me the beat down they wanted, and now I’m free.”
“Simple as that,” she teased.
He nodded. “That simple.”
She threw him a package of tank tops. “These will look good on you.”
He laughed, his arm shooting out to catch them. “That’s a sudden shift in the mood.”
She glanced at him, catching his gaze. “Well, if you were some psycho killer, you probably would have just let me drown.”
He nodded, his eyes lingering on hers in a look that tugged at something deep inside her. It was almost as if she was supposed to remember something. Maybe like she’d known him before. Stepping back, she broke the eye contact and motioned to the racks of clothes around her. “At least now you know what size to get. I should get back home. Mom’s expecting me.”
“Yeah, sure. Thanks for the help.”
She gave him a smile as she turned from him. Starting for the front door, she let out a slow breath. Just being around him made the air thicker, and she found herself scrutinizing everything she’d said. Did she sound too accusing? Was she rude when she’d practically groped his hips?
Switching the stationary to the other arm, she turned down the alley that would lead to her part of the beach.
She’d just rounded the corner when she felt someone grab her arm and pull her into a thick patch of trees. A hand covered her mouth and the box fell onto the ground, spilling its contents. Her heart raced and her breath came out in jagged pants.
“I know what you did.” Inches away from her face, his eyes filled with venomous hatred. His lips snarled. “You can lie to your family, to the police, but not to me.”
She pushed against him, but he didn’t budge.
“I know what you did to Charity, and I’m not going to let you get away with it.”
Chapter Four
Shadow Play
Tears burned her eyes as she struggled harder against his hold.
Brad grappled with her, refusing to let her escape. “I loved her. Of course, I could never tell anyone, but she meant more to me than anybody in this world.” His voice cracked and a tear slid down his cheek. Face twisted in rage, he dropped his hand to her throat and squeezed. “Now she’s gone, and it’s your fault.”
She gasped for air, clawing at his hands. “Brad, stop!”
Brad’s fingers tightened around her throat. “Something bad happened in those woods, and you ran away to save yourself. That’s what happened isn’t it? You left her there to die.”
Her head pounded with an ache worse than a migraine. Her fingers and toes tingled, and the earth tilted and blurred.
Stepping back, he released her. The sudden shift of pressure made her knees buckle, and she fell to the ground.
She inhaled a sharp breath and grabbed her throat, coughing. Furious, she glared up at him. “How many times do I have to tell you? I wasn’t there!”
“Don’t worry; I’m not going to kill you. That’s not my thing.” He kicked at the box of stationary. Breathing heavily, he wiped his mouth and fell back a step. “But I’ll find out what really happened. You can count on that.”
He straightened out his shirt and strolled away, joining the flow of people on Main Street.
Mykaela sprawled between the trees, panting for breath. She wanted to break down and cry, but she didn’t want to explain puffy eyes to her mom.
“Are you all right?”
Jumping to her feet, she whirled around, letting out a sigh of relief at the sight of Dylan standing by the edge of the trees. “I’m fine.” Dropping to her knees, she picked up the packages of stationary and dropped them into the box.
“What happened?” Dylan walked into the woods and knelt in front of her.
“Nothing. I just fell.”
He glanced around the road as he placed a couple more stacks of paper into the box. “It’s kind of far off the path.”
“I saw a cat.” It was the first explanation she thought of.
“A what?”
“A kitten, actually. I’ve always wanted one, so I tried to catch it.” Looking around for a sign Brad was still close by, she stood. “But it was faster than I thought.”
“Maybe next time, then,” he chuckled.
“Yeah.”
Thrusting a thumb over his shoulder, he motioned to the gravel road. “Let me walk you back to the Inn.”
She gave him a weak smile. “To keep me from running off after stray cats?”
“Yeah, something like that.” As they headed down the gravel road, he stuffed his hands in his pockets.
Still reeling inside, she kept her eyes straight ahead. Brad never liked her, merely tolerated her out of respect for Charity and Jared. Since the day they’d found her body on the beach, Brad hadn’t bothered to hide his hatred for her. Still, this violence was a new low.
“Here, let me carry that.” Reaching for the box, his gazewent to her arm. “Hey, you’re bleeding.”
She glanced down, shocked to see the large scrape from her elbow to her wrist. Blood covered the wound and stained the side of her tank top. “Wow, I can hardly feel it.”
“Let me see.” He set the box and his own package on the ground and took her arm, examining it. “It’s shallow.”
He pulled his shirt over his head, ripped the sleeves off, and tore it down the middle. Using the pieces of white cloth as a bandage, he wrapped it around her arm, and then tied it at the wrist.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Hey, I’m just returning the favor. Remember?” Flashing a charming smile, Dylan knelt and picked up their packages again.
Her shadow stretched across the pavement, much longer than her real height. Just hers…
“What the…” She peered down at the ground, trying to figure out what she’d seen.
“What?” He followed her gaze to the pavement.
A large cloud rolled over the sun, blocking all light. The sudden darkness stretched out over them, and all shadows were absorbed in the cloud’s own hovering darkness. She ran a hand through her hair, confused.
“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?” he said, eyeing her.
Laughing, she covered her face in her hands. Way to go, crazy girl. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to forgive me. My imagination tends to act up in times of stress.”
“Without imagination we’d all go insane.” He bumped her arm and gave her a playful grin. “Why are you upset?”
“I’m not upset.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
She laughed at herself again, raking a hand through her hair. “I am, I know.”
A pause. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “Do you remember when my mom said something about a position opening up?”
He nodded. “I remember.”
“My best friend, Charity, worked at the Inn, too. Every summer since we were ten, we’d spend the whole day cleaning rooms together and playing on the beach.”
He swallowed hard, his gaze moving to the beach ahead of them. “I’m so sorry.”
“I keep waiting for it to get better, you know?” She forced a laugh. “Everybody says it will get easier. But it hasn’t. Not yet.”
“It won’t get easier.” He looked over at her, giving her a strained smile. “You’ll just learn not to think about it.”
“I think that might be the first honest thing I’ve heard in a long time.”
“I’m sorry it couldn’t be on a happier note.”
Mykaela was grateful when her house came into view. She didn’t want to talk about Charity anymore, and let the subject drop. As they strolled up the sidewalk to the Inn, Mykaela noticed two sets of their regular customers packing up their cars. They were booked until the end of the month, but now they scrambled to load suitcases into their trunks, while Blanche and Bobby watched from the steps.
Mykaela jogged to the house and up the steps. “What’s going on?”
Blanche shook her head and let out a worried sigh. “What happened to your arm?”
She glanced down at the strip of bloody T-shirt. “Oh, I tripped. Skinned my arm a little.”
Snobby Mrs. Merryweather shoved past Mykaela, carrying a large suitcase. “You couldn’t pay us to stay in this town. Not with dead bodies washing up everywhere.”
“What?” She glanced at her mom. “What dead body?”
“Candy Montgomery,” Blanche said, dropping a hand to Mykaela’s shoulder.
“Another girl?” Mykaela asked.
“There’s a psycho in this town,” Mrs. Merryweather continued, sticking her nose in the air as she stomped over to her car door. “You’ll be lucky if we ever come back.”
“Fine!” Mykaela shouted, feeling her anger bubble over and explode. “We don’t need your kind around here anyway!”
Blanche hissed in a sharp breath. “Mykaela.”
She rolled her eyes and dashed inside the house. She leaned against the banister, clutching her stomach to ward off the nausea. It couldn’t be happening again. A third body washed up on the shore, like Charity and Megan, the girl who drowned before Mykaela and Charity were ever on that cliff.
Just like ten years ago, when Mykaela’s father disappeared.
***
Mykaela paced her room. Why was this happening? Why did girls she’d known her entire life have to die? Who was doing it? Or, for that matter, was someone doing it? And how, in the name of all things sane, did the water grab her the way it did?
Jared knocked on her door, and then poked his head inside. “Did you take my hair gel again?”
“It’s on the bathroom sink.” She pointed to the bathroom on the right hand side of the room. “I ran out.”
He went into the bathroom adjoining her room, turned on the light, and grabbed a plastic bottle.
“That’s my new one,” she said. “Yours is in the blue jar. I’ve been meaning to bring it back to you.”
He shrugged, squeezed some out anyway, and then rubbed the sticky mess between his hands and scraped his fingers through his hair.
“How can you even think about going out when another body has been found?”
“I’m not the killer’s type.” Keeping his gaze on the mirror, he styled his hair by running his fingertips through the thick waves.
“How are you so sure there’s a killer? How do you know they weren’t just regular drownings?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.” Looking at her reflection in the mirror, his eyes narrowed into an impatient stare. “All I can tell you is that there’s a clue.”
“Well, Candy is the third victim. If there really is a murderer out there, when are you going to stop him?”
“We’re trying,” he said. “It’s complicated.”
She sighed and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Doesn’t it make you sad? You knew all those girls.”
“Of course it does. It’s horrible.” He squinted into the mirror to fix a few strays. “People die, that’s life. You can’t just stop living.”
“Thanks for the little bit of wisdom.”
“Anytime. Hey, do you still have the soap that feels like sandpaper?”
“You mean the apricot face scrub? It’s in the medicine cabinet.” She laughed. “I swear, you primp like a girl.”
“Hey, chicks love a dude with soft skin.”
She giggled, in spite of her gloomy mood. Jared looked goofy and weird as he spread the gritty stuff over his full cheeks and short forehead, his squared chin. She leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms over her chest. “So…is Brad going with you?”
“Yep. Like always.” He turned on the water and splashed handfuls on his face. “Why?”
“No reason.” She darted her eyes away and then sighed. “Well, I ran into him today—”
“I know.” He grabbed the pink hand towel from the rack and rubbed it over his face. “I saw him at the Diner. He told me.”
She lost her words as her stomach sank. “He told you what?”
He stepped back from the mirror and gave himself a once over. Then he leaned forward to peer into it again and fix a lock of chestnut brown hair that fell loose. “You freaked out on him. Sort of like earlier, with Mrs. Merryweather.”
She turned away and walked over to the bay windows overlooking the ocean. Leave it to Brad to have all of his bases covered. “I freaked out on him?”
Nodding, he stepped out of the bathroom. He shut the door behind him and leaned against it. “Look, I get it. You two hate each other and always have. But sooner or later, you have to take the high road and just learn to get along.”
“Jared, it didn’t exactly happen like that...”
“How it happened doesn’t matter,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. “This war between you two is getting old. So, call a truce, kiss and make up—whatever it is you have to do, do it, and stop the fighting. Okay?” Pushing off the bathroom door, he moved across the room. “I gotta run. See ya later.”
As she watched him leave the room, Mykaela felt even more hopeless than before. Brad really scared her today, but if her own brother wouldn’t listen to her, who would?
Besides, Brad’s accusations weren’t wrong. Mykaela was with Charity that morning. If Brad tried hard enough to convince Jared that he’d seen Mykaela go into those woods, eventually Jared would believe him. They’d been friends for as long as Mykaela could remember, and Jared knew when Brad was telling the truth.
***
She went about her chores the next day, trying not to worry about the murders, or Brad. It was up to the police to catch the killer, that was their job, and they would catch him. She tried to convince herself of this every day. She waited to hear of another body or an arrest, but no news drifted her way.
Lost in thought, she changed the linens in one of the guest rooms. The movements were automatic, requiring little brain activity.
“Need some help?”
She spun around to see Dylan standing in the doorway. Pressing a hand to her chest, Mykaela let out a relieved breath. “I didn’t even hear you come up.”
He smiled, stepping into the room. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s okay.”
“I finished the left side of the hallway,” he said. “I thought I’d see if you needed a hand.”
“You finished all those rooms already?”
He chuckled. “I’m a fast worker.”
&nbs
p; Her legs went to mush at his laugh, the sparkle in his blue-green eyes, the bounce in his accent. She looked away and shrugged. “Sure. You can stock the bathroom, if you want.”
He went back into the hallway and grabbed towels off the cart, then disappeared into the bathroom. No guy’d had this much of a mind-boggling effect on her since she was thirteen.
There was something about the mysterious newcomer that called her to him, an inviting whisper.
She’d always thought relationships were silly. Girls turned into sniveling, giddy, brainless messes because they were “in love”. Mykaela’s response was always the same. “You’re pathetic.”
Mykaela believed in lust, dependency and heartbreak, but love itself was an illusion. If love existed, people wouldn’t get hurt–they wouldn’t disappear or fall prey to sadistic killers. If love existed, people would enjoy it, not suffer at its loss.
***
Late that night, while everyone slept, peaceful and safe inside the Inn, Dylan crept soundlessly up the stairs of the servant’s quarters and into the kitchen. Walking over to the kitchen door, he let himself out into the steamy summer night.
He wandered down the beach, toward the woods. The water was dark, and he felt the urge to go to it—to jump in and let the water have him, again.
Soul of the Sea Page 5