“Try not to stay too isolated while you’re here. Sunbreak Harbor is safe, but safe doesn’t mean you should make yourself easy to corner.”
Easy to corner. The words follow me long after his SUV backs out of the driveway.
I lock the door after he leaves, then stand in the bright kitchen listening to the ocean, the gulls, the soft shift of the cottage around me.
Safe. Not safe. Nothing, but maybe something. My phone buzzes on the kitchen island. It’s Vanessa. I stare at her name for a second longer than usual before answering.
“Please tell me you are lying on the beach and not working,” she says.
I look toward the locked front door.
“I had to call the sheriff.”
“What?” she says, voice sharpening with concern. “Why? What happened?”
I tell her about the storage door, the footprint, and Sheriff Vaughn. Vanessa listens in perfect silence.
“Oh, honey. You’re still rattled. That’s all.”
“I don’t know. The sheriff didn’t act like I was crazy.”
“Of course he didn’t. He’s a small-town sheriff with a celebrity guest. He’s going to be careful.” Her voice softens again, warm and coaxing. “Kara, your nervous system is fried. You went through something horrible. Don’t let fear steal the peace you went there to find.”
I close my eyes because I want so badly for that to be true.
“I know.”
“Make tea. Sit on that gorgeous porch. Watch the water. And for the love of butter, stop checking every shadow.”
The phrase is so Vanessa that a small laugh escapes before I can stop it.
“There she is,” Vanessa says gently. “My girl.”
My girl. The words should comfort me. They do … mostly.
After we hang up, I make tea because she told me. Apparently, I'm easier to manage than I want to admit. I carry it to the screened porch and sit facing the dunes while late afternoon light turns the sea oats gold. The world looks peaceful again.
I sip my tea and tell myself the sheriff is right. I should call if something feels wrong, but that doesn’t mean everything is wrong. I am allowed to be careful without becoming paranoid. I am allowed to be shaken without surrendering the next two weeks of my life to fear.
A breeze moves over the porch. The dunes whisper. Somewhere beneath the cottage, wood creaks softly as the heat settles.
My fingers tighten around the mug, but I don’t get up. Not this time. I sit there until the sun begins to lower, until the light softens, until the line between water and sky turns hazy and gold.
Then my phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number. For one second, I think it’s the sheriff’s office. But there is no name. No contact. Just the number and a single image loading slowly on the screen.
When it appears, my blood goes cold.
It’s my knife. My missing chef’s knife. The expensive Japanese one engraved with my initials. The one that disappeared from my kitchen in Orlando.
It’s lying across a white cutting board, the blade angled just enough to catch the light. Beside it, written in what looks like tomato sauce, are two words.
Miss You.
The cottage goes silent around me. The knife is still in their possession. And they’ve just proven they know exactly how to reach me.
Chapter 5
Kara
