“I would knock first.”
A laugh slips out of me, although it’s a nervous one.
The shower helps a little. Hot water takes off salt, sunscreen, and some of the sticky edge of fear. I change into loose shorts and a soft tank top, then pull my damp hair into a messy knot. My swimsuit and cover-up go over the bathroom rod.
When I step out, Cole is on the screened porch, phone to his ear, his back to me. He turns at the sound of the door, eyes moving over me in a way that is quick and controlled and somehow more intimate than if he had stared.
“I’m fine,” I mouth.
He nods, then looks back toward the dunes. I pour a glass of water in the kitchen and carry it to the porch. The screen door creaks softly when I open it. Cole’s head turns.
I lift the glass. “Just air.”
He says something low into the phone, then covers the receiver. “Stay inside the porch with me.”
“I am.”
I almost make a joke. Then I see his face and don’t. I sit in the chair farthest from the screen door, the one angled toward the ocean. From here, the dunes roll in pale gold waves toward the water. Sea oats shiver in the breeze. Beyond them, a strip of blue flashes between grasses. Beautiful. It is so beautiful I want to remember it forever.
Cole keeps talking to Sloane or Eli, the Sheriff, or maybe both. I do not try to listen. Instead, I take a long drink of water and let myself exist in the porch shade.
My phone buzzes on the small table beside me, making me jump. Water sloshes over my fingers.
Unknown Number.
My whole body goes cold. The message is an image.
For several seconds, I do not open it. I stare at the little preview, my thumb hovering, my heart beating so hard I can feel it in my teeth. Cole turns. He knows before I say anything.
“Kara.”
“I got something.”
He is beside me in two strides.
“Don’t open it.”
“It already previewed.”
“Hand me the phone.”
I should. I know I should. But some terrible part of me needs to see what has found me this time. I tap the image. The world falls away. It is a photo of me. Not from breakfast. Not from a stranger’s social media post. Not from earlier in town.
Me here now — on this porch.
Sitting in this chair, wearing these shorts and this tank top, damp red hair twisted up, water glass in my hand.
The photo is slightly blurred by screen mesh and distance, but there is no mistaking it. It was taken from beyond the porch. From the dunes.
Below the image, a message appears.
He can’t watch everywhere.
The sound that leaves me does not feel human.
Cole takes the phone from my hand. One second he is beside me. The next, he has pulled me up and behind him, his bodybetween me and the screen, between me and the dunes, between me and whoever stood out there close enough to see me breathe.
“Inside,” he says.
