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“What?”
“With your baby, Hudson. Just a few months, but very definitely pregnant.”
He heard the thudding of his own heart and noticed that her fingers, where they were clenched to his, were sweating. “So what happened to the baby?” he asked, but he knew as surely as if he’d heard the words. The baby hadn’t survived. He stared at her and felt a gnawing ache deep in his gut. Not for one second did he disbelieve her-all her raw emotions were etched across her skin.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her nose red. “The baby died in a horrible car crash. An attack, really. I miscarried.” She cleared her throat and blinked back tears. “I should have told you,” she said in a whispered rush. “Before. Afterward…there didn’t really seem any reason to.”
“Didn’t you think I’d want to know?”
“I wasn’t sure what you wanted, Hudson,” she admitted, looking toward the ceiling and blinking rapidly. “You were just so…distant. I thought you didn’t want me and I was pretty sure you wouldn’t want a baby.”
Hudson closed his eyes. The roller-coaster ride of the past few months had just taken another dip. He’d thought Jessie had been pregnant with his child, and then that had proved untrue. But now to learn that Becca had been…and she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him?
You weren’t exactly reliable in those days, Walker.
> But his child-his kid-would be sixteen years old now, nearly graduated from high school, and he and Becca…who knew? It was true that he hadn’t known what he’d wanted at that time in his life; that he was still messed up over Jessie. Still guilt-riddled for wanting Becca when Jessie had seemed to fall off the face of the earth.
“You were forced off the road, just like we were last night?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You think it’s no coincidence.”
“No.” She was tense, her jaw tight. “He won’t stop, Hudson. I’m sorry. I should have told you, but he’s-”
Rap! Rap! Rap!
Becca turned toward the door just as it swung open and Hudson’s gaze followed. He was frustrated. He needed to talk to her, and his frustration increased when he saw his friends Jarrett and The Third swing into the room.
“I thought since Scott was in jail all this life-threatening crap would quit,” The Third said. “What the hell happened?”
“Trying to figure it out,” Hudson said, looking at Becca.
She knew he needed to talk more to her, but then Zeke entered the room, looking as if he’d lost ten pounds and aged as many years, and the conversation took off.
Becca took the opportunity to extricate herself from Hudson. She’d given him a hell of a lot to think about, and she wanted to make up her own mind about what to do next without his cynosure. “I’ll be back later,” she said.
“When?” he demanded.
“Soon.”
“And you’re letting McNally handle things, right?”
“Right.”
She slipped out of the room before he could protest, leaving him with his friends and a thundercloud of frustration darkening his expression.
Becca jogged across the parking lot to her beater of a rental car while a million questions chased after her. Jessie’s family had lived here. Jessie had known she was adopted. Jessie’s adoptive parents had owned a second place in Deception Bay. The people at Siren Song resembled her and were secretive. Renee had been killed for what she learned.
Becca climbed into the rental, jabbed her keys into the ignition, and took off through the puddles of the parking lot. The rain had stopped but clouds covered the sky, melding to the ocean and obscuring the horizon. She drove toward Deception Bay. That’s where all the lies, deceit, and murder began. In a sleepy little coastal village shrouded in secrets and lies.
She turned off 101 and drove down the desolate main street of town. Could she really have been born here? Even lived here in this tiny fishing village? A part of Siren Song. She’d known it felt familiar.
She parked not far from the Sands of Thyme bakery, which, like so many of the businesses, was closed. Climbing from the rental, she noticed that for once not a breath of breeze stirred through the streets, and the fog bank sitting out to sea seemed to ride slowly inland on the back of the swells.
Shivering inside, she pulled her sweatshirt more tightly around her. The calm before the storm.
Cold dread climbed up her spine and she wondered if she really wanted to uncover the truth, to pick apart its onion-skin thin layers of lies. How many people had tried to keep her from knowing the circumstances of her birth, and why had it inflamed one maniac enough that he would kill and kill again?
