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“Meaning it’s repeated violations. Not a one-time staging.”
“Yes.”
“Local kids sneaking in between guests?”
“The security system says no unexpected access. The house hasn’t been empty since spring.”
“Then it must be the renters.” She frowns in thought. “Any repeat customers?”
“Nope, which means it can’t be renters, and it wouldn’t be Nate.”
“So we have a mystery to solve?” She grabs the bag of cookies and her travel mug. “Excellent. When do we leave?”
TWO
It takes four hours to get to Fox Bay, and I don’t leave right away. I insist on having breakfast while waiting until the sun’s fully up. Once we leave the city, it’s a gorgeous drive along winding roads through trees painted red and gold. It’s peak fall foliage season, and while I complain about the slow-driving gawkers, I’m mostly irked because I can’t be one of them. It’s a perfect autumn day, sunny enough to have the windows down, breezy enough for fallen leaves to dance and swirl before us.
How many times had I made this drive with Kit, my feet out the window or my nose pressed to it looking for wildlife? He’d rip over the hills and zoom around the curves in a roller-coaster ride that always made me grin. We’d stop to buy in-season fruit along the way and pull into our favorite roadside bakery to stock up on cinnamon rolls.
Kit and I always joked that we’d had a surprise wedding—a surprise to everyone including us. Growing up, he’d been my best friend’s little brother. Then, when my sister got her cancer diagnosis, I’d taken a job back in our home city. Kit reached out and a catch-up dinner blossomed into friendship. When I sold my first book, he whisked me off to Vegas to celebrate, and we ended up in bed. Twodays later, we were exchanging vows in a wedding chapel. There may have been alcohol involved.
We made it work for a while. Hell, there hadn’t been muchworkinvolved. We slid into marriage as we’d slid into friendship, so easily and naturally that I’d wake up, see Kit beside me, and grin like I’d won the lottery without buying a ticket. Then the pandemic hit, and we survived but our marriage didn’t, and I’m not quite sure why. My surprise marriage ended in a surprise divorce, and I’m still reeling.
When I see the sign for Fox Bay, I turn left. I don’t need to pass through the town itself, which can be a relief. If anyone spotted me, I’d catch shit for not stopping, and stopping means chatting and then coffee and more chatting… I love that about Fox Bay, but today is all about expediency. Get to Hemlock Island. See what’s going on. Fix it. Get Madison back home.
We round a corner to see Lake Superior stretching out to the horizon, and I motion as if pulling a conductor’s bell. “Last call for internet connectivity.”
Madison flips through her phone, getting and returning messages before we’ll be offline until we return from the island. I barely drive another half mile before the cell phone signal indicator on my dashboard vanishes.
“We are officially disconnected,” I say. “No email, no texts, no voice mail, no social media, no way to summon help if a masked killer leaps from the bushes.”
“’Tis the season,” she says. “Though, up here, if some guy in a goalie mask leaps out, he’s probably looking for his lost road-hockey ball.”
“Truth.”
To my left is the local campground with the pay phone my renters had used. I slow and peer into the visitors’ lot. I’ll notice their vehicle if it’s there. The people who rent Hemlock House do not stay in a place like Foxy Lady Campground, where the facilities can best be described as “rustic.”
I turn in to the boat launch. There’s a giant willow in the middleof the lot, and I’m steering around it when Madison says, “Is that Kit’s car?”
I hit the brakes so fast that Madison jolts forward, and for a split second, my heart stops as I imagine her flying through the windshield.
“Oww…” she says as she plucks at her still-fastened seat belt.
That heart-stopping moment also makes me forgetwhyI jammed on the brakes. Then I see the back end of a silver car. Yes, it looks like Kit’s, but I don’t even know what model of carIdrive—it’s my sister’s, and I took over payments that I can barely afford, as another part of ensuring a stable transition for Madison. I couldn’t exactly teach her to drive on my motorcycle. Well, I could, and she’d have loved that, but no. Responsible Parenting 101.
I presume the high-end silver sedan belongs to the Abbases, and I cringe. They’ve stayed behind to give me shit in person. Great.
Behind the car, a woman stands with her back to me. She adjusts one sleeve of her chic jacket with a dark-skinned hand. Mrs. Abbas, I presume.
The woman turns, and my insides clench. It’s not Mrs. Abbas. It’s a woman my age, with a flawless profile and intricate braids.
Jayla.
Oh, shit.
Jayla Hayes. Kit’s older sister.
In high school, Jayla and I had been best friends. In college, we’d danced around the possibility of more. Jayla had been figuring out her sexuality as she realized that guys didn’t do it for her. I’d dated both boys and girls in high school, having discovered that for me it was about being attracted to a person rather than a gender.
