She closed the door behind herself but didn’t bother to lock -it—-though, surprisingly, the old lock on the door still worked. Whoever had picked it after Anahera left Golden Cove hadn’t damaged the mechanism. Josie had even dug up a copy of the key.

While Anahera used it at night, when she slept, she couldn’t see the point otherwise. She’d hidden her laptops, old and new, under a hiding spot beneath the floorboards, and there was nothing else for anyone to take. Anahera wasn’t na?ve; she knew people stole even in a small town. But she also knew that if the clouds broke, someone might stumble out of the bush seeking shelter.

She was halfway down the porch steps when she paused.

What if the person who’d taken Miriama hadn’t done it because she was Miriama? What if he’d done it because she was a beautiful young woman?

Anahera didn’t consider herself beautiful by any measure. Neither was she tall and lissome like Miriama, but she was a woman. And some predators weren’t that picky. Frowning, she went back inside the cabin and brought out a blanket to leave on the chair outside. She added a bottle of water and several energy bars.

Then she locked the door and pocketed the key.

The winds were hard but not vicious today, and she scrambled her way down to the beach without too much trouble, though she did have to keep her eyes on the path the entire way down. A single slip and she would’ve gone tumbling.

Anahera did not want her headstone to read “Death by Stupidity.”

When she reached the beach at last, her heart was racing and her breath coming in hot puffs. Drawing in the -salt--laced air, she looked up at the sound of chopper blades. Daniel, no doubt, being an arrogant ass flying in such portentous weather. Her guess seemed borne out when the chopper swept around to face her.

As if he was saying hello.

Anahera waved up at him. Yes, he could be an egotistical bastard, but it wasn’t looking like he’d had anything to do with Miriama in life or in death.

The chopper turned back around, the waves frothing under the wind created by its blades, and then it was gone, sweeping across the water. She wondered where he was going that he was crossing the water rather than heading inland. Most likely, he was taking the scenic route and would swing back inland soon enough.

Shrugging off the encounter, she began to walk down the beach. The waves were big today, huge smashing things that pounded hard onto the sand. It looked like they’d been in a mean mood the previous night as well; she could see mounds of waterborne debris deposited on the wet gray sand. Long streamers of seaweed; sea glass polished and rubbed until it was as smooth as stone, no edges to it; broken and battered shells along with the odd one in perfect condition.

Anahera picked up a couple of pieces of particularly lovely sea glass. She’d collected it as a child and as a young woman, lining them up along the window where the sunlight would hit them. She’d thrown away her collection after her mother’s death, but today, she found beauty in watching even the cloudy morning light spear through the glass.

It was as she was putting a third piece into a pocket that she spotted a huge hunk of seaweed up ahead. It almost looked like the seaweed had wrapped itself around a tree trunk or perhaps the carcass of a dolphin or small whale.

Anahera walked over, curious but careful. The seaweed sat close to the far edge of the ocean. A single freak wave and it would be pulled back -in—-and so would Anahera if she got too close. The seaweed fronds gleamed wet and dark, splayed out across the sand like fleshy fingers. The closer Anahera got to the hunk, the less she felt like exploring it, but she couldn’t stop her feet from moving forward. There was something about the shape of it, the way it curved. And the color. Not just green.

Pink.

Orange.

Anahera didn’t realize she was running until she’d reached the seaweed that wasn’t wrapped around anything as prosaic as wood or a whale bone. Her breath painful in her throat, she began to drag the seaweed as far as she could up the sand. She had to make sure it didn’t get sucked back out to sea.

A massive wave crashed ashore, licking dangerously at her feet. Anahera braced her legs, somehow just managing to keep hold of the seaweed and its chilling cargo. Then she pulled, pulled, pulled.

Collapsing on dry sand well clear of the water, her knees sinking into the fine grit of it, she forced herself to look at the seaweed -again… forced herself to acknowledge that it wasn’t seaweed she’d hauled up the beach but a body. A body that was discolored and so badly damaged as to be unrecognizable, but that wore an orange top and black leggings with pink side stripes.

Miriama’s shoes were gone, but she still wore her socks.

For some reason, that single detail was enough to crush Anahera’s lungs and drive a scream from her body.

49

Will had barely finished organizing for a forensic team to come out to Golden Cove for the skeletal remains when he got the call from Anahera.

“I found her,” she said in a toneless voice. “The sea brought her back in.”

Will shuddered, bracing his palm against a tree trunk, the bleached bones of the skeleton in his line of sight. He’d done nothing to disturb the scene, but he’d ventured back to the car to grab his camera, then taken as many -high--resolution images as he could, well aware that when it came to the actual investigation, he’d be relegated to the bench.

As far as his superiors were concerned, he was a -burned--out cop with his best years behind him. No one would trust him to be in charge of a case like this. Will wasn’t about to let that stop him. Not having access to the bones shouldn’t matter as long as he could access the report to do with the probable height, age, and ethnicity of the victim in life.