Chapter Six: Who Wrote It

They laid the note by the firelight and looked at it for a long time.

“She.” Lila’s voice was tight. “Who is ‘she’?”

“It could be a trap,” Caine said.

“Or it might not be.” Lila looked up. “Caine, the whole town knows about my sister. If someone actually knows what’s in that tide cave —”

“That’s exactly what makes it more dangerous.”

He set the note face-down on the table and called Valerie. The phone rang a long time before she picked up; the background was loud, wind roaring. “Dax and I are up in the woods, just came from that burned trailer,” she said. “A note? We didn’t send anyone with anything.”

“Then it’s not one of ours.”

“Listen, Lila.” Valerie’s voice dropped. “Those two middlemen were silenced. That means Shaw and Pruitt aren’t on the run — they’re settling accounts. And the next account on the ledger is you. That note, whoever wrote it, might be the hook that pulls you out of the house.”

After she hung up, the room went quiet.

Lila stared at the note. She knew Valerie was right. But her fingertips kept tracing that line — she’s waiting for you there. For twenty years she had dreamed, again and again, of Emma standing on the black reef waiting for her, turning to smile. At moments like this, reason cannot hold down an obsession.

“I won’t let you go alone,” Caine said, as if he had read her.

“I know.”

“And we can’t go now. The tide cave is only enterable at low tide. Today’s high tide is nine p.m.” He glanced at his watch. “Four hours. We wait for the others first.”

Lila nodded. But she knew one thing in her heart — four hours was enough for a great many things to happen.

She walked to the window. In the fog, the distant black reefs were nothing but blurred dark silhouettes. Waves crashed against them, again and again, breaking into white foam.

And then she saw it.

Between the reefs, on that narrow stone ledge usually covered by the sea, a figure was standing.

Utterly still. Facing the cliff.

Lila rubbed her eyes and looked again —

The figure was still there.

And it seemed to raise one hand.

As if waving to her.