Chapter 1 · Saltwater Letters (Megan)

It was raining again.

Megan Harper wiped the glaring bulb above the antique shop’s counter with her sleeve and dragged the third oak crate from the shipwreck under her work light. The crate had come from an unusual offshore wind a week ago—the fishing boat Seagull had dragged up a broken beam in the reef zone, and this nailed-shut oak box was hanging from it. The captain knew her, knew she collected “old things that smell of the sea,” and named a price that wasn’t cheap. She’d gritted her teeth and paid.

In the shop, there was only the sound of rain and the ticking of the old wall clock.

She pressed a crowbar along the seam. The brass lock popped open. Inside: balls of blackened canvas, a compass crusted with verdigris, and an oilskin package.

The oilskin had soaked up seawater and fell apart at a touch.

Megan held her breath and peeled it back layer by layer with tweezers. Inside was a sheaf of letters. The paper had been soaked translucent beige by saltwater, but the ink was, impossibly, still there.

She pulled on gloves and drew out the top sheet. The date was twenty years ago—November 3, 2006.

“If you’re reading this, I’m already gone. They told me not to write, but I have to. The Blackwoods knew that boat was going down. They cut the ropes on purpose. Casey, Molly, and me—we didn’t disappear. We were thrown into the ocean. Henry got drunk at the bar last night and was bragging to someone that ‘those little tramps won’t live to see the next tide.’ If you know me, don’t trust the sheriff, don’t trust anyone in church who smiles. Go to—”

The letter cut off there, like the writer had stuffed it into the crate in a rush. Megan flipped it over. On the back, scrawled in pencil, was a name:

Blackwood.

There was only one family with that name in town. The family in the front pew. The oldest, richest family in town—the one even the sheriff treated with respect.

The shop door jingled open.

Megan pressed the letter flat back on the table. A man stood in the doorway, soaked through, water dripping off the hem of his black jacket. He was a head taller than her, his eyes sweeping the shop fast before landing on her face.

“Good afternoon,” he said, his voice low, like sandpaper on wood. “I heard you recently acquired a collection of things pulled from the ocean.”

Megan slowly drew her hand out from under the letter. “Who told you that?”

The man didn’t answer. His eyes were gray-green, like the reef outside the door being battered by waves.

“My name is Reed Colter,” he said. “I’m looking for the girls who disappeared twenty years ago.”

Megan’s blood went cold halfway.

The Blackwoods had come sooner than she’d expected.