Chapter Thirty-Five
EMERY
I’M PACING THE living room when Reid finally walks through the front door at nine o’clock. His shoulders are slumped, his face pale. He looks defeated and I rush to him.
“Are you okay? What the hell happened?” I put my arms around him, and he absently pats my back before pulling away.
“We need to talk.”
His eyes meet mine and I’m instantly afraid. Is he about to break up with me? Of course, my mind shouldn’t go there. It should go to the docks, the marina, last night’s fire, the danger lurking around Tidehaven. But it goes there because I’ve fallen in love with him and I’m terrified of losing him.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, my voice catching.
He gestures toward the couch. “Let’s sit.”
He doesn’t wait for me to answer, instead moving to the sofa and kicking off his boots. His elbows find his knees, and he puts his head in his hands.
I sit next to him, keeping some distance between us and curling my legs up to my chest, guarding myself from the hurt I fear is coming.
“Are you breaking up with me?” I ask, my nose stinging as my emotions get the better of me.
Reid’s head darts up, and he meets my eyes, his expression softening. “God, no.” He inches closer, clasping my hand in his. “Baby, you’re it for me.”
I let out a breath, releasing the tension I’d been holding. “Okay. Then what is it?”
“They found a body in the bay.” Reid exhales sharply.
“Oh. Oh my God.” My hand covers my mouth. “Who?” Panic surges through me as I run through the possibilities of who it might be, fearing the worst, that it’s someone I know.
“Beau Rigsby…” His voice drops. “The owner of the Miss Tidehaven.” He swallows. “And they think he’s been in the water for four to eight weeks.” Reid’s eyes meet mine, as he waits for me to connect the dots.
It hits me like a ton of bricks. Four to eight weeks fits the timeline of the murder in the marsh. That body disappeared the next morning. Reid suspected it was moved. If this is the same person, then clearly it was dumped further out and it’s just washing up now.
I swallow the tightness forming in my throat. “Oh.”
“I had to tell Colt everything. Well, and Tate. He was there.” Reid rubs the back of his neck.
Panic rises in my throat like bile. “What did you say?”
Reid shakes his head. “Just the truth. Exactly what happened.” He turns to me. “We need to meet Colt at the station at one o’clock. He wants a statement from both of us.”
“A statement?” My words come out like a whisper. “Are we in some kind of trouble?”
Reid moves closer then, wrapping his arms around me. “No. No, we’re not. We’re going to go in there and tell the truth. We don’t know who it was. We didn’t see faces and we ran to protect ourselves. When we went back the next day, the body was gone. We assumed they were okay.”
I suck in a shuddering breath and nod. “Okay. I mean. Most of that is true.”
Reid looks sharply at me. “It’s all true. And then someone started harassing you and it became even harder to report it. You feared for your life.”
“That’s definitely true.” I nod, feeling a little less anxious. “Okay, I can do that. What about the picture? Of the boat.”
Reid drags his hand down his face, quiet for a beat. “The boat burned yesterday. That and the research center skiff.”
I gasp. “What?”
“They’re both gone, Em. They were docked next to each other. Maybe we leave that part out.” Reid looks away, fixing his gaze on the black screen of the television.
“No. I won’t do that. Don’t you think there’s a reason the fire started on that end of the docks?” A wave of nausea washes over me. “Someone knows they were seen. That fire…I don’t think it was an accident.”
“Me neither,” he mutters.
“Then we have no choice. We have to tell the whole truth.”
COLT MEETS US at the door to the station at one p.m. sharp. His shoulders are tense as he leads us down a narrow hall to an interrogation room.
“Colt,” Reid says, his eyebrows pinching together. “You can’t be serious. Putting us in here.”
Colt is silent, mulling it over for a minute before he sighs. “Fine. We can go in my office.”
He continues down the hall, and we follow him. Colt pauses at the door, gesturing for us to enter before closing it behind him.
All business, he moves behind his desk and pulls out two carbon paper witness statement forms. He sits, pulling his chair in. Reid and I remain standing until Colt looks up.
“Sit, please.” He gestures at the two chairs in front of his desk. “Actually, Emery you can go first. Reid, you can wait outside.”
Outside? My neck heats as anxiety surges through my bloodstream.
“No. Please, can he stay?” My voice wavers. “Please.”
Colt sighs and points at Reid. “Only because I’ve known you my whole life.”
Reid lets out a low chuckle and sits down.
“Okay, Emery,” Colt begins, meeting my eyes. “What can you tell me about what you witnessed in the marsh?”
I suck in a breath. “Well, it was about a week after I arrived. Maybe…the second or third week of May. I finally got the courage to go out in the skiff alone before dawn. I only had a headlamp on because harsh light disturbs the marine life. So just enough to see.” I pause, watching him write down every detail and then it all comes pouring out.
I tell him about the murder, the way the man grunted and slumped over before falling into the water.
I tell him how I tried to be quiet, but I must’ve made enough noise to call attention to myself.
I tell him how I dropped my camera and it went off, and later finding the photo of the Miss Tidehaven.
I recall the sharp sound of Reid’s weapon scaring them off and how I ran through the woods trying to escape.
Lastly, I describe the relief I felt the next morning when Reid took me to check the traps, and the body was gone. Not even twenty-four hours later.
“We assumed that maybe he wasn’t dead. That he got away. Reid said the less we know the better so…I kept quiet. But I’ve been sick over it since.”
“And,” Reid interjects, “someone is after her now.”
“You’ll get your turn, Morgan,” Colt snaps before turning his attention back to me. “What is he talking about?”
I remind him about the words painted on the cottage, the ransacking of the inside, and the chase down in the marsh. I give him a description of the masked man on the boat and the injuries I sustained.
“Dr. Michaels cleaned me up,” I say softly. “But we just told him I had a bad fall. I mean, that’s true. But only because someone was hunting me.”
“Right. I remember.” Colt jots down a few more notes. “Has anything happened since?”
I shake my head and look over at Reid. “Not really. Because I’ve been staying with Reid. I’m never alone.”
“Good.” Colt nods. “Morgan. Your turn.”
By the time Reid gives his statement, we’re both exhausted. It feels like we’ve been sitting in his small, stale office for hours. Every detail we shared, every question we answer, peeled back another layer of the past six weeks until I felt raw and exposed.
And yet, somehow lighter.
Like I’ve been holding my breath since that day in the marsh and now I can finally exhale. I hadn’t realized what carrying all this around has done to me—to my sense of safety, to the way I walk into a room, to how often I look over my shoulder. To my self-worth.
When we step outside, the world feels too bright. The sun hits us full in the face, blinding, the heat bouncing off the asphalt. The air smells like tar and salt and distant rain. Reid squints against it, jaw tight, shoulders tense like he’s still ready to fight someone.
“That sucked,” he says, opening the passenger door of his truck for me.
“Yeah,” I say quietly, sliding in. “But at least…no more secrets.”
For the first time all day, the corner of his mouth quirks up. “You would say that.”
He huffs a soft laugh, then shuts my door and rounds the truck. When he climbs in, the leather creaks beneath his weight. The air conditioning kicks on, blasting away the heat and the last of the nerves from Colt’s interrogation.
Reid glances over at me, eyes softened now. “Let’s go home.”
The way he says it—home—makes something loosen in my chest.
I watch the station fade in the side mirror as we pull onto the main road, sunlight flickering through the trees like a heartbeat. For the first time in weeks, I let myself believe it: maybe we’re finally past the worst of it.