Chapter 8
EIGHT
brooks
Vivienne: Vision last night. Saw where they held Melissa before moving her. The hidden cove below the lighthouse headland. We need to go now before the tide comes in.
He stared at the message, still processing yesterday’s discovery in the caves, and spending most of the night looking over the preliminary report from the state forensic team.
Lily Morgan’s remains, finally found after twenty-five years.
Martha’s grief and relief tangled together.
The knowledge that they were dealing with murderers who’d hidden their crimes for decades.
And now Vivienne was telling him she knew where Melissa Clarkson had been held.
His phone buzzed again.
Vivienne Hawthorne
I know you’re skeptical. But I saw it clearly. The cove, the beach, evidence of recent activity. Trust me on this.
He did trust her. That was the problem. In less than a week, this woman with her impossible insights had turned his worldview upside down.
Every vision she’d described, every intuitive leap she’d made, had led them to concrete proof.
Lily’s body, the connection to the lighthouse, the Aldrich family’s involvement.
I’ll be at the station in twenty minutes if you have time to stop by.
Twenty-three minutes later, after a briefing with Sullivan, Vivienne climbed into his car carrying two thermal travel mugs. She handed him one without speaking, and the familiar scent of her tea blend filled the vehicle. Dark circles shadowed her eyes.
“Rough night?” he asked, pulling onto the empty road.
“The vision was intense. I saw Melissa there, terrified. She knew they were going to kill her.” Vivienne wrapped both hands around her mug. “She fought them. Left traces. We’ll find proof she was there.”
“How recent?”
“Within the last few days. Before they moved her to wherever she is now.”
He wanted to ask how she could possibly know this, but he’d learned that questioning her methods while she was exhausted only delayed getting answers. Instead, he focused on logistics. “The cove’s only accessible at low tide. High tide’s at noon, which gives us maybe four hours to work the scene.”
“It’ll be enough.”
They drove in silence through the gray dawn, past the town center where a few early shops showed lights, past the harbor where fishing boats prepared for morning runs, toward the lighthouse that stood sentinel on its rocky headland.
“Turn here.” Vivienne pointed to an unmarked dirt road barely visible through coastal scrub.
The path narrowed quickly, forcing him to slow to a crawl as branches scraped the car’s sides. After a quarter mile, the road ended at a small clearing where the trees pressed close.
“We walk from here.” She climbed out, already moving toward a trail he hadn’t noticed.
He grabbed the forensics kit from the trunk and followed. The path looked well-used---fishermen and teenagers probably, seeking the secluded beach for their own purposes. But as they moved deeper into coastal woods, he noticed something odd about the landscape.
Trees leaned away from their route. Ancient pines angled their trunks at uncomfortable degrees, branches bent away in sharp curves.
“The trail’s always been like this.” Vivienne caught his upward glance. “Grandmother Emmeline said the trees sense what lies ahead and want no part of it.”
Weather patterns, soil composition, or prevailing winds could explain the growth patterns. He’d seen stranger formations in Texas. The silence bothered him more—no bird calls, no rustling animals, just their footsteps on fallen leaves and waves against rock.
“How far?”
He shifted the forensics kit on his shoulder.
“Another quarter mile. The descent gets steep at the bluff.”
They walked without speaking. Taking photographs from multiple angles, documenting everything before disturbing anything, and making sure the proper chain of custody. Standard work, even if the location wasn’t.
The trees thinned near the coastline, revealing dark water through branches. When they emerged onto the bluff, the view stopped him cold.
The water below looked almost black in full afternoon sunlight.
Not the deep blue-green of ocean depths, but an oily darkness that absorbed light.
At low tide, skeletal remains of old ships jutted from shallow water—ribs of rotted wood and rusted metal from decades, maybe centuries, of vessels that had met their end here.
“Christ.” He pulled out his camera. “How many wrecks?”
“More than the official records show. Ships that were never supposed to be here.”
They picked their way down the narrow path that switch backed along the cliff face. Loose stone and exposed roots made the descent treacherous, but someone had used this route recently. Broken branches and disturbed earth marked fresh passage.
The beach stretched as a crescent of dark sand and rounded stones, sheltered on three sides by granite walls. At high tide, boats could reach it. At low tide, it revealed what the water usually concealed.
He documented the scene from multiple angles before examining specific areas. Near the waterline, rope fibers caught on a barnacle-encrusted rock. Farther up the beach, a depression in the sand showed where something heavy had been dragged toward the water.
“There.” Vivienne pointed to a natural shelf in the cliff wall about six feet above the high tide line. “Someone stored something there recently.”
He climbed to examine the shelf and found fresh scuff marks on the rock and traces of canvas fiber. Every sample went into bags, the detachment that had served him throughout his career holding steady, though unease prickled at his neck.
The sensation of surveillance grew stronger, but each time he turned to scan the cliff walls or the tree line above, he saw no one.
“We should work quickly.” Her voice carried tension. “This place has too many hiding spots.”
“It’s a geographical location.” The automatic response came even as his wariness grew. The silence continued—no seabirds despite the coastal setting, no insects around the tidal pools, no normal sounds of a living ecosystem.
Footsteps crunched on the path above them. An elderly man picked his way down the cliff trail with the grace of someone who had made this descent countless times.
“Old Jack.” Surprise colored Vivienne’s greeting. “I didn’t expect you here.”
Jack Thornton reached the beach and approached them. Up close, the fisherman’s weathered face showed deep lines from decades of sun and salt spray, but his pale blue eyes stayed sharp.
“Figured you’d end up here eventually.” He nodded toward the bags. “Found what you were looking for?”
“Not yet. Did you see anything unusual in the past few days? Boats, people, activity?” Brooks asked.
Jack’s expression darkened. “Been seeing unusual things around here for thirty years, Detective. Question is whether you’re ready to hear about them.”
“Try me.”
The old fisherman gestured toward the scattered shipwrecks.
“Those aren’t all accidents. Some are, sure—vessels caught in sudden squalls, captains who didn’t know the rocks.
But others . . .” He pointed to a partially submerged hull near the far wall.
“That one’s the Mary Catherine, vanished in 1987 with a hold full of cargo that never appeared on any manifest. Coast Guard called it a probable sinking, but I watched her go down. Wasn’t weather that took her.”
Jack had turned his attention to Vivienne, who had moved closer to the water’s edge and now stood motionless, staring at the dark water.
“Some places remember violence. This one’s remembered too much. Your friend there—she’s sensitive to memories that ain’t her own. Dangerous thing in a place like this.”
Vivienne staggered, reaching out blindly for support. Brooks dropped his kit and moved to steady her, alarmed by how cold her skin felt through her jacket.
“I’m fine.” Her voice came weak and her lips had taken on a bluish tinge. “Just need a moment.”
“You’re hypothermic. In this weather, that shouldn’t be possible.”
Jack nodded. “Gets into your bones if you stay too long, especially if you’re the type to see things others can’t.”
Brooks helped her to a sun-warmed boulder and checked her pulse and breathing. Her heart rate ran high but her temperature seemed to stabilize in direct sunlight.
“What did you see?”
“Terror.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Someone brought Melissa Clarkson here against her will. She was terrified, fighting, but they were stronger. The fear is embedded in this place—it’s why the water looks so dark, why nothing grows here. Too much violence, too much death.”
Jack just shrugged. “Told you she was sensitive. Some folks pick up emotional echoes from traumatic events. This place’s got more echoes than most.”
Her physical reaction was real and her previous insights had proven accurate. Whatever she experienced—whether beyond reason or unconscious reading of environmental cues—it provided information that aligned with what he’d found.
“Can you make it back up the path?” Brooks asked. He gathered the bags while staying close enough to offer support.
“Yes.” She stood with care. “The impressions fade once I move away from the source. Just takes a moment to process.”
He steadied her with one hand while securing everything with the other. Together they began the ascent. Her condition improved with each step away from the black water.
Halfway up, footsteps echoed from the forest above them—not the careful tread of hikers, but deliberate movement from someone trying to remain undetected. Brooks paused, listening for voices or additional sounds, but heard only the continued disturbance of undergrowth.
“Keep moving.” Jack followed them up the trail. “Too many observers. Best not to give them time to get a good look at what you found.”
Vivienne needed to get somewhere warm and safe. He concentrated on helping her climb, watching as color began to return to her face with distance from the water below.