Chapter 10. Holly
Holly
Dinner for Jade would be boxed mac and cheese along with an apple, sourced from Holly’s meager food stash. It wasn’t the most well-rounded meal, but as Holly’s mother would say to her picky-eater daughters back in the day, You get what you get, and you don’t get upset.
The old-fashioned metal teakettle whistled on the stovetop.
Bottled water (until the tap got fixed) bubbled inside.
Underneath it, the oven groaned, making alarming noises as it heated up their late-night meal.
It was sad that Holly’s big dream had been reduced from literary glory to one day owning a stove that wasn’t teetering on the edge of extinction. But you get what you get …
As Jade showered, Holly focused on the sound of hot water flowing through the old, jangly pipes.
She found the noise oddly comforting. It was a sign that someone else was in the house, a reminder of the old days when her family was ever-present, the shower always ran, and the sounds of daily life filled the air like the low buzz of a white-noise machine, noticeable only in its absence.
The house felt alive again—all thanks to a stranger, a troubled kid whose safety and well-being Holly couldn’t guarantee, especially when she could barely take care of herself.
Besides, could she even trust this girl?
Holly had read enough novels with unreliable narrators to question Jade’s telling of events.
But whatever the story, the girl’s painful emotions felt sincere, and she seemed to have nowhere else to go.
Was she really going to let her bleeding heart get her into even more difficulties?
Jade might have been in lockup, but Holly didn’t feel threatened by her presence.
She was five-two at most, barely over a hundred pounds, and was a bedraggled, rumpled mess—like a dirty shirt pulled from the bottom of the hamper.
Jade’s alluring onyx eyes had managed to turn a shade darker when Holly shared her intention to call the police—not to press charges, but to get the girl some help.
“You can’t do that,” Jade pleaded. “They’ll get in touch with my aunt. I can’t go back. I—I have to stay here.” Her voice was sharp, even panicky.
“And why here?” Holly asked.
“Like I told you, there weren’t a lot of abandoned houses to choose from.” Jade punctuated the obvious with a crooked smile.
“No, I mean why come to Beauport at all?” Holly clarified. “It’s a long way from Pennsylvania.”
Jade hesitated long enough for Holly to wonder if she was crafting a lie.
“I love the ocean,” she said, her voice softening.
“Always have. I wanted to hide at the beach until I turn eighteen in a couple of months. Then my aunt won’t be able to control me anymore.
After that, I’ll figure out what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. ”
Holly didn’t need to be a seasoned detective to know Jade wasn’t telling the whole story. But for now she had a decision to make. Was she really going to let this drifter—an intruder and a minor, no less—spend the night?
Her conscience told her to help. The girl was vulnerable and in need of guidance. Besides, it was getting late. Where would she go if Holly turned her away?
Maybe call Shae? Holly mulled over what she would say. “Hey, love, found a lost girl in my attic. A runaway. She’s unarmed, a squatter, been in juvenile detention—but she’s orphaned, poor thing, with an abusive aunt. It’s basically a modern Dickens story. Should I let her stay?”
Holly could already hear Shae’s response: “Are you f’ing crazy? You’re going to let a stranger from juvie live in your house? Is the sea air affecting your common sense? Let the police sort this out. Her problems aren’t yours to solve.”
Right. They weren’t, Holly reminded herself. Who was she to decide what was in this young woman’s best interest?
As her thoughts tumbled, Holly reached for the box of loose pages she had brought down from the attic.
Jade’s enthusiasm stirred something inside her.
Maybe she should take a peek at what she had written all those years ago …
but as soon as the thought surfaced, a warning followed: You stopped writing it for a reason.
You don’t want to revisit that story. Not now. Not ever.
And then Dan’s voice echoed in her head: Write something that sells.
Could Beach Thriller be it? Was she meant to finish this book? Was this a sign from Anna?
Jade had been so excited about the characters and the story—and young readers sell books these days.
What a story for TikTok! Runaway finds a lost manuscript and inspires a broken writer to tell the story she couldn’t bring herself to finish years ago.
It becomes a bestseller, Netflix catches wind, and soon Nicole Kidman is attached to the project.
Holly’s hands trembled as she lifted the lid on the old corrugated box. It felt as if she had cracked open a tomb. The title page leered at her like a taunt.
She braced herself for what she had to do. How could she expect to live in Beauport and face the ghost of her sister if she couldn’t even revisit a novella she had written ages ago?
With a deep breath, Holly reached for page 1, unsure of what she would find.