Chapter 7
The next day—Tuesday—it was late afternoon before the rain finally stopped. She’d spent the day resting, eating snacks supplied by the Cedar Trails Lodge store, revisiting her notes over the last many months of research.
Families, couples, singles combed the beach. Laughter erupted as two kids chased their dog, trying to grab onto his leash. Though she’d experienced trouble arriving in Hidden Bay yesterday, the world kept turning. Time hadn’t stopped. Life continued.
Earlier in the day, before she’d taken to the beach, a close friend had put her in touch with a therapist—as in, the therapist had taken Cressida’s call to her direct cell immediately.
Unfortunately, such special treatment reminded her of her mother, which had a negative effect on Cressida’s mood.
Connections were everything, Mom always said.
And Mom always made sure those connections had strings on them.
The thought disturbed Cressida.
But she wanted to do what was needed so yesterday morning’s attack wouldn’t hang over her and prevent her from finishing Dad’s book.
While she remained in Hidden Bay, she needed to focus on gathering research for his incomplete manuscript.
Remi had given Cressida privacy, allowing her the use of the landline in her office for both calls.
That had turned into a long conversation with Anne Crighton, LPC, who was big on exposure therapy—in other words, she helped her clients face fears in locations or scenarios tied to trauma—and that had been just what Cressida needed.
Still, maybe Cressida had taken her counsel further than the therapist had intended when she decided to come right down to the beach to face her fears.
Several miles south of the marina, this beach wasn’t the exact place where she’d been attacked.
The lodge rested on top of the cliff, and the beach beneath was at the edge of the bay, near rougher waters—all this so the guests could watch the dramatic storms and crashing waves.
From here, Cressida could barely make out the liveaboard boats bobbing out in the bay’s calmer waters.
They called themselves pirates—all fun and games, of course.
Pirates.
She snorted a laugh.
Her soft shoes pressing into the wet sand, she tried to avoid the areas with larger pebbles as she weaved her way through the mass of big white tree trunks—Pacific red cedars that nature had transformed into driftwood.
Gripping her waterproof Nikon, relieved it had remained in her duffel, she faced the vast Pacific Ocean and searched the waters. No Coast Guard. No actual pirates.
And definitely no Specter’s Bounty.
Would she even recognize it if she saw it?
Dad had sketched an image in his notes. With the rusted-out hull and cranes, it looked like a salvage ship from decades ago.
Where had he gotten this idea for the picture?
He must have seen it somewhere, but he left few details about it in the notes—unless information was in the missing pages that had been ripped out before she’d gotten the journal after his death.
Dad’s notes included a warning surrounding the boat—“a crewless vessel that serves as a cautionary tale of the dangers of the deep”—the kind of detail that often fed superstition surrounding vessels with mysterious histories, adding to the local folklore.
And a question—“Does Evelyn Monroe know?”
Know what, Dad? Know what?
The question and lack of information surrounding this last vessel to be included in his book made it that much more mysterious.
She lowered the camera. Though no one had followed her out to this part of the beach, she shouldn’t take too much time.
She had a reason for coming. Evelyn Monroe’s mansion sat on the top of the cliff.
She’d hoped to get a good look at it from the Mariner’s Gambit, but she’d been sidetracked.
Peering up at the rocky cliff face, she spotted a barely visible set of steps that led to the top.
Interesting.
She could only see them if she stood at just the right spot. They’d been built for privacy. If she climbed those, would she find herself at Mrs. Monroe’s back porch?
She could be shot for her intrusion. After all, the woman hadn’t agreed to an interview.
Cressida shook her head. She’d have to keep trying.
Her father had mentioned her in his notes for a reason.
Talking to Mrs. Monroe could be key to learning more about the Specter’s Bounty.
She could try again another day. She’d been accused of being a workaholic, and maybe that was true, considering her never-give-up attitude on the very day after someone had tried to drown her.
The simple truth was that Cressida could not allow someone else to hold that much control over her life.
She wouldn’t let the attack destroy her plans.
Talking to the therapist had been the kick in the rear she had needed.
But she had no intention of tackling those stairs to Driftwood Manor—Mrs. Monroe’s residence—this evening.
Nor intruding. I’ll come back for you, Evelyn Monroe.
In the meantime, she could at least talk to Diggins, like Malloy had suggested. Cressida turned around and headed back the way she’d come, knowing she still had steps to climb—those that would take her up the cliff to the Cedar Trails Lodge.
The sun finally setting on the horizon, the bright pinks and oranges took her breath away. She had plenty of sunlight left to light her way back to Cedar Trails, just over a mile away. Her body was starting to ache in places that hadn’t hurt earlier.
A flash of pain in her scalp and she was gasping for air.
Underwater.
No. No! I can’t let him get the best of me.
Just calm down.
She breathed deeply. In and out. In and out. Took in her surroundings.
The present moment was her reality and not events of the past. Up ahead, other beachcombers remained to watch the sunset, reassuring her that she wasn’t completely alone. No dense fog closed in to make her feel isolated.
All her positive thoughts did nothing to assuage the fact that a singular figure emerged from the others enjoying the shore and hiked in her direction.
Past the steps she was aiming for that would take her back to the lodge.
Not strolling. Marching with purpose.
She palmed her gun, an unreasonable panic rising in her chest. She’d never been one to back down, but maybe she could have given herself more time to recover from yesterday’s attack, at least psychologically—and physically, given the way her chest constricted and ached.
Her shoulders too.
Cressida turned and hurried back. Another quarter of a mile and she’d be at the private steps again.
Breathing hard, she moved as fast as she could without appearing to be in an all-out sprint.
Somewhere in her psyche floated the rule that running from a predator only caused them to give chase.
Right or wrong, she maintained a controlled escape.
Finally, she made it to the stairway that would take her up to the top. A glance back told her the figure was closing the distance.
Okay. I’m climbing these stairs up this cliff. For all she knew, the steps simply led to another park and not necessarily Driftwood Manor.
Cressida started up the staircase. Taking one step at a time, she didn’t look down. Didn’t look back. By the time she made it to the top, she struggled to catch her breath. This climb might have been easy for some, but not for her.
She peered down the steps and saw no one climbing after her, and she released a heavy sigh of relief. Maybe she’d panicked for nothing and could have kept walking on the beach to the Cedar Trails Lodge steps.
But now she was here, and she’d have to find her way back to the lodge.
She moved away from the cliff and assessed her surroundings. And yep. She was on the property surrounding the mansion.
Cressida tried her cell. Maybe she could get Remi to send someone to pick her up. But she had no bars. What did she expect?
As a journalist, she liked to set up interviews with willing interviewees, but this wasn’t a perfect world.
And she was no longer a journalist. She was simply completing her late father’s book.
While she was here, she might as well try to set up an interview in person.
To get to the drive to the house, she had to walk along a trail through a beautiful meadow outside the main gate.
The path coursed along next to a thick growth of spruce and red cedars.
Cressida followed the trail toward the house. It was a big old mansion that belonged in a gothic novel, especially when you factored in that—on the one side—it sat right on a cliff, overlooking a rocky beach.
Evelyn Monroe was an enigma herself. Cressida had taken a shallow dive into her backstory, learning she’d moved to the area approximately twenty years ago and bought the old manor from someone who’d moved here from Baltimore and built it at the turn of the century.
The place had a history of its own, but she suspected Evelyn Monroe also had an interesting story.
As she approached the house, dusk was well and truly falling, and she wanted nothing more than to get away from the darkness edging the trail.
She pressed her hand on the G26 at her side.
Maybe not the best way to approach the house.
But it was still quite a walk. A long private road led to a circular drive at the front.
Near the manor, a shadowed figured slipped from a corner of an outbuilding and crept to the house.
Cressida froze.
Those weren’t the actions of someone who had come to the mansion for aboveboard reasons.
Did she have time to warn Mrs. Monroe? Would she, too, be seen as an intruder? One who approached wielding a gun?
What should I do? Rush forward and pound on the door to warn the residents? Tugging her cell out, she prayed for a signal. It was worth a shot. And she got one bar here, standing in this exact spot.