4. Chapter 4 #2
By late morning, I give up. Not permanently. Just strategically.
The pantry has enough welcome-basket snacks to keep a normal vacationer alive for a day or two, but I am not normal about food, and I refuse to survive on crackers, strawberries, and sparkling water while surrounded by one of the prettiest kitchens I have ever rented.
I change into linen shorts and a loose white shirt over my swimsuit, leave my hair down because there are no cameras here to impress, and make a grocery list on my phone.
Eggs.
Greens.
Good bread, if the island has mercy.
Citrus.
Something fresh for dinner.
Before I leave, I check the front door, the porch door, and the bedroom window. Once each. Then, because honesty matters even when no one is watching, I check the front door again.
The drive into the center of Sunbreak Harbor takes less than ten minutes.
In daylight, the town looks even more charming than it did when I arrived yesterday.
The candy-striped lighthouse rises at the far end of the island like something from a painting, red and white bands bright against the blue sky.
Golf carts share the road with SUVs and bicycles.
Tourists cluster outside a surf shop. A woman in a wide-brimmed hat carries flowers wrapped in brown paper.
Two kids trail after their father with inflatable pool rings bouncing against their knees.
No one looks at me twice. That helps. Then one woman near the crosswalk frowns at me a little too long, and my stomach tightens until she smiles and says, “You’re the chef with the lemon pasta video, aren’t you?” I stop because politeness is muscle memory.
“That’s me,” I say.
Her face brightens. “I knew it. My daughter makes that every Friday. She thinks she invented adding extra garlic.”
I laugh because this kind of recognition is normal. Sweet, even. It has happened in airports, grocery stores, hotel lobbies, and once in a dentist’s office while my mouth was still half numb.
“That sounds like a smart daughter,” I say.
The woman asks for a quick selfie, and I agree because saying no to kind strangers still feels unnatural, especially when they only want thirty seconds of proof that the internet exists in real life. She thanks me three times and walks away smiling.
Normal. Everything is normal.
I buy coffee from a tiny café called Driftwood & Cream, a few groceries from a market with hand-painted signs, and a bottle of sunscreen because I forgot mine in Orlando.
By the time I return to The Sandpiper, I almost believe last night’s little noise beneath the porch was exactly what I told myself it was … nothing. I park beneath the cottage, grab two canvas bags from the passenger seat, and start toward the stairs. Then I stop.
The storage room door beneath the house is open. Not wide, just a few inches. Enough that I can see darkness beyond it. I stare at it, my heart shifting from calm to pounding so quickly I feel dizzy.
It was closed yesterday. Wasn’t it?
I try to picture it the way it looked when I pulled in.
I definitely remember the lattice screen and coiled hoses.
The outdoor shower I didn’t notice then.
I don’t know why. But I know that storage room door was closed.
I remember noticing it because the road-facing side of the house felt so practical compared to the pretty rental photos.
Closed. I’m almost certain it was closed.
My fingers tighten around the grocery bags until the handles cut into my skin.
The sensible explanation arrives fast. Maybe the wind pulled it open.
Perhaps there are beach chairs inside and someone from the cleaning crew forgot to latch it.
Maybe I’m tired, stressed, and turning every ordinary detail into evidence. Still, I don’t move closer.
I set the grocery bags down slowly on the stair landing and pull my phone from my pocket. My thumb hovers over Vanessa’s name first, then Talia’s, then the emergency contact number the rental owner sent.
In the end, I call Marianne.
She answers on the fourth ring, cheerful and breathless. “Kara, hello. Is everything okay?”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I say, already embarrassed by the tightness in my voice. “I just got back to the cottage, and the storage door underneath is open. I wondered if that’s normal.”
There’s a tiny pause.
“The storage door?”
“Yes. Beneath the house, near the outdoor shower.”
“Hm. It should be latched. The cleaning crew uses it for beach equipment, but they were there yesterday morning before you arrived.”
My stomach sinks.
“It could be nothing,” I blurt.
“It may have just not caught properly. The wind can do strange things with those lower doors if they aren’t fully closed.”
Wind … that’s it. A perfectly reasonable answer.
“Of course,” I say, forcing a small laugh that sounds terrible even to me. “That makes sense.”
“Would you like me to send someone over?”
The thought of a stranger coming to the cottage makes my skin prickle, which is absurd considering I’m the one who called.
“No, I’ll check it.”
“Kara, are you sure?”
I look at the narrow gap, the dark vertical line between the door and frame. No.
“I’m sure.”
We hang up, and I stand there for several seconds with my phone clutched in my hand. The storage room remains open. The cottage remains quiet. Somewhere above me, a curtain taps gently against a window. I take one step forward. Then another. My body hates every inch.
When I reach the door, I push it open with the toe of my sandal and immediately step back as if something might lunge out at me.
Nothing does. The storage space smells like damp wood, sunscreen, and rubber.
Beach chairs lean against one wall. A kayak paddle hangs from hooks.
There are buckets, pool noodles, a folded umbrella, and two life jackets tossed into a plastic bin.
No person or threat. No knife-wielding stranger crouched in the shadows, waiting for a celebrity chef to make the dumbest decision of her life.
A laugh breaks out of me, shaky and humorless.
“Fantastic,” I whisper. “Completely normal now.”
I pull the door shut firmly until the latch clicks, then tug on it once to make sure it catches.
It does. Everything is fine. Except when I turn back toward the stairs, I see something in the sand near one of the pilings.
It's a footprint. Just one clear impression where the crushed shells give way to softer sand. It’s larger than mine. Much larger. I go still.
There are a dozen explanations for a footprint under a rental house. Cleaning crew. Maintenance. Owner. Previous guest. Delivery person. Yard worker. Someone walking too close by accident.
I take a photo anyway. Then I take another one, closer, before the wind can soften the edges.
My hands are shaking by the time I carry the groceries upstairs. Inside, the cottage is exactly as I left it. Bright kitchen. Lemon-cleaner scent. Nothing disturbed or out of place.
I put the groceries away with too much focus, lining up tomatoes, yogurt and sparkling water like organization can save me from myself. Then I stand in the middle of the kitchen and stare at the phone in my hand.
Calling the police over a storage door and a footprint feels ridiculous. Not calling feels worse.
The local sheriff’s office number is printed in the guest binder on the counter beneath a laminated list of emergency contacts, beach rules, and trash pickup days. I dial before I can talk myself out of it.
“Sunbreak Harbor Sheriff’s Office,” a woman answers.
I explain badly at first, then start over and explain better. Recent break-in at my home in Orlando. Staying here temporarily. Storage door open. Footprint beneath the house. Maybe nothing, but I wanted it documented.
The dispatcher doesn’t laugh and that helps.
“We’ll send someone by,” she says. “Stay inside until a deputy arrives, please.”
Stay inside. Those two words make the cottage feel smaller.
I lock the front door, then the porch door, then stand at the island with both palms flat against the butcher block while my heart slowly hammers itself into exhaustion.
A deputy arrives fifteen minutes later.
Not with lights and sirens, thank God. Just a white SUV marked Sunbreak Harbor Sheriff’s Office pulling into the driveway with calm efficiency.
I watch through the front window as a broad-shouldered man in uniform steps out, takes in the cottage's underside, and glances once toward the stairs before starting up.
I open the door before he knocks because apparently I enjoy looking both anxious and overly eager.
“Ms. Stone?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“I’m Sheriff Eli Vaughn.”
Not deputy, then. Sheriff.
He looks early forties, maybe, with sun-browned skin, short sandy hair, and the steady demeanor of someone who has spent years calming tourists, breaking up dock fights, and telling people hurricanes are not the time to test their luck.
“I’m sorry,” I say immediately. “This may be nothing.”
“Most things are nothing until they aren’t,” he says. “Mind showing me?”
That one sentence keeps me from apologizing again.
I lead him downstairs and explain what happened while he examines the storage door, the latch, and the sand beneath the cottage.
He crouches near the footprint without touching it, studies it for a long moment, then looks toward the road, the neighboring properties, and the private path cutting through the dunes.
“Door latch works,” he says.
“Yes. I checked it.”
“You’re sure it was closed yesterday?”
I hesitate. That hesitation embarrasses me more than I expect.
“I think so.”
He nods as if that answer is not useless. “And you arrived yesterday evening?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone besides the owner know you’re staying here?”
The question lands too close to something Mercer said. Keep your travel plans limited to people you trust.
“My friend Vanessa. Also my assistant and publicist.”
“No social media posts?”
“No.”
“Any reason someone from Orlando would know to look for you here?”
“No, I don’t think so.”