B.J. Daniels - Hotshot P.i.

Her heart pounded. There was nothing unusual or unique about the bead. Except Clancy knew where it had come from. With a tremor of terror she remembered Friday night when Dex had called and demanded she meet him at the Hawk Island Cafe on the other side of the island.

He’d been holding a necklace of colored beads when she’d walked up to him. The outdoor café was empty that late at night and that early in the season. Dex sat at a table in a flickering pool of light from the Japanese lanterns strung overhead. She had looked at the necklace with growing dread, thinking it was another present, wishing she hadn’t agreed to meet him.

He must have seen the expression on her face, because he gave a bitter laugh as she took a seat across from him.

“Don’t worry, it’s not for you,” he’d said, holding up the string of beads for her to see. With a jolt she realized she’d seen it somewhere before. The tiny beads were pale blue. A handmade ceramic heart hung from the center of the necklace. It was painted navy with a smaller pink heart in the middle.

“Where did you get that?” Clancy asked, trying to remember where she’d seen it before.

“It’s part of my mother’s legacy,” Dex said.

His mother? “What are you doing here?” Clancy demanded, wishing she’d never come, wondering how he’d even known where to find her. She’d never told him about the family’s lake lodge. When she’d broken it off with him in Bozeman, she’d thought she’d never see him again. She felt a chill as she watched him hold the necklace up to the light and smile.

“What do you want, Dex?” Clancy asked with dread.

His eyes narrowed as he glared at her. “You’re part of that legacy, Clancy.”

She felt her fear level rise. How could she not have seen this side of him from the very start? “I thought we’d agreed not to see each other again.”

“We agreed?” He reached across the table and grabbed her arm, squeezing it until she cried out in pain.

“Leave me alone, Dex. I’m warning you—”

He squeezed harder. “If you think you’ve seen the last of me you’re—” He looked past her, seeing something that made his eyes widen. He released her arm almost involuntarily. She turned to look but saw nothing in the darkness beyond the café.

He lowered his voice. “I’m not leaving this island, Clancy. Not until I get what I deserve.” He’d hurried off, leaving her sitting, head reeling, wondering what he’d seen in the darkness that seemed to frighten him. And what Dex thought he deserved.

Just hours later, he’d turned up dead in her garret.

Now she stared at the tiny bead in her palm, knowing this had to be one of the beads from the necklace. Apprehension rippled through her as she stared at her sandy feet. Something had triggered her night wanderings again. And she couldn’t seem to stop them. Now she’d returned from sleepwalking with a single bead from a broken strand. When had it been broken? And where had she found this one blue bead? Even more frightening, how had she known where to look?

She slid her legs over the side of the bed and staggered into the bathroom. As she dropped the bead into the toilet and flushed, she watched it disappear with growing terror. She couldn’t keep kidding herself. Like the broken string of tiny blue beads, her life was coming unraveled.

Clancy glanced warily across the bay at Jake Hawkins’s lodge. The shades were drawn; she could catch no sign of movement behind them. The blue outboard was still moored at his dock, a boat she assumed he’d rented to get to the island. She looked at her watch, surprised to find it was earlier than she’d thought. Then she turned her gaze again to Jake’s lodge across the small bay. The coast looked clear. She picked up the overnight bag and her purse and opened the back door, expecting Jake to suddenly appear and block her escape.

As she stepped out onto the small back porch, she glanced apprehensively behind the lodge. While she found no one hiding in the lilac bushes that brushed the back side of the building, she did see something that stopped her cold. Slowly she put down her purse and overnight bag and moved toward the first lilac bush. Some of the branches along the lodge side of the bush had been broken. They hadn’t been yesterday afternoon when she’d returned from jail. She was sure of it. She’d stopped on the porch to dig out her key and picked up the sweet scent of the lilacs, now in full bloom. And she wondered where she’d be this time next year when they bloomed. In prison?

Clancy brushed back the branches, not surprised to find the grass beneath the kitchen window crushed where someone had stood, looking in. Through the glass Clancy could see her coffee cup at the table, the chair pushed back from where she’d sat last night. Someone had stood on this very spot, watching her!

She crashed her way out of the lilacs as if the person was at her heels. Scooping up her purse and overnight bag, she rushed down the beach toward her dock. Who had been at the window? The same person who’d called her down to the dock and tried to drown her? It hadn’t been a dream, her mind screamed. No more than the crushed grass beneath the window.

With relief she passed the old boathouse, and Jake didn’t jump out of the shadows to stop her. All that stretched ahead now was the dock and her boat waiting beside it. The sun danced on the slick surface of the lake, golden. The tall pines shimmered, a silky green at the edge of the water. She took a calming breath. The air smelled of so many familiar, rich scents. Safe scents she’d grown up with. But she was no longer safe. From Jake. From the phantom in the lake. From the real live person who’d stood looking in her window. As long as she kept sleepwalking, she wasn’t even safe from herself.

She reached the dock without incident and started down it, walking as quickly and quietly as possible. A sudden flash of memory tormented her. A hand coming out of the water. Grabbing her ankle. Pulling her. She walked faster, fear dogging her steps.

Just a few feet ahead she could see her boat, a yellow-and-white inboard-outboard; a coat of dew on the top and windshield glistened in the morning sunlight. Once she reached it and started the engine, Jake wouldn’t be able to stop her. The thought buoyed her spirits.

She shot a parting glance toward his lodge. Jake must still be asleep. He’d been so adamant about shadowing her every step last night, this seemed almost too easy. She smiled to herself, imagining his surprise when he woke and found her gone, as she untied the bow and started to swing her overnight bag into the hull.

“Good morning!”

Clancy jumped, nearly tumbling backward off the dock. She swallowed a startled cry, pretending she wasn’t trying to get away and his catching her wasn’t a problem. Jake grinned up at her from the bottom of her boat, where he lay sprawled on a sleeping bag, his arms behind his head.

“Going somewhere?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at the overnight bag still clutched in her hand.

She cursed under her breath.

“If you’re set on a life of crime, Ms. Jones, you’re going to have to be more devious,” he said, getting to his feet. “And jumping bail.” He wagged his head at her. “Bad idea.”

Clancy groaned. This man was the most irritating—She took a breath, trying to still her anger as well as the silly sudden flutter of her heart as he vaulted effortlessly from the boat to join her on the dock.

“Level with me, Clancy,” he said, his voice as soft and deep as his gray eyes.

The sound sent a tiny vibration through her, igniting memories of the chemistry between the two of them as teenagers. She wondered if it was still there and hastily brushed that errant thought away.