Page 3

A thick fog hovers over the road where the oceanside gives way to trees. An object ahead, off to the right, draws my attention, and I squint my eyes to focus through the white haze, only noticing the shape of a cross once we pass it. Another stands a few feet ahead of that.

I twist around in my seat and catch a third on the opposite side of the road, through the back window. “What’s with the crosses?”

“Churchy types like to come up here sometimes and remind us all how useless they are.” In spite of the crucifix around her neck, my aunt has always had a certain disdain for religion. All those years of catechism seem to have burned her out on it.

That, or the people who tried to cram it down her throat after finding out my uncle cheated on her.

“Have the Blackthornes always been hated this much?” I ask.

Flicking her cigarette out the window, she blows out the last of the smoke. “Thought you didn’t like the rumors?”

I don’t. I hate this town and its gossip, but something about this particular family intrigues me. “I’m just curious to know if it’s a generational thing, or if Lucian’s the only accused murderer.” Rolling my eyes, I turn in time to catch yet another cross at the side of the road.

“Roll your eyes, but you didn’t know Amelia. She was the princess of Tempest Cove. Everyone loved her. And when she started hanging around that man? Well, we just knew trouble would follow. Always does with a Blackthorne.”

“Amelia. That’s his wife?”

“Was. She ain’t around anymore, remember?” Staring through the windshield, she sighs and shakes her head. “Such a shame. But to answer your question, I suppose there’s always been something off about that family. Whether the older ones murdered their wives is unknown—to me, anyway. But who knows, with as much as they keep to themselves.”

The fact that they almost never venture into town has given rise to the mythological rumors about Lucian being some hungry creature that hunts the surrounding woods.

“Well, there’s a difference between suicide and homicide, and last I checked, he was never charged for murder.”

A squawk of laughter jerks her head back, before she flashes me a dubious look. “You think a man with as much money as he has, as much power, would ever be convicted?”

I think this town likes to make up stories when facts don’t quite line up the way they’d like. Take my mother, for example. They nicknamed her the Siren of Tempest Cove, simply because the women couldn’t deal with the fact that their husbands were just as guilty of adultery as she was.

“I think, no matter what, science is science. And evidence doesn’t favor the rich.”

Face washed in mirthless amusement, she shakes her head. “Beauty. Brains. But as naive as a seal pup in a pool of sharks.” When she glances toward me, I swear her eyes are rimmed in darker circles than before. “Evidence don’t always tell the whole story. Sometimes, we have to rely on instinct, Isa. Remember that?”

There’s a subtlety to my aunt’s words. Where she can be downright crass and rude, laying her personality on the table like tarnished silver that hasn’t been polished in decades, there are times I find her to be more shrewd than I am. Her comment is meant to give me pause, to remind me that, only a few months ago, I’d made the tragic mistake of ignoring my instincts.

A thought I cast aside. I don’t need those memories pulling me under and clouding a new start.

“You’re curious, too. That’s why you’re driving me.” I say, searching through the dark silhouettes of passing trees for distraction. Even with the sun cresting the horizon, the canopy of the forest still gives the impression of night here.

“I’m curious to know what would change your mind, yes.”

Inwardly groaning, I shake my head. “It’d take an act of God to make me turn down this cash.”

A black object swoops into my periphery, and aunt Midge slams on the breaks, sending me crashing forward into the dashboard. Hard vinyl thumps against my palms, and needles of electricity shoot up my unbent arms, as the car squeals to a stop.

“Son of a bitch!” Aunt Midge sits with her arms outstretched, both hands white-knuckling the steering wheel.

I lift my head to find an eerie swirl of fog dancing in the beam of the lights, before it parts around a black bird in the middle of the road that hops alongside the bloody remains of a dead animal. “Jesus. What the hell is it?” Unbuckling my seatbelt, I slide forward for a better view.

“Crow? I’ve no idea.”

“Not the bird.” The animal beside the bird is hardly recognizable, sprawled out in a pool of entrails that the wretched creature pecks at as though unfettered by the headlights.

“Who gives a shit? Damn thing almost ran us off the road!” She rails on the horn, but fails to move the bird.

In fact, it doesn’t even spare us a glance, still feasting on the carrion strewn across our path. A bulbous object is wedged in its beak--an eyeball, which it gulps back, and I grimace, imagining myself lying there in the road while it feeds on me.

“What in the Sam Hill?” As Aunt Midge idles past the bird, I stare down at it from the passenger window, and when it cranes its neck toward me, I frown, noticing one of its own eyes missing. “Never seen such a thing in all my life,” my aunt says beside me. “Wasn’t even bothered by us.”

Twisting in my seat, I breathe deep to settle my nerves and peer through the back window, where the bird still hasn’t moved. “Must’ve been starving, or something.”