He stared at the message, still processing yesterday’s discovery in the caves, and spending most of the night looking over the preliminary report from the state forensic team. Lily Morgan’s remains, finally found after twenty-five years. Martha’s grief and relief tangled together. The knowledge that they were dealing with murderers who’d hidden their crimes for decades.
And now Vivienne was telling him she knew where Melissa Clarkson had been held.
His phone buzzed again.
Vivienne Hawthorne
I know you’re skeptical. But I saw it clearly. The cove, the beach, evidence of recent activity. Trust me on this.
He did trust her. That was the problem. In less than a week, this woman with her impossible insights had turned his worldview upside down. Every vision she’d described, every intuitive leap she’d made, had led them to concrete proof. Lily’s body, the connection to the lighthouse, the Aldrich family’s involvement.
I’ll be at the station in twenty minutes if you have time to stop by.
Twenty-three minutes later, after a briefing with Sullivan, Vivienne climbed into his car carrying two thermal travel mugs. She handed him one without speaking, and the familiar scent of her tea blend filled the vehicle. Dark circles shadowed her eyes.
“Rough night?” he asked, pulling onto the empty road.
“The vision was intense. I saw Melissa there, terrified. She knew they were going to kill her.” Vivienne wrapped both hands around her mug. “She fought them. Left traces. We’ll find proof she was there.”
“How recent?”
“Within the last few days. Before they moved her to wherever she is now.”
He wanted to ask how she could possibly know this, but he’d learned that questioning her methods while she was exhausted only delayed getting answers. Instead, he focused on logistics. “The cove’s only accessible at low tide. High tide’s at noon, which gives us maybe four hours to work the scene.”
“It’ll be enough.”
They drove in silence through the gray dawn, past the town center where a few early shops showed lights, past the harbor where fishing boats prepared for morning runs, toward the lighthouse that stood sentinel on its rocky headland.
“Turn here.” Vivienne pointed to an unmarked dirt road barely visible through coastal scrub.
The path narrowed quickly, forcing him to slow to a crawl as branches scraped the car’s sides. After a quarter mile, the road ended at a small clearing where the trees pressed close.
“We walk from here.” She climbed out, already moving toward a trail he hadn’t noticed.
He grabbed the forensics kit from the trunk and followed. The path looked well-used---fishermen and teenagers probably, seeking the secluded beach for their own purposes. But as they moved deeper into coastal woods, he noticed something odd about the landscape.
Trees leaned away from their route. Ancient pines angled their trunks at uncomfortable degrees, branches bent away in sharp curves.
“The trail’s always been like this.” Vivienne caught his upward glance. “Grandmother Emmeline said the trees sense what lies ahead and want no part of it.”
Weather patterns, soil composition, or prevailing winds could explain the growth patterns. He’d seen stranger formations in Texas. The silence bothered him more—no bird calls, no rustling animals, just their footsteps on fallen leaves and waves against rock.
“How far?”
He shifted the forensics kit on his shoulder.
“Another quarter mile. The descent gets steep at the bluff.”
They walked without speaking. Taking photographs from multiple angles, documenting everything before disturbing anything, and making sure the proper chain of custody. Standard work, even if the location wasn’t.
The trees thinned near the coastline, revealing dark water through branches. When they emerged onto the bluff, the view stopped him cold.
The water below looked almost black in full afternoon sunlight. Not the deep blue-green of ocean depths, but an oily darkness that absorbed light. At low tide, skeletal remains of old ships jutted from shallow water—ribs of rotted wood and rusted metal from decades, maybe centuries, of vessels that had met their end here.
“Christ.” He pulled out his camera. “How many wrecks?”
“More than the official records show. Ships that were never supposed to be here.”
