the police department for over a decade, and Douglas had never known her to be anything but calm and efficient.
“What kind of situation?” He met his father’s eyes, the sudden silence of the room making Deborah’s words echo loudly.
“A body has been found near the lighthouse.”
“Where?”
“At the base of the cliffs. The caller believes the deceased may be Olivia Henry.”
“It can’t be Olivia.” Douglas’s brother Charles spoke into the deafening silence that followed Deborah’s announcement, his face drawn with concern. Divorced and the custodial parent to his twin toddlers, he’d hired Olivia to work as their nanny several months ago. Sweet and kindhearted, she’d poured out love on her charges, and that had been enough to win the respect and affection of the family.
Now she might be dead, her body lying broken at the base of the lighthouse cliffs.
“I’ll be at the scene in ten minutes, Deborah. No one is to touch the body before I get there.” He jogged through the living room and back out into the frigid afternoon. Steel gray clouds blocked the sun and the air held a hint of snow. A winter storm blowing in. They’d need to collect evidence and retrieve the body before it arrived.
The body?
The young woman.
The human being whose life had ended abruptly.
An accident?
A suicide?
Something worse?
“Hold up, son. I’m riding with you,” Aiden called out, pulling on a thick coat as he ran to Douglas’s SUV. Face pale, his hands trembling, he looked shaken and ill.
“You don’t have to—”
“I’m the chief of police. Of course I have to.” He jumped into the SUV, and Douglas gunned the engine, sped through town, sirens blaring, lights flashing, adrenaline pumping through his blood. A quiet fishing community, Fitzgerald Bay didn’t offer much in the way of excitement for its police force. Loitering, vandalism and robbery topped the list of crimes. Every once in a while, domestic violence or assault, but bodies didn’t appear at the base of cliffs. People didn’t just die without warning and without cause.
Someone had died, though.
Maybe someone very close to his family.
Douglas’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, his heart thundering in time with his racing thoughts.
“Do you think it’s Olivia?” Aiden asked, his voice shaky and weak.
“I don’t know.” Douglas glanced at his father, worried about him in a way he’d never been before. Aiden had served as chief of police for as many years as Douglas could remember. Stoic, serious and unflappable, he wasn’t the kind of guy to let anything shake him. But he was shaken. Visibly so. “Are you okay, Dad?”
“Of course I am,” Aiden muttered as Douglas flew down Main Street and out onto the rural road that led to the bluff and the lighthouse. Two police cars followed, lights flashing blue and red through the cloudy afternoon. His brothers. Douglas was sure of it. No way would Ryan or Owen stay away. No doubt, Keira was in one of the cars. Together, they’d identify the body. They’d piece together what happened.
He just hoped they wouldn’t find Olivia.
Hoped she was happily enjoying her day off.
The lighthouse loomed in the distance, growing closer with every passing mile. White and red, it stood stark and tall against the steely sky. A small, quaint cottage was a few dozen yards away from it. Once the lighthouse keeper’s home, it now belonged to Charles. He’d built a small apartment at the back of the building and had offered it to Olivia.
Maybe, she was there.
Douglas prayed she was there.
Charles’s blue Nissan, the one Olivia used to transport the twins, and a beat-up Chevy station wagon sat in the driveway. Dark green. Wood trim. Looked like it had lived a few decades too long.
Douglas knew the car, had seen it parked outside his sister Fiona’s bookstore dozens of times in the past year. He knew exactly who it belonged to. Remembered the day he’d walked into the Reading Nook and seen Meredith O’Leary for the first time. Curvy, pretty, secretive Merry.
Had she found the body?
“That’s Merry’s car,” Aiden said as Douglas got out of the SUV. Gulls screamed, their haunting cries mixing with crashing waves as Douglas made his way along the path to the cliff.
Large boulders and smaller rocks jutted from dark soil. The briny scent of the bay carried on the cold wind that blew across the bluff. All of it felt familiar and homey and right, but nothing was right about the day or Douglas’s reason for being at the lighthouse.
Up ahead, a woman stood near the edge of the cliff, strawberry blond hair whipping in the wind, shoulders hunched against the cold.
Definitely Merry.
There was no mistaking her hair, her ultra-feminine curves, or the way his stomach clenched, his senses springing to life when he saw her.
Two lunch dates. That’s all it had taken to convince him that Merry was a woman worth knowing better. He’d looked into her eyes, listened to her laughter and imagined doing the same over and over again in the weeks and years to come.
Two dates.
And, then she’d broken things off.
It’s just not working out.
That’s what she’d said, but she’d refused to look in his eyes when she’d said it, refused to tell him what part of their time together hadn’t worked for her.
Because it had all worked for him.
She stepped closer to the cliff’s unstable edge, and his heart lurched.
“Merry!” he called out, but she didn’t seem to hear over the crashing waves and screaming gulls. He ran forward and snagged her coat, yanking her away from the crumbling earth before it could give way.
She screamed, turning around, her fist aiming for his nose and coming a little too close for comfort.
“Hey, calm down!” He sidestepped another blow, grabbing her hands before she could swing again. They trembled in his grip, the fine tremors making Douglas ease his grip, smooth the skin of her knuckles.
“Douglas! Thank goodness you’re here. Olivia is…” Her voice trailed off as if she couldn’t bear to speak the words, and he had no doubt she really believed Olivia was lying at the base of the cliffs. But it was a hundred feet down to the rocks and water. A hundred feet could make identifying someone difficult.
“Stay here. I’ll take a look.”
Please, God, don’t let it be her.
