2. CHAPTER TWO

She remembered seeing a light and swimming toward it. Rocks, hewn by the sea and dressed in barnacles, scraped and cut up the bottoms of her feet when she finally touched the ocean floor, then she flung herself, shivering, and crawled through the surf with bones and muscles made of ice, onto the rocks, tearing up her knees and shins before she fell unconscious.

She never saw who pushed her over the side of that yacht.

Never even saw it coming.

All she knew was that she needed some space.

The questions about her and Flynn were getting to her, and she just needed to breathe and regroup. She found a private spot on the otherwise packed ship and stared out into the fast-approaching darkness.

The sun had set behind the horizon, leaving a thin strip of pink in its wake. The first stars winked, and the moon hung full and heavy in the east. She was so caught up in the beauty of the perfect May evening, relishing in the solitude and the fresh, salty air, that she didn't even hear the person come up behind her.

Before she knew it, two hands gripped her by the shoulders from behind, and she was falling into the frigid black water below. The yacht was drifting, perhaps the only real luck she had that night—beat being pulled toward the prop and minced into chum. But her turquoise sequined gown instantly became a diaphanous anchor and tugged her under. It tangled around her legs like a kraken's tentacles, and she struggled to get to the surface.

Had she not been a champion swimmer in high school, she probably would have drowned.

But her instinct kicked in, and she reached down and removed her stilettos, then peeled out of her dress, all while underwater and quickly running out of oxygen.

Her lungs burned, and black spots clouded her vision as she struggled to get free of her dress. But eventually, she ditched the designer deathtrap, said goodbye to her Jimmy Choos and kicked her way upward until the briny breeze kissed her skin. She pulled in delicious gulps of fresh air, then started calling out for help.

But by that time, the yacht was so far away nobody could hear her.

It was around ten o'clock on a Saturday night in early May. But just because the calendar said it was spring, and the night air was warm, didn't mean the water was.

Her teeth chattered as she treaded water, wearing nothing but her black thong, and the matching necklace and chandelier earrings on loan from celebrity jewellery designer Francisco Kruz.

She needed to get to land, or find a boat; otherwise, she was going to get hypothermia and die.

She could see the shadows of islands around her.

Yes, she was in the Puget Sound, but everything was still a heck of a swim away.

Spinning around, she searched for light. For signs of life. For signs of land or even a buoy she could grab onto. But there was nothing.

Nothing close anyway.

The light that seemed close enough was still no more than a yellow speck in the distance. But it was a speck she could see. Her north star.

She started to swim. Even though she'd go faster if she put her face in the water, she wanted to maintain her bearings. Putting her face in the water could cause her to drift off course.

As it was, she was fighting the current.

She front crawled and kept her head up with the yellow light guiding her forward. Guiding her to safety.

Everything ached. Her brain rattled, and her teeth chattered in her skull, and within ten minutes, she couldn't feel her fingers or toes. More than once, she thought she felt something brush up against her leg under the water. But she pressed on.

Just like Dory, she kept swimming.

Because it was either swim—or die.

There was no option C.

And she wanted to live.

Even when her muscles cramped, and she got a Charley Horse in her left foot, she kept going.

She pushed through the pain. She pushed through the numbness until that light in front of her grew to more than just a speck. Until the shadows of a treeline came into view. Until the sound of water lapping against the shore filled her ears.

She swam faster. She ignored the stitch in her side. She ignored the chills that wracked her, and she kept going.

She swam through the kelp forest and the long ribbons that tried to tangle around her legs and pull her to her death, then finally, her toes touched rocks.

Land!

Relief swamped her so much that she stopped and sunk for a half a second.

She couldn't give up now. Not when she'd come so far.

She pushed on until she was even shallower and could tiptoe on rocks, fighting the waves, fighting the fatigue and the tears that blurred her eyesight until she could put both feet down solid. Then she ran and crawled as best as she could, not caring that her feet and knees were getting cut up by barnacles and sharp rocks. She'd made it.

She made it to land.

That was all that mattered.

Then, as if that same person from the yacht was behind her again—only this time, in the form of fatigue and hypothermia—she fell to the earth. And that was the last thing she remembered.

It all sounded so outrageous that it had to be a dream.

A nightmare, more like.

A horrible, realistic, terrifying nightmare.

Because why else would the sound of birds chirping and the smell of fresh coffee wake her up?

She was clearly at her hotel suite back in Seattle and her assistant, Inez, was making coffee.

"Daddy, can I have pancakes?" came a little girl's voice. "Are there any left from yesterday?"

"Shhhh."

"Why are you shushing me?"

"Come here," said a man's voice.

Brooke still hadn't opened her eyes.

She was insanely warm and drenched in sweat. And now there was a man and a small child in her hotel room.

What was going on?

"There is a lady sleeping on the couch."

"A lady?" the child asked.

"Her name is Brooke and I found her last night on the beach. She was very cold. So I brought her back here, called Dr. Malone, and then she had a bath upstairs to get warm. But she's asleep, so we need to be quiet."

"I want to see."

It wasn't a dream.

Slowly, Brooke peeled open her eyes, only to find herself face-to-face with a beautiful little dark-haired girl with wild bedhead, and bright blue eyes. "She's awake now, Daddy!"

Footsteps echoed and a tall man with model-like chiseled facial features, dark hair, scruff and the same blue eyes as the little girl came to stand over her. "Hello."

Brooke's eyes darted between the two of them. Then everything from last night came flooding back like a tidal wave. His name was Clint. This was his house, and he'd found her on the beach. Then he called a doctor and ran her a bath. She glanced down at her body. She was in an oversized white T-shirt, and when she wiggled her toes, she could feel socks.

"You know where you are?" Clint asked her slowly, eyeing her warily.

She nodded. "Sort of. You're Clint, right? And you found me and this is your house."

His head bobbed. "Right. We're on San Camanez Island."

She blew out a breath as she digested all the information. "Right."

Her body was on fire. She tried to push the blankets off, but every one of her muscles seemed to seize all at once. Panic filled her.

Clint's blue eyes grew worried. "What's wrong?"

"I'm hot. I'm like burning up."

He nodded and pulled an electric blanket out from under her feet. But that wasn't enough. She fought the aches in her body and shoved all the blankets off at once.

In addition to the white T-shirt that was way too big for her, she was also in gray sweatpants that were way too big and white socks.

"How much of last night do you remember?" Clint asked her as she slowly sat up, then pulled the socks off her feet.

"Ouch!" the little girl said. "Your feet are all cut up."

"Shit, right," Clint said. "I was supposed to bandage those up after your bath. I'm sorry. I completely forgot." He reached for the ointment tube and some bandages from the coffee table, then sat down on the edge of it and brought her feet into his lap. "These already look better."

The little girl and Brooke both watched him as he gently applied the ointment, then secured the bandages to the bottoms of her feet.

"You've got some on your knees and shins, too," he said. "Talia, can you run to the first aid kit and bring me more Band-Aids, please? The kit is open on the kitchen table."

The little girl nodded, then skipped to the kitchen.

"How many people were on the yacht?" Clint asked.

Brooke shrugged. "Probably close to a hundred, if you include the staff. It was a big boat. We were celebrating the release of my latest film. The producer borrowed the yacht from his Greek shipping buddy. They even had press there."

"And did you have any enemies on the boat? Anyone who you think might want you dead?"

With her eyes fixed on Talia returning with a fist full of bandages, she shook her head. "The only person I can even think of who would do it, was supposed to be there, but then bailed at the last minute."

"Who was that?"

"Do what, Brooke?" Talia interjected.

Clint and Brooke's eyes locked.

He cleared his throat and glanced at his daughter. "Sweetie, can you double-check that I didn"t leave the water running in the bathroom sink? I think I can hear it dripping."

"I don't hear anything," Talia replied, giving her dad a confused look.

"Just go check, please," he insisted.

Talia rolled her eyes and shrugged, then skipped off to the bathroom down the hall.

Clint focused back on Brooke. "Who?"

"Flynn Howard."

"The actor?"

She nodded. "We were a thing. Until a month ago, when I caught him with an extra in his trailer. He's been in hot water a few times recently with the press and fans over the way he's reacted to people asking for autographs. Then there was that incident with the seventeen-year-old girl and the dick pic he sent to her DMs—he swore he'd thought she said she was twenty. After that, the press hounded him. He punched a photographer outside the building of The Today Show two months ago and tossed his beer in the face of a hostess at a restaurant."

"And you only ended it a month ago?" His brows were hiked and she could feel his judgment. Why didn't she end things with Flynn sooner?

"I ended things with him after the dick pic incident, which coincided with his cheating. However, me ending things with him sullied his image even more, and he was not happy about it. He said that I should have stood by him during all of it. When in reality, I was with him far longer than I should have been and stood by him through more than I should have. I just ... I'm a pushover."

Clint finished bandaging her feet, then carefully slid the legs of her pants up just past her knees to reveal skinned and bloodied knees and shins. She winced a little when he dabbed on the ointment with the cotton swab, but for the most part he was very gentle.

"Honestly, I tried to end things about three months ago. But the movie executives begged us to stay together until after the premier of his film because it was so high-budget they didn't want people to boycott it because of Flynn. So I agreed. But when that teenager went public with his DMs and I caught him with his extra, I couldn't stay any longer. And Flynn was so mad. Said I betrayed him and went against our agreement."

She blew out a big breath and closed her eyes.

"As soon as you have even the tiniest shred of fame, you don't go to just any restaurant anymore. You go to places to be seen. Or not seen depending on the circumstances. And in our line of work people talk. It was a public tailspin. Sometimes, I felt like I was on the plane, and other times on the ground running for cover, bracing for a movie-sized explosion. I had to end it early. Being with him was killing me. And it wasn't good for my career."

"But he wasn't on the boat?" Clint asked.

She made a thin line with her mouth and shook her head. "Nope. He was supposed to be—managed to swing himself an invitation somehow. But he just didn't show. His little extra side-piece was there, though."

Clint's brows nearly met his hairline. "She was?"

Brooke nodded as fear ratcheted up her spine. "Yeah. Kendall Blakely is her name. She was there last night. I don't know why, since she wasn't in my film. But she was there. Hanging off the arm of some mid-level executive, too. But as far as I know, she's still with Flynn. Though, they're keeping it a secret, or at least they were."

She massaged the bridge of her nose. Her head throbbed.

Clint seemed to get the gist of it, though. "Do you think she's the one who pushed you?"

Brooke shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe?"

"Do you want to call the police? File a report?"

No.

Maybe.

She had a difficult relationship with the police. Or rather, a long-standing mistrust for law enforcement—stemming from her childhood and having dirty cops in her family—which made her very reluctant to take her problems to them because she never really knew which ones were the real deal and which ones made their own rules.

Even though it made the most amount of sense that it was Kendall who pushed her off the yacht, something at the back of her brain told her it wasn't.

Kendall knew that Brooke and Flynn's relationship was over, so why was she mad? Was she angry on Flynn's behalf? That Brooke dumped Flynn before they agreed to end the relationship? That was good news for Kendall. It meant they could go public sooner.

Kendall pushing Brooke just didn't make sense.

If it wasn't Kendall, who else could it be?

She went through the Rolodex of people that she knew that could have a vendetta against her. Thankfully, the list was pretty short. The only two names on that list were Kendall and Flynn. And Flynn wasn't there.

Unless he went in disguise. But that seemed like too much effort for someone like him.

Honestly, based on Flynn's erratic behavior lately, she wouldn't put something like that past him. But imagining Flynn pulling off that level of an acting job, calmly pretending to be someone else around all those people and near her, seemed to be beyond him.

They met at a casting call when they were both models who were trying to break into show business. They both got the parts they auditioned for—a couple in love.

Things didn't turn romantic between them right away. She was attracted to him, but she was also nervous about dating a fellow actor. Mixing business with personal had the potential to get really messy.

However, they just seemed to keep ending up in each other's orbits. They did a few photoshoots together, modeling beachwear for Abercrombie and Fitch, Hollister, and American Eagle Outfitters, and he helped her land a five-line part on a movie he was cast in. And after about eighteen months of him pursuing her and her gently denying him—and her feelings—they finally gave it a shot.

Their first few years together were wonderful.

He was charming and handsome, helpful and considerate.

The name Flynn Howard was certainly recognizable, but Brooke's career took off at a much steeper trajectory than Flynn's. She was just a bigger name. She commanded more money for films, and was a more sought-after actor. And Flynn resented her for it.

He'd also been labeled difficult to work with over the last year. Erratic on set. Demanding and moody. She helped him get a few roles on some of her films, but if they weren't big enough, he would turn up his nose. If they were big enough, he'd become a diva, hated by the directors and producers.

She no longer recognized the blond, blue-eyed farm boy she fell in love with.

He was jealous of her and in the last six months, he took his jealousy and resentment to a whole other level. He deleted messages on her phone from her agent about possible script and movie deals. He hid her phone charger, or unplugged her phone while she slept so that it wouldn't charge and her alarm wouldn't go off. Once, he went so far as to throw her phone into the pool.

Of course, he denied all of it.

She couldn't trust him, though. However, as her assistant Inez pointed out when Brooke went to her complaining about Flynn, that Brooke had never really trusted Flynn. At least not fully. He knew nothing of her childhood or haunted past—unlike Inez who knew it all. Inez told her to end things with Flynn multiple times, but in some weird, twisted way, Brooke felt like she owed Flynn something.

She clung to the man she met when they were fledgling actors just trying to score a walk-on part or a commercial. She knew what kind of a man he used to be and held out, hoping he would become that man again.

"You owe him nothing," Inez said on more than one occasion. "If anything, he owes you."

Inez helped her see that the Flynn in her head and the one fucking about here in the real world were completely different people.

As hurtful as it'd been discovering him with Kendall in his trailer, she also took it as a blessing. A gift. An easy way out.

That didn't mean it still didn't sting. He lost interest in her—and he wasn't the first boyfriend to do so. Other boys, not only in high school, but in her adult life all seemed to just lose interest in her and end it or cheat. She'd never broken up with someone before Flynn, and even that was a stretch, since his betrayal prompted the dissolution.

What was it about her that guys just grew bored of?

Inez said she was crazy to think things like that, but it was impossible not to.

Between the ages of fourteen and thirty-two she'd had six boyfriends, and all of them dumped her or cheated on her. There was a common denominator there, and it was Brooke.

Boyfriend number one: Dylan Pryde asked Britani Douglas to the junior high dance, even though he was dating Brooke. That was his way of telling her it was over. She cried for three days and skipped the dance.

Boyfriend number two: Kyle Wilson kissed Missy Lefebvre playing spin the bottle at a birthday party. Then they went into the closet for seven minutes in heaven. Brooke was right there and asked Kyle why. He just shrugged and said he was too young to commit to one girl. And that was that.

It was a pattern. Boys just grew bored of her and moved on.

She thought maybe it was because she was too clingy, so she tried being aloof. That didn't seem to help. They thought she didn't care enough and dumped her, claiming they needed a girl who was more attentive and "into them."

She just couldn't win.

She thought she'd finally broken the pattern with Flynn because for the first few years he was the antithesis of all her other boyfriends. He only had eyes for her and was nothing but encouraging.

Nothing good lasted , at least not for Brooke, and Flynn finally showed his true colors. That he was just like all the other guys she had dated. A coward and a cheat.

"You just haven't found the right person, yet," Inez said. "But they're out there. I know it. You just need to stop picking duds who only want to ride your coattails to stardom."

Brooke wasn't sure she believed her assistant, but once she ended her relationship with Flynn—not even publicly, but secretively—things got weird. Flowers showed up in her trailer or on her doorstep—her favorites, Gerbera Daisies—and almost always on a Tuesday.

She had no idea who was sending them, but just figured it was a fan.

She often received flowers, gifts and mail from fans.

Then, she started to get more and more parts offered to her. More than she could keep up with. Actors who she thought would be much better suited for the part, and were bigger names than her, were getting injured or suddenly dropped out of the running. Maren Gagne, a blonde actor who looked very similar to Brooke, experienced a horrible car accident and was still undergoing physical therapy, so the director offered the part to Brooke. She was set to start filming the new movie in a few weeks.

It was rumored that the Fairmont planned to sign a big deal with Carol Warburton, another blonde actor who'd been in the industry for a lot longer than Brooke, but Carol was the victim of a freak home robbery, and she and her husband were killed. So the Fairmont offered the deal to Brooke.

Then there was a cameo spot in the next season of Crime Family: Los Angeles. And everyone thought it was going to go to Phoebe Watts, since she looked the part and was the director's stepdaughter. But Phoebe had a terrible anaphylactic shock to peanuts and ended up dying in her home, even though according to her husband they had epi-pens everywhere. Again, they offered the part to Brooke, who agreed and shot the one-day cameo appearance—with a new director, since Levi Short was still grieving the loss of his stepdaughter.

All these events piled together were bizarre and freaky, and she couldn't figure out what was happening. She'd discussed it with her assistant Inez, but Inez was quick to dismiss her fears and said that it was finally Brooke's time to shine. That as tragic as the events were, the world was finally recognizing Brooke's talent and giving her the roles she was meant for. Now that she was done with Flynn, Brooke's star was only going to get brighter.

Was it all just a weird coincidence?

Or was it something more?

Maybe it'd been the same person who'd hurt Maren and killed Carol, and now they were after Brooke. Slowly taking out one blonde actor at a time. But then what about Phoebe? Was that just a horrible, coincidental accident?

"Ms. Barker?"

"Hmm?" She lifted her gaze to Clint's.

"You've just been staring off into space for like two minutes. I asked you if you wanted me to call someone and you just sort of went catatonic and didn't say anything. Are you sure you're okay? Do you think you might have a concussion?"

She swallowed and blinked. "My head really hurts. I ... I don't think it's a concussion, though. I never hit my head, and it wasn't that far of a fall from the yacht."

Clint nodded, then took off to the kitchen. "You're probably dehydrated. I can give you some acetaminophen and water. Hang on." He rummaged around in a cupboard for a minute, then filled a glass with water from the tap and returned to her a moment later.

She thanked him for the water and Tylenol, then washed down the pill. She hadn't realized how thirsty she was until she took that first sip. Then she guzzled.

"Just tell me what you want to do, Ms. Barker—"

"Please, call me Brooke," she said, exhaling after having drained the water glass.

Clint nodded, concern still burning in his dark blue eyes. "Okay, Brooke, what would you like to do?"

"I need to pee," she said, which was the first thing that came to mind. "And I know I had a bath last night, but ..."

"You'd like to have another bath or shower?"

She nodded. "I'm cooking right now and super sweaty. Do you mind?"

"Not at all." He bent down, about to scoop her up like he had last night, but she shook her head.

"I can probably manage," she said, hoping she wasn't offending him.

He quickly bobbed his head and stepped back. "Right, sorry."

She swung her legs over the side of the couch and went to stand up, but putting pressure on her feet was more painful than she realized and she winced and sucked in a sharp breath.

"Dad," Talia said, swatting him on the arm, "carry her."

Brooke's cheeks grew warm, but she gave a little nod. "If it's not too much?"

"Not at all," he repeated, scooping her up into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he carried her effortlessly—or at least it seemed that way—up the stairs.

Every muscle in her body hurt. Sure, she did Pilates three days a week, and yoga the other four, while also running twenty miles a week on her treadmill, but swimming was a different beast. It used muscles you forgot you had. And she'd also swam for probably well over an hour and fought the current. No wonder her body was rebelling now.

Clint pressed his lips together, then twisted them to the side in a cute way as he slowly climbed the stairs.

He was a very nice-looking man. With a strong jaw covered in a thick, but tidy scruff, dark blue eyes and a seriousness about him that drew her in and made her want to ask a million questions and learn everything she could about this man.

Starting with: where was his wife?

They arrived in his room. It was clean, with a made bed and sliding glass door that led to a private balcony. She saw no signs that a woman lived here, but that didn't necessarily mean anything.

His bedspread was a dark tan color with matching pillowcases. Blackout drapes, the shade of a blue jay, hung on either side of the sliding glass door. No pictures or artwork graced the walls. The headboard was wooden and looked handmade, and it matched the bedside table, which had a lamp with a burlap shade and a book sitting upside down on it.

He set her down on the bed. "The bandages should hold through a bath," he said. "Unless you'd rather shower? It's a big stand-up shower with a bench, so you won't need to put pressure on your feet."

"A shower sounds great. Just need to rinse off. I'm overheating in these sweatpants. I don't normally sleep in ... anything." Her cheeks got hot when she said that last part.

"I can run into town and grab you some clothes later today. But for now ..." He opened up the third drawer on his tallboy dresser and pulled out a black ribbed tank top and a pair of khaki-green board shorts with a drawstring. "Maybe this will be better than sweats."

"Thank you," she said, her cheeks still hot.

He smiled and nodded. "Is your towel from last night hung up on the drying rack in there, or would you like another one?"

"I hung it up. I will be fine."

He nodded one more time, gave her a grim, closed-mouth smile, then ducked out of the bedroom, softly closing the door behind him.

Unlike last night when she'd had a bath, and the sky had been filled with the moon over the unforgiving sea, today's view of the Puget Sound was awash of color and wonder. The water glittered in the morning sun like a jewel encrusted blanket, while boats bobbed and whizzed through the waves. One of the ferries that linked the islands toddled along in the distance, and the chirp of birds outside the open bathroom window filled her heart with hope.

Someone out there tried to kill her.

But they'd failed.

It wasn't her time yet, and as terrified as she was, she was also determined to find out who pushed her off the yacht and make them pay.

She still had so much more that she wanted to do in this world. Things she wanted to achieve. She wanted to direct; she wanted to write; she wanted to find a good man, settle down, and raise a family.

She also really wanted a dog.

Flynn was allergic to dogs, so she held off getting one. But she promised herself that as soon as she was one hundred percent rid of him, she was going to rescue some beautiful soul with four legs and a heart-melting smile.

But first things first.

She needed to have a shower. Cool off and figure out a game-plan.

She tugged the T-shirt over her head and dropped the sweatpants to the floor, then carefully, with every laboring step, she headed into the shower.

Last night she nearly died.

Nearly.

But the kind man downstairs rescued her.

And she wasn't going to squander this gift of a second chance.

She was going to achieve her dreams—all of them.

And not even a target on her back was going to stop her.

The dilemma: how was she going to do two opposite things at once? Investigate what happened to her and move on?