Chapter 6

SIX

Gulf Shores, Alabama

Tuesday, September 17

6:38 a.m.

She couldn't see his face.

The man from her memory.

Elyse hadn't been able to sleep at all last night. She'd been forced to rest once released from the hospital. Under her husband's watchful eye. It'd been uncomfortable for both of them.

Energy she normally would've spent sweeping up sand, staying on top of dishes, and planning family outings had built up to the point she'd snapped at Wesley for burning the grilled cheese he'd made her for lunch and taken over. Then quickly apologized.

All she wanted was for everything to go back to normal.

Her husband was trying to distract himself with work and hiding in his office, to then make punctuated appearances throughout the day to check in with her. He'd ask how she was doing for the dozenth time and follow it up with a kiss before wondering what was for lunch or get himself a snack. She'd normally be spending a few hours at the beach or down on the dock with her recent read while Ava pretended she was an orphan with some other girls her age in the area.

But at dinner, that was when they shined. At dinner, they were a family. They laughed, they played games, they reinvested in each other's lives. Their fourteen-year-old regressed into that little girl Elyse missed every passing day. The one who had no clue about Instagram, Taylor Swift, or status symbols in the shape of an overpriced water cup. Sitting across the table from them, Ava was just… Ava. Fiercely independent and bent on seeing the world the second she got free of her teenaged years. Always the one that held the power in every relationship and in too much of a hurry. In the hours where the sun went to bed, their too-intelligent-for-her-own-good, sarcastic, enthusiastic daughter they loved more than life itself made an appearance.

It wasn't perfect. Coming to Gulf Shores was like each of them taking their own separate vacations from their busy lives back in Clarksburg, WV, but the routines they'd built since buying this beach house were comfortable. Everyone knew their role on vacation, and right now, they needed to get back to them.

Except Elyse couldn't pretend things hadn't changed.

She laced up her running shoes on the front porch. Careful not to wake her husband or daughter. Sticky humidity worked beneath her T-shirt and shorts, but there was a hint of fall mixed in. The sun was just barely starting to peek through the trees to the east. Stars still clung to the velvet sky, but she'd run this route hundreds of times. She didn't need to see.

Elyse shoved to stand, lighter without her phone dragging her down, and set off. Aches from yesterday protested. Then slipped to the back of her mind with every step. Her body sank into that familiar discomfort she'd grown to crave. Her breathing evened out. In, in, out, out, out. She passed the Branyon Backcountry Trail sign and took a sharp right to follow the asphalt trail that never failed to remove her from the rest of the world. A hideaway of twenty-eight miles that included sand ridges, coastal dunes, oak forests, pine flatwoods, freshwater marshes, and coastal hardwood swamps. Out here she didn't have to think about the black hole still raw at the center of her chest, or what her unborn daughter might look like today. She didn't have to wonder what Wesley was really doing during all those late nights at the office, or the fact he'd found comfort with another woman during her chemotherapy treatments four years ago.

This trail was the perfect place to forget.

Trees climbed high on either side of the asphalt, corralling her, closing in as if they were alive. Tension bled into her shoulders as the dunes took shape ahead. The trail attracted hundreds of runners, bikers, and walkers every day, but for now she seemed to be alone. Her fingers curled into her palms. Remembering something just out of reach of consciousness. Elyse slowed her pace. Watched the retreating shadows.

Movement registered off to the right.

She froze. Waiting. Goose bumps prickled up her arms, her skin tighter than a moment ago. It seemed colder than when she'd started running, even as the sun crested the horizon. "Hello?"

No answer.

Elyse took a step forward, her vision failing to pick up anything in the dense foliage. A streak of memory cut through the haze of the past twenty-four hours. Of her. On this trail. And a feeling… of escape. Of wanting to escape.

She sucked in a gasp as an undersized alligator wiggled through a patch of Florida rosemary. A baby. She backed off a few feet, giving it some space. One alligator didn't usually mean more, but she wasn't going to take the chance. She picked up her pace, trying to hold on to that image. Had this been where she'd woken, dazed, confused, out of her mind? In truth, she couldn't remember how she'd gotten back to the beach house. Everything had felt so… dissociative. Foreign. Right up until she'd found herself standing in the kitchen. Bleeding.

The dunes acted as a beacon ahead, drawing her free of the claustrophobic closeness of the trees. She broke through the boundaries of the trail, and she could finally feel herself come back into her body. The ocean called from the other side of the rolling hills. Miles of them. Isolated. Bare apart from beach weeds and peppered lights out on the surface of the water. Looking back, Elyse visually followed the alligator as it skittered across the trail to the other side. On the hunt for prey. Was that what she had been? Prey?

Threading her hand through her hair, she caught the edge of the bandage protecting her stitches. Pain stung across her eyebrow and seemed to clear her head. Enough to recognize the house down the beach. A lone landmark in the darkness. The structure faced the ocean without any neighbors to crowd in and disrupt the view. Modern windows had been tinted against the onslaught of Alabama sun. The house itself wasn't overly impressive compared to others, though the oversized design stood apart from the bright, multi-colored beach houses typical of the area. Raised on stilts, the house appeared to be made of thousands of sharp edges. She couldn't think of a time she'd met the owner or seen anyone taking advantage of the pool built into the first tier of wraparound deck.

But she'd been here before.

It was the windows.

The same windows she'd caught her reflection in just before a man with no face had started yelling at her. Approached her. The memory was still there. As clear as the first time she'd recalled it in the urgent care.

Elyse stepped off the path. Sand infiltrated her running shoes, grinding between her socks and the inside soles. But she didn't care. Because she knew this house. Without ever stepping inside. Knew that it was somehow important to her missing memories. She moved, almost possessed, like someone else had taken over her body, and she was simply along for the ride. It didn't make sense. A gravitational pull had materialized in the center of her chest and pulled her further away from the trail. From safety.

A storm-beaten wood picket fence separating private property from the trail swayed with the breeze coming off the water. Before she had a chance to consider what exactly it was, what she was doing, Elyse had stepped onto the narrow wood slats leading beneath the house. There was no front door really. Only a staircase that wound up the back of the stilted beach home. How did she know that from this angle? There weren't any cars parked beneath the house. If someone was home, they hadn't seen her.

She could walk away. Pretend she hadn't ever been here.

Instead, Elyse kept to the wood-slatted path, following it directly underneath the house until she couldn't go any farther. Instinctively, she pivoted to her left. Exactly where the stairs waited to take her up to the main level. She reached out for the dry wood handrail, trying to keep her heart from beating straight out of her chest. She was trespassing. She knew that, but she couldn't let go of that hook that'd caught inside of her either. There was something familiar about this house, and she needed to know why.

The stairs whispered a groan under her weight. Aches she'd forgotten about during her run reared their ugly little heads as she crested the last step. The in-deck pool glimmered with the sun's morning rays, intensely blue and crystal clear. Porch furniture, including a full dining table and chairs, had been positioned perfectly, angled to take in the extensive view of the gulf. Not a neighbor in sight. No tourists pacing the beach. She took a hesitant step forward.

Something else moved in her peripheral vision.

Every cell in her body rocketed into overdrive. As if she'd been electrocuted, she backed herself toward the stairs. Elyse clamped a hand over her mouth too as she recognized her own reflection in the length of a glass door to her left. It took too long for her heart rate to come back down, but embarrassment didn't waste a moment. "For crying out loud. You're scared of your own reflection. What the hell is wrong with you?"

Hey! What are you doing here? The voice burst from the back of her mind. Loud. Aggressive. Clear as day. Elyse blinked to put herself firmly back in reality, but it was too late. The memory was gaining strength—becoming clearer—each time it chose to grace her with its existence. She turned, expecting the faceless man from her memory to come charging straight at her.

Except he wasn't there.

Not today.

But he had been. At this house, yesterday morning. And so had she. Right before she'd found herself standing in the middle of her living room without any memory of how she'd gotten there or that she'd been injured.

Elyse stretched for the nearest guardrail to steady herself. It wasn't the same old, storm-swollen wood as on the stairs. This was new wood, painted white with thin wires meant to keep children and adults from going through. She peeked over the railing, gauging the distance between the deck and the beach below. The pain in her shoulder seemed to intensify at the thought of falling.

A chill took hold despite the sweat beading at the nape of her neck. The wires of the railing were close enough it would be difficult for someone to fall through them. But over? That didn't seem difficult at all. Fear suffocated the last of her confidence. She backed toward the staircase, all too aware of the position she'd put herself in.

Sunrise had crept farther along the beach, breaking through the property line and highlighting the weeds clawing for purchase in the sand. For what she assumed would be a multi-million-dollar home, little care had been put into maintaining the property. Had the man from her memory been the owner? Maybe a caretaker? She couldn't be sure, and she wasn't willing to stay long enough to find out.

Elyse retraced her steps down the stairs and onto the wood-slatted path. She was halfway to the beach when a different kind of reflection caught her attention. It was hard to ignore. Something so bright, half-buried in the sand. She would've passed over it had it not been for the exact position of the sun. She stepped off the wood slats. Warning bells sounded off in her head. An alarm telling her to get out while she still could, but she had to confirm it for herself. She had to know.

She pinched the heavy black brick between her index finger and thumb.

A phone. Cracked. Dead.

No. Not just a phone. She turned it over in her hand, ran her thumb over the scratch across the back. Where her keys had gouged the aluminum as she packed the car for this trip for their family vacation. Elyse turned her gaze upward, to the deck ten feet off the ground.

She hadn't just dropped her phone in some kind of accident. No. Someone would've called an ambulance in that case.

She'd been pushed.