This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2024 by Cheakamus House Publishing

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Amazon Original Stories, Seattle

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ISBN-13: 9781662520952 (digital)

Cover design by David Litman

Cover image: © Southern Lightscapes-Austral / Getty; © charnsitr, © Rishiken / Shutterstock

1

“There—you can see it through the gap in the fog.” The old ferryman points.

I lean forward to peer through the wheelhouse window streaked with seawater. Rain and wind lash at us as we buck into the whitecapped surge of a West Coast winter storm, cutting an erratic path toward Blackwood Island. It’s as though the sea itself is holding us back from the bleak private estate of the infamous and reclusive Gothic horror novelist Claudia Blackwood.

“The Overlook,” he says in a hushed, accented voice.

It’s a monstrosity. A mansion constructed of glass, concrete, and metal. All angles and clinging to the jagged black cliffs high above the maw of a cave.

Jacques and Jill crossed the hill to kiss on a cliff

high above the water.

It’s like something rising to life right out of Claudia Blackwood’s novels, and her own horrific past. Anticipation shivers through me as the fog slides once more across the cliffs and the vignette vanishes. My mind goes to the call I received six months ago from Edward, my New York literary agent, offering me a contract to ghostwrite the memoir of the elusive literary sensation who lives on that brooding West Coast island. Claudia Blackwood bought the island with royalties from rabid fans around the globe who devour her brand of darkly atmospheric Gothic novels tinged with the macabre. And they’ve been doing so ever since her first release, thirty years ago. Her fame is only fueled by her secrecy, her reclusivity. Her notoriety.

I think of what I’ve read about her since Edward’s call. Claudia has been variously described as Daphne du Maurier meets Shirley Jackson, a female Edgar Allan Poe melded with Stephen King. I’ve read most of her books since the call. Her stories all deliver a brooding mystery tinged with horror and often whispers of romance. All are driven by a resourceful but misunderstood heroine who finds herself isolated and in grave jeopardy. And while Claudia’s monsters are violent and ghoulish, they’re always human, and often tormented, sad, rejected by society. Like the author.

Tension tightens my chest.

She followed them there

And, oh, did her rage flare.

When she saw them embrace

at them she raced . . .

My mind slides back to the call with my agent.

“I’m not ready, Ed.” It was too soon after my husband’s death. I was—still am—a mess.

“It’s a guaranteed blockbuster, Grace. An opportunity of a lifetime,” Edward pressed. “She’s the real deal—a murderess turned authoress who killed two teens and brutally stabbed to death a seven-year-old boy when she was only seventeen. Talk about hashtag-own-voices, this is it. A Gothic horror novelist who writes murder with authority. Because she is one.”

She shoved Jacques down.

He smashed his crown.

She sent Jill tumbling after.

“I can’t.”

“Grace, listen to me. This contract comes with an advance in the seven figures, plus a share of the royalties. This is not your usual ghostwriting gig. This could set you up for life.” A pause. “You haven’t written in a while. I think you need this right now.” What Edward is saying is: It’ll pull you out of your grief rut, get you back into the world of the living.

“Why doesn’t she pen her own memoir?”

“A terminal illness. She’s being disabled by it. I understand she might not have long, and wants to tell her story.”

I know her story.

Everyone in publishing does.

How can you ignore a woman whose book sales rival James Patterson’s and are controversially fueled in part by the notoriety of her violent past? Forty-one years ago, schoolgirl Claudia Blackwood discovered her boyfriend—with whom she was said to be obsessed—was cheating on her with a classmate. Already emotionally disturbed by unresolved grief over her mother’s tragic death, Claudia followed the teens to a cliff-top make-out spot, pushed them both to their deaths, then horrifically stabbed her boyfriend’s little brother, who appears to have witnessed the event.

Little Danny saw the lot,

took off at a rapid trot.

But before he could tattle

she grabbed the knife

plunged it thrice

and stole the little boy’s life.

“She wasn’t found guilty,” I said. “She claims she never did it.” Claudia also swore she didn’t remember a thing about the event.

“The jury was hung due to policing errors. But everyone knows it was her. Even though she never went to prison, she sentenced herself to a lifelong incarceration on that island. She’s guilty as hell.”

Now they’re all dead.

And the story remains locked inside Claudia’s head.

“Why does she want me? Is it because we both grew up in the same small town?”

“In part. Mostly her agent said she loved the samples I sent. And your backlist is a fit.” Another pause. “You weren’t her first choice, Grace. She started with another ghostwriter.”

“What happened?”

“I—ah, it didn’t work out.”

“Meaning?”

“There was an accident, apparently. She went for a walk one evening. The weather turned foul, and . . . well, it seems she never returned to the Overlook.” He cleared his throat. “They think she fell off the cliffs along an area called the Widow’s Walk. They found her body battered and floating in the sea five days later.”

“She’s dead?”

“It looks like this was meant to be yours, Grace. Take it for what it is.”

I declined the offer. I had a bad feeling. And it really was too soon after my husband’s death. I had other reasons, but those are mine to know.

Until Edward delivered the clincher.

“She says she finally remembers, Grace. She recalls exactly what happened that day, and she’s ready to tell the world. She’s going to confess.”

It set a firecracker off in me. Suddenly I couldn’t refuse—wasn’t even an option. If anyone was going to put a different ending onto the story of Claudia Blackwood and her role in the deaths of Jacques Duvalier, Jill Wilson, and little Danny Duvalier, it was going to be me. Grace Logan.

My ghostwriting niche is true crime. And I have a doctorate in abnormal psychology. My lifelong fascination is with deviant minds, those who kill, and specifically those who feel no remorse in doing so.

I’ve ghostwritten countless bestsellers myself, although not on the scale of Claudia’s. But in some ways I think I’m actually a little like Claudia. While I love the success, I eschew the limelight, the public scrutiny. I find the idea of a magnifying glass on my life threatening. So I stick to my own dark superpower, which is to disappear behind the scenes and deliver novels in the voices of others. I know how to quietly get into the heads of killers. I know how to coax them into telling me things. I can “become” them and speak in their voices, and in the voices of those who hire me to help craft their heinous tales.

But as I look up at the forbidding, jagged black rocks and think of the dead ghostwriter who came before me, a whisper of fear needles into my anticipation. Wind gusts and a wave rocks the boat. Cold air seeps into the wheelhouse, and I’m filled with a sense that everything is about to change. What is perhaps the most important story of my life waits up there, inside that grotesquely modern cliffside mansion on Blackwood Island. A fortress, perhaps with limited escape.

My heart beats a little faster.

Claustrophobia is my Achilles’ heel.

2

A foghorn moans as the ferryman carefully circumnavigates the waves smashing over a stone pier that guards the island’s tiny harbor.

I feel a dread close in, a sense of something deeper—sinister—at play.

I try to shake it. It’s my own mind playing tricks. I’m still reeling from Andy’s horrible death. Grief is a dark mistress. She makes me second-guess, blindsides me at the most unexpected moments, slices my heart open and renders me vulnerable to all the emotions that roil over the loss of a loved one: hurt, anger, remorse, guilt, fear, loneliness.

I should’ve put my foot down, said no to the offer. I also have no choice. Edward was right. This is the most important job of my life right now. And given the financial payoff, it might be the last story I ever need to write.

I glance at the ferryman, an odd and unsettling little man. He appears timeless. Otherworldly. His complexion is lined and browned by wind and weather, and his whiskers are silver. My gaze drops to his hands. Misshapen. Scarred. I feel as though he’s some kind of shapeshifting threshold guardian, ferrying me across this channel from the mainland to an unearthly, dark realm on the other side, hidden by mist in the sea.

“Did you bring the previous writer over as well?” I ask.

He nods, but says nothing. He’s focused on bringing his craft safely up against the moorings along the pier.

“Where is the Widow’s Walk?” I ask.

A shadow crosses his face. He glances at me. “The trail runs from the Overlook along the top of the cliffs, and around the east point of the island. You might get a glimpse if you step outside. You’ll need to brave the storm one way or another—we’re about to dock.”

I open the small wheelhouse cabin door, and wind yanks it from my grip. I gasp and brace against a fierce blast of icy rain. Once I’ve managed to shut the door behind me, I can see nothing of the island. It’s fully curtained behind thick fog. The horn out at sea moans again.

At the end of the pier, among trees, I notice a black sedan. A driver in uniform stands in the downpour by the side of the car. I was told transport would be waiting to drive me up to the Overlook—that must be it.

The ferry bumps against the moorings, and I steady myself. A small man in a yellow sou’wester comes running to grab the ropes and lash the heaving craft to the moorings. It’s at this moment I notice another passenger near the back of the boat. I hadn’t been aware there was anyone else on board.

I can’t see his—or her—face. Their features are obscured by the hood of a black raincoat pulled low against the driving rain. The person climbs quickly over the gunwale, carrying a bag. They hurry down the stone jetty. Sea mist swirls.

The ferryman exits his wheelhouse and offers me his gnarled hand to assist me over the side of the boat and up onto the pier.

“I didn’t catch your name,” I say as I take his hand.

“Charon.” He rolls the r and emphasizes the n at the end. A shiver passes over me.

“Charon?”

As in the ferryman to the underworld in Greek mythology, the boatman who transports the souls of the dead across the river Styx?

“Aron,” he corrects. “Icelandic,” he explains. “That’s where my mother is from.”

I stare at his wizened face, his pale-gray eyes. Control yourself, Grace. This whole thing is going to be a mind game, and you need to keep your imagination in check.

I clear my throat. “Thank you for the ride, Aron.”

He hands over my baggage, hesitates, then glances at the black car in the distance. The chauffeur has started to make his way along the pier toward us. Aron quickly presses a piece of crumpled paper into my wet hand.

“My mobile number,” he says quietly. He glances at the chauffeur coming closer, speaks fast. “In case you suddenly need a return ride to the mainland.” Wind gusts, snatching his words away. “Call me. If you can get cellular reception.”

“There’s no coverage on the island?”

He shakes his head. “Sometimes one spot at the highest part of the Widow’s Walk above Deadman’s Drop. But you need to go carefully. And only in good weather.”

The tall man in a chauffeur’s uniform is closing in. Rain wets my face. I hear the sea crunch and boom on the rocks. The boatman casts another furtive glance at the approaching chauffeur and says quickly, “I think she tried to call me that day.”

“Who?”

“The last one. On the night she vanished. I didn’t hear my phone ring, but I got a strange voice mail. It said, ‘I need to get off—’ but the line went dead. When I called back, there was no answer. Then she was gone.”

They found her body battered and floating in the sea five days later.

3

The chauffeur is almost upon us. At over six feet tall, he comes with a powerful, athletic stride, his black driver’s cap and uniform slick with water.

Aron gives me a quick salute. “Good luck.” He disappears into his fogged-up little cabin. Within seconds the tug-like craft pulls away from its moorings and bobs toward the storm-tossed sea.

Wind rips at the hem of my long red coat as I stare after it, feeling spooked.

“Mrs. Logan.”

I spin to face the chauffeur. Surprise washes through me. The driver is a woman. Tall and Black with haunting dark eyes.

“I’m December, your driver.” She reaches for my bag and lifts it with such apparent ease you’d swear it was empty.

I follow her along the pier as wind pummels us, making us both lean slightly sideways in order to steer clear of the water’s edge.

We get into the car as thunder claps and rain beats loudly upon the roof. Without another word December begins to drive up the twisting road through the forest. The sense of isolation in the woods is intense. Claustrophobia whispers. But there can be no turning back now. Claudia Blackwood is either going to tell me she’s a cold-blooded killer or claim to be some kind of a victim. And I need to know.

As we drive, I see the other mystery passenger ahead, walking slowly up the side of the road, head bent into the storm, heavy case in hand, features still obscured by the hood. I turn in my seat as we pass, trying to see the face. But we round a bend, and I see only forest.

4

“Shouldn’t we have maybe offered that person a ride?” I ask my driver.

“My orders are to bring you directly to the Overlook.” December looks ahead, taciturn.

I sense she’s more than a driver. She exudes loyal-bodyguard vibes, and she has a build and latent athleticism and obvious strength to match. I try to make conversation in an effort to ease the tense atmosphere.

“December is an unusual name.”

Her impenetrable eyes meet mine briefly in the rearview mirror. “Not really. I was born in the month of December in the city of Maputo. So that’s how the orphanage people named me when my mother left me at their door. December Maputo.”

Silence thickens as the sedan twists up the switchbacks to Claudia Blackwood’s cliff-hanging citadel. The mist grows pea soup thick. Rain drums heavily on the roof and wipers clack.

My thoughts return to the mystery passenger on the road with baggage in hand.

“So others live on the island?” I ask.

“It’s privately owned, but there are a few legacy homesteads on the east side, some farmer tenants on the plateau, and a scattering of cottages along the east cliffs used for staff housing. Everyone mostly keeps their distance from the Overlook.”

“Have you worked here long?”

“I came to the island with Ms. Blackwood. I was originally hired for security detail.”

Bingo.

“So she needed a bodyguard prior to moving here?”

“It’s not easy being a Lizzie Borden–style legend. She received threats, harassment, and strange stalkings. It’s why she chose to isolate herself here.”

Edward’s words filter back into my brain.

She sentenced herself to a lifelong incarceration on that island. She’s guilty as hell.

We arrive at a set of iron gates. December presses a button, waits. Slowly the gates creak and judder open. Our sedan enters, and the Overlook looms ahead, menacing. As I stare at the monstrous house, the front door swings open and a short, plump woman steps into the doorway. She waits with hands folded neatly in front of her.

December stops the car at concrete stairs that sweep up to the entrance. A raven swoops low over the car, startling me with the dark shadow of its wingspan. The bird settles high on the silvered branch of a dead tree and watches us through the rain.

Nothing about this place seems ordinary. Everything feels off. I am again besieged by the sense that I’ve been lured into another realm, right into the dark heart of Claudia Blackwood’s Gothic horror.

December kills the engine, turns to me. “Before you go in, I need to ask for your mobile, and any other electronic or recording devices.”

“You’re not really serious?”

She looks deathly serious.

I think of the crumpled piece of paper the ferryman pushed into my hand. “Look, I know I signed the agreement stipulating the ‘rules,’ but I really have no intention of photographing or recording anything for my own—”

“My orders are to get your phone or you don’t go in. Ms. Blackwood cannot risk something unsanctioned appearing on social media or in the news.”

I stare at the woman, and my skin goes hot despite the cold.

December waits. The raven caws and is joined by another bird with an equally daunting wingspan. Leaves blow in a gust of wind off the sea, and branches sway.

I inhale deeply, reach into my pocket, do a final check of my emails, and remind myself the contract allows for a day or so of “grace” while Claudia and I get to know one another and decide whether we are compatible. Up until then, either of us can back out.

“There.” I hand December my phone. My lifeline.

5

“Mrs. Logan,” the housekeeper says with a flat smile as I step into the entryway of the Overlook. “Welcome.” She takes my wet coat and hangs it on a hook.

The interior of the mansion is also all concrete—the floors polished and the walls distressed to make them appear artfully weathered. Accents are pale wood, large mirrors, and original-looking paintings in garish and violent colors. It’s warm inside, but the decor is paradoxically cold.

“I’m Mrs. Waldjeck.” The housekeeper declines to offer her first name. “Ms. Maputo will take your baggage to your room. Please follow me to the library, where Claudia Blackwood will see you.”

She glides ahead with a stiff spine, her soft-soled shoes making no sound on Persian runners as she leads me into the cavernous house that seems to inhale and exhale around me, as if tasting my presence, processing my scent.

“Please note that because of Ms. Blackwood’s ill health, sessions will be short. I will interrupt on a timer. She needs a great deal of rest, plus regular medication.” Waldjeck comes to a stop, opens a door. “You can wait in here.”

I step into a vault of a library to die for. High ceilings, bookshelves lining the walls, floor-to-ceiling windows offering a gut-swooping view over the edge of the cliffs. The winter storm lashes against the glass, and a fire crackles in a stone hearth. Tables are of thick glass, and leather chairs are in the design of Herman Miller—all sleek lines and architectural comfort.

The impact steals my breath.

Waldjeck shuts the door behind me, and I stand a moment, taking in the scene and contemplating how best to approach the reclusive Gothic novelist.

From this first meeting, I need three things answered to my satisfaction before I will agree to stay. The first: Why me? Why does my work in particular resonate with Claudia Blackwood? Second: What exactly happened to the last ghostwriter? And third: Is Claudia truly going to confess—does she really remember now what she did that day—or is she trifling with us all because she’s rich and twisted and at the end of her life and she needs attention or entertainment? Because if she doesn’t remember, I have no reason to subject myself to this charade.

Wind outside rises and howls, and the flames in the hearth suddenly flicker. A shutter outside begins to bang rhythmically in the storm. I move to the shelves and run my fingers softly, gently, across some of the old leather spines. The books appear to be antique editions of old and violent fairy tales, horror novels, mysteries, some swashbuckling historical romances, stories of witches and ghosts. I pause as my fingertips alight on the spine of an antiquarian tome about the origins of fairy tales. I hesitate, glance toward the door, then carefully slide it out.

I cautiously open the ancient book, and the scent of the old pages is strong.

“Grace.”

I gasp and drop the book, but lunge to catch it before it hits the floor. Heart pounding, book in hand, I spin in search of the voice.

A chair with a high back facing the windows swivels slowly around, revealing the woman who has been there all along.

“I’m Claudia Blackwood. So good of you to come.”

6

“I . . . I didn’t see you there when I entered,” I say awkwardly. I’m shaken, already off kilter, as though by her design.

She holds my gaze a moment. Unsmiling. What strikes me first is her paleness and frailness.

“Nothing is ever quite what it seems on the surface, is it, Grace? There are always things lurking beneath.”

I take a moment to absorb her more fully. She’s slight—very thin. Angular features. Haunting ice-blue eyes. Her skin is so pale it’s almost translucent, and her hair is white blonde. Hers is an ethereal, fragile beauty. Eerie and arresting. Her hair is swept up, and she’s dressed all in black. A choker with a dark-green stone hangs at her throat. Despite her overt fragility, she exudes an aura of steel. I realize this house is a personification of Claudia Blackwood. Planted on a precarious cliff, it looks like it should topple but somehow clings on.

“Do you remember me?” She angles her head.

A warning bell goes off deep inside me. Cautiously, I say, “You’re from my hometown. Everyone who lived in that small town forty-one years ago remembers you. What happened there rocked the whole community. And those who arrived later have learned the lore. Your story made an impact on criminal history.”

“And it even spawned a childhood rhyme,” she adds. “Jacques and Jill crossed the hill to kiss on a cliff high above the water.”

My gut tightens. “You know about the rhyme?”

“How can I not? I might live in isolation, but I’m not immune to online attacks and rumors.”

My gaze slides uneasily to the stone at her throat. It was rumored at school that Claudia wore a vial of Jacques’s blood on a choker around her neck.

She covers the stone with her hand and says, “Nursery rhymes are usually about something true and heinous at the core, are they not? Same with fairy tales. We attended the same school, you and I.”

“There was only one school in town. I was a few grades below you.”

“Two grades. I’ve done my research on you, as I imagine you have on me.”

I swallow. She’s making me edgy. “And do you remember me at all?”

She regards me in silence. Rain ticks and squirms down the windows. “You know how it is,” she says finally. “The younger kids often know who the older ones are at school, but it doesn’t usually work the other way around.”

“You’re right. You were one of the cool kids. All tortured artist and beautiful and mysterious.” And I was plain Grace, always overlooked.

“Have I changed, Grace?”

“I didn’t actually know you back then, and I don’t know you now, so I can’t say whether you’ve changed.”

“In looks, I mean.” She waves a pale, veined hand across herself.

“Still striking,” I say honestly, feeling an old pang of self-loathing because I always believed I was ugly and unlovable and it bothered me so terribly much that people like Claudia Blackwood and Jacques Duvalier were so far out of my realm and reach. I hate that she’s actually triggered this pathetically childish sentiment in me. I thought I’d outgrown it. Mostly. But I’m still plain. Still just a ghostwriter behind the glossy curtains of others’ success.

“More frail, though,” I add. “Older.”

“I know. This illness. It’s aged me beyond my years.” She holds both hands forward for me to see. They tremble and jerk. “I discovered my breast cancer only after it had metastasized. Now I have a kind of ataxia caused by a brain tumor. It’s rendered me basically immobile—can’t move without the aid of my wheelchair.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ah, now you lie. Why would you be sorry? Most people wanted me hanged and put to death decades ago. Or at least sent to rot in prison hell.”

“It’s a thing people say. Sorry. Out of politeness.”

“I don’t want platitudes from you, Grace. I want honesty. Brutal truth. My frailty is the reason I need a ghostwriter now—it’s become a necessary evil.” Her gaze lingers on mine for a long moment as the word evil hangs in the silence between us. She then says abruptly, “Sit.” She gestures to a chair on the opposite side of the glass coffee table in front of her.

With the antique book still heavy in my hands, I take a seat. The glass table, I see, is actually a huge chessboard. In various positions of play are chess pieces carved of stone and glass and shaped like tortured, mythical beasts. I wonder who the players are in this game in progress.

Her gaze follows mine to the chess pieces, and she studies them, as though contemplating a next move, something to trick and entrap the king.

I clear my throat. “Incredible pieces. Like something out of Lord of the Rings, or the Grimm brothers’ old and violent fairy tales.”

“Indeed.” She tilts her delicate chin to the book in my hand. “Fairy tales were not initially intended for children. My fascination is with seventeenth-century Paris, when women were barred from receiving formal education. As that book opines, aristocratic women would gather in Parisian salons to discuss social, financial, and political matters and push against the patriarchal barriers that confined them. Then a parlor game swept into the scene. Each salonnière was called upon to rework and enact an old folktale, spinning a clever narrative that slyly critiqued court life and even the king.” Claudia reaches for a glass of water at her side. She struggles to sip without spilling. The move seems to exhaust her.

“Their stories were larger than life, violent, dystopian.” She sets her glass down. “Often about girls controlled by the whims of fathers, kings, wicked witches. And their rebellious subtext slid right past court censors. In many of their renditions, groups of fairies—intelligent, independent women—stepped in to put things right.” She smiles. “Your early domestic thrillers, if you will. Women getting their just rewards, sometimes in over-the-top ways.”

“Is this what steered you toward Gothic horror?” I ask. “Stories of women in jeopardy screaming at the world through some fictional narrative?”

“You mean, are my novels mirrors of my own tragic, lonely life? A misunderstood girl locked in a dark castle?” She smiles again and with a trembling hand moves a strand of white-blonde hair from her brow. “Perhaps. Some say I deserve my isolation. Others excoriate me for being alive and making money off my notoriety.”

“But you feel differently? That you are somehow a victim?”

“We’ll get to that, Grace. First, tell me a little about yourself.”

“Before we go further,” I say, “I need to know what happened to your last ghostwriter.”

Her mouth flattens. She glances toward the window. Then a slow, sly smile curves her lips.

“We were working so well together. We’d gone through key events in my life, right up to the day of the crime. That evening she went for a walk. She never returned. It’s all I know.”

The wind subsides, and I hear the boom and crash of surf on rocks far below. “Did the police get involved?”

“Of course. No one knows exactly how she died, though the theory is she fell from a trail on the cliff. Terribly tragic.”

I regard her with suspicion. “What was her name?”

“Nora Moss.”

“Will I have access to the work Nora has done already?”

“No. We’ve destroyed it. I want you to start from the beginning, get your own feel of my voice.”

Surprise ripples through me. “Seems a waste of time.”

“It is what it is. If you want the job.”

I inhale, moisten my lips. “Why did I make the cut as your second choice?”

“Because of this.” She holds up one of the titles I worked on, Darkness in My Heart.

“Why that one?”

“Because your interviews got to the real truth. A convicted killer serving time was found innocent and exonerated.”

A rustle goes through my body. “Is that what you’re looking for here? Exoneration?”

She falls silent for a long period. When she speaks her voice is soft, strange.

“Someone else was in the woods that day, Grace. I was not alone.”

7

The library door swings open abruptly.

“It’s time,” announces Waldjeck. “Ms. Blackwood needs her medication and rest before dinner. You need to come away, Mrs. Logan. I’ll show you to your room.”

I turn to Claudia. My heart is racing at her revelation: I was not alone. But she’s swiveled her high-backed chair away from me and is facing the sea again.

“Who was there that day?” I ask quickly as Waldjeck approaches. “Why have they never come forward?”

“Mrs. Logan.” Waldjeck’s voice is strident. “You can pick up the conversation again over dinner.”

I come to my feet and stare at the back of Claudia’s head. She’s gone very still and silent. I shoot a glance at Waldjeck. Her gaze warns me not to try again.

I sense I’ve been set up, as though Claudia and her housekeeper have conspired to leave me on a cliff-hanger. A sinister little notion enters my head: Has the housekeeper been listening in? Is there a pinprick camera or audio recording device hidden among the shelves of books? Already off balance and vulnerable without my phone, I feel my unease deepen.

“Follow me.” Waldjeck moves to the door.

I shoot a final glance at Claudia, then go after the housekeeper.

She leads me along a wide concrete passage hung with massive paintings. Again the housekeeper’s footfalls make no noise on the runners of Persian carpeting, all in deep, dark reds. I feel as though some of the strangely abstract faces in the paintings are observing me, eyes moving when I’m not looking. I wonder how Claudia acquired all this impressive art.

“I’ve read rumors that Claudia sometimes leaves the island and travels incognito to—”

“She works through dealers, if you’re asking where she buys the art.” Waldjeck stops at a door, takes a key from her pocket, and bends forward to unlock it. Given all the modernity, I almost expected a key card, or some electronic locking system, not the classic key she’s using.

“Are all the rooms locked?”

“No.” She opens the door wide. “Here you go.”

I enter slowly and notice immediately that something’s amiss. My gaze flares to Waldjeck’s. “My bags have been opened.”

“Unpacked. Your clothes are either in the closet, or in these drawers here.” She touches her fingertips to a bureau. “Cosmetics are in the bathroom.”

A hot sense of invasion flares in my chest. “Were you checking for audio recording equipment or a camera or something?”

Her mouth tightens. “The last one sneaked a phone in.”

“The last one?”

“The one before you.” A pause. “She couldn’t be trusted. If you need anything else, please use that button on the side of the bed. An alert will come through to me. Dinner is at eight sharp. You’ll be fetched and brought to the dining room until you know your way around the house. Tomorrow I will show you the gym, indoor pool, steam room, and sauna. Do you need anything else?”

“So this was Nora’s room?”

“Yes. There’s a desktop computer on the desk in the adjoining study. You will also find a digital recorder to tape your interviews with Ms. Blackwood, along with headphones. You may transcribe the interviews. The recording device will remain here when you leave.”

A bolt of irritation snaps my control.

“And all Nora’s work was just deleted?”

She eyes me, says nothing.

Claustrophobia tightens. With it comes a prickle of panic. I cannot abide the sense of being imprisoned, things out of my control.

“I will see you at dinner.” Waldjeck steps backward and pulls the door shut. It closes with a soft snick.

I wait a moment, futilely listening for the sound of her footsteps departing. Then I reach for the door handle and open the door. Relief washes through me to find that the door has not, in fact, been locked.

Idiot. Do not panic. Panic causes accidents. Panic is the main reason people make stupid decisions and die.

I run both hands over my still rain-damp hair, suddenly drained. Was it a mistake to accept this gig? I have time to back out. But as I think of Claudia’s words, I know I’m already hooked.

Someone else was in the woods that day, Grace. I was not alone.

Still, I’m unsure whether I can trust her. My mind goes to one of the articles I read about her during my research, where a psychologist expressed his opinion to the reporter who asked whether he believed Claudia really had no memory of the murders.

She’s cunning, and manipulative. The prosecution demonstrated her obsession with death. This is a killer who feels superior to others and will play games for her own amusement.

I inhale deeply and check my watch. Two hours until dinner. I need a shower, a change of clothing.

The bathroom is beautiful, expansive, tiled with stone. The shower doubles as a steam stall. I decide on a bath instead and turn on the taps. Steam begins to boil soothingly into the room.

I go to the basin and notice my cosmetics have also all been unpacked and placed upon the counter. Anger licks softly in my belly as the sense of violation digs deeper into me. I look up and stare at my reflection in the big mirror as steam from the hot water begins to fog it up. Suddenly a letter on the steamed mirror begins to take shape. My pulse quickens. It’s followed by another. Then another.

I tense as adrenaline spikes into my blood. It’s a word—no, a phrase. A whole sentence forms on the glass. It must have been written with something oily, like a lipstick, that’s been wiped off, but the residue remains and the steam is revealing the secret.

My skin prickles as I read the words.

Help!

Someone on island trying to kill me.

Doesn’t want her to tell Secret. Wants to silence me.

Trapped!

Nora

8

I sit at the dining table facing Claudia Blackwood, who was wheeled into the room by a bald and skeletal man in uniform. Perhaps the word for him would be butler, and I wonder how many other silent servants work unseen in the Overlook.

The table is covered in slate-gray linen that matches the distressed concrete walls. Candles flicker in silver candelabras. The blinds have been drawn against the storm, but I can hear the insistent wail of the wind outside, the beat of the waves at the cliffs’ base.

Claudia’s cell phone rests next to her knife. It taunts me. I feel especially naked without mine after seeing the message on my bathroom mirror. I wonder if Claudia has left the phone in plain view precisely to mess with my head.

In the art of battle, the first move is to throw your opponent off balance, both physically and mentally.

This phrase floats up into my mind. It’s something Andy, my late husband—a martial arts enthusiast—used to say. I really don’t trust Claudia, and I’m beginning to think she’s playing a game with high stakes. Perhaps lethal ones. As Nora Moss, “the last one” who “couldn’t be trusted,” might have found out.

“You look pale, Grace,” Claudia says sweetly as the butler pours red wine into her glass. “Is everything all right? Do you have all that you require in your accommodations?”

I motion to her phone as the butler begins to pour wine into my own glass. “I thought there wasn’t really cellular coverage on the island.”

“I had an antenna installed for the Overlook, and a cellular signal amplifier.” She places a fine-boned hand over her phone. “I keep this near for health and possible emergency reasons.”

So the ferryman was wrong?

The butler slips silently away, and Claudia reaches for her glass. The red liquid shimmers in the candlelight. “Cheers, Grace. Here’s to us putting a new ending on my story.”

Maybe I can steal her phone.

I reach for my glass, raise it to Claudia. “Cheers.” Or maybe one of her employees has one I can filch.

The butler reenters carrying two plates. He sets one down in front of Claudia, then brings me mine. I find it interesting that she receives hers before her guest. Or, perhaps a ghostwriter is considered more of an employee.

I glance down at the starter. It’s some kind of meat, very finely sliced and garnished with microgreens and pickled red onion.

“Ox tongue,” she says.

My stomach roils. I reach for my wine hurriedly and I decide I can’t take this. I need to dive in headfirst.

“There was writing on my bathroom mirror,” I say. “It took shape when the mirror steamed up, so I’m assuming it was written using some cosmetic with a fattiness to it, and that someone wiped it off. But the ghost of the residue is still there.”

“Oh, really?” She looks interested.

“It’s signed by Nora. A call for help. Nora wrote that someone on this island doesn’t want your secret revealed, and was trying to kill her.”

The butler drops a knife. It clatters to the concrete floor. He mutters a quiet apology before picking it up and quickly slipping away to retrieve another. Claudia stares at me.

“That’s ridiculous,” she says finally.

My gaze locks with hers. I say nothing. Silence often yields more than words, in my experience. The moan of the wind and thud of the surf outside grow louder.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“You didn’t imagine it, perhaps?”

“Why would I?”

She sips her wine. It stains her lips burgundy, and the color is stark against her white complexion. In the candlelight her eyes appear hollow.

I lean forward. “What secret was Nora referring to? Did you tell her who else was on the cliff when you murdered those kids?”

She sits back in her wheelchair. Her features show amusement. I’m entertaining to her, and it pushes my buttons, steels my determination not to be beaten.

“That’s the thing about a terrible secret, Grace. You think you’re keeping it, but really, it’s the secret that keeps you.”

I swallow, unsure about where she’s going with this now.

Claudia picks up her cutlery and cuts into the tongue on her plate. She delivers a forkful delicately to her mouth. She chews the tongue, looking pensive.

“I need to know, Claudia—was this memoir proposal call to my agent some kind of publicity stunt or personal entertainment, or do you really have something new you want to confess?”

A shadow travels across her features, and she sits up straighter. She’s bristling suddenly. I warn myself to back off, dial it down a little. At least until I know where this is going. Because if she does remember, I want to be the one she tells.

She looks down and cuts into another piece of tongue. “My agents did say you were reluctant to come at first. Why?”

I curse inwardly at her infuriating habit of turning the tables. “I lost my husband not long ago. I wasn’t sure I was ready to work again.”

She sets down her knife and fork. “Right. The gas explosion on the boat.”

Surprise snaps through me. “You know?”

“Like I said, I did my research.” She reaches for her wine. “Jealousy. It’s such a powerful, such an animal, emotion.”

“Excuse me?”

“Jealousy. Envy. Possessiveness. Insecurity.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“Andrew Logan—that’s your husband, right? He was killed with his mistress on board your boat when it blew up.” She pauses, sips. “That must cut.”

My breathing turns shallow. My skin itches. My heart and head thud. I’m unable to speak.

“Oh, I’m so sorry if I overstepped, Grace. I don’t get out, as you know, and my social skills are”—she waves her hand—“perhaps somewhat lacking. But I did read in the news there was suspicion that the propane supply on board had been tampered with, and the police opened an investigation.”

“And they closed it. It was ruled an accident.” My heart is hammering so fast now I feel dizzy. All the horrible feelings of pain, fury, resentment, guilt—and yes, jealousy—are erupting in me. All the questions I had flood back: Did I drive Andy to the affair? Was it my fault? Had there been others? How could he have hurt me, humiliated me, like this? My eyes burn.

“Ah, right, you weren’t found guilty.”

Fear ripples into me. Is it possible her game with me is much darker than I first imagined? This dawning realization flips straight into searing anger.

“How dare you!” I dump my napkin on the table and lurch to my feet. “I’m done here.”

She raises her hand. “Wait. Relax, Grace. I’m only throwing this out so you can see how it feels to be judged unfairly. I did it so you can get inside my head and find the right voice.”

I’m shaking as I stare down at her. “You want me to feel how you felt when you were accused of being so jealous that you killed your boyfriend and his ‘mistress’ by pushing them off the cliff in a hot ‘animal’ rage?”

Her red wine–stained lips curve into a smile. “There you go. But again, nothing is ever quite what it seems, is it? Sit, Grace.” Calmly she rings a little bell, and the butler appears to pour more wine.

I stare down at her, every molecule in my body screaming to flee this monstrous place.

“Go on, sit. You don’t want to leave. Deep down, you want my secret more than anything.”

My fists clench. I’m furious because she’s right. As much as she’s needling under my skin—as edgy, trapped, and claustrophobic as she’s forcing me to feel—she’s also dangling enough red meat in front of me that I know I can’t leave now. I cannot let her win.

Slowly, I reseat myself. We wait in simmering silence until the butler exits and the door slides closed again.

Her smile deepens into an eerie grin. “This is better. It always helps to control a quick temper. Now tell me, Grace, what steered you into true crime?”

9

“I suspect you’ve already dug up the answer to why I went into true crime.”

“I’d like you to tell me.”

I suck in a deep breath and consider what I’ve told interviewers in the past so I can stick true to what she might have read about me. “Well, in part, your case—what happened in my hometown when I was fifteen. It was a monstrous thing. It consumed me, as it did so many others.” I clear my throat. “It drove me to understand more about those who kill—women in particular. The—”

“I was never convicted.”

I let it go. “The way I see it, a crime—especially a violent one—is a break in integrity. A rip in the fabric of normal life. And our human desire is to put things whole in our community again afterward. This narrative arc of true crime is appealing to me.”

“What about evil?” she asks. “Does it exist, in your opinion?”

“No.” I take a sip of wine as the butler comes to remove my uneaten tongue and Claudia’s empty plate. When he’s gone, I continue. “Nothing in nature is intrinsically evil. Nature just is, and does what it does for survival. Good, bad, evil—those are human value judgments we bestow on things, depending on our cultures, traditions, history. And we use this to keep our communities, tribes, societies in check and functioning as a whole because, really, we are just herd animals.”

She regards me as the butler brings in the main course of rare steak with grilled vegetables, and I realize Claudia never did ask if I actually eat meat.

“So do you think someone could kill and not feel remorse simply because they have a different narrative of the world?” she asks.

“People justify what they do in this way all the time. By changing their inner narrative of things. The bigger worry becomes whether they’ll get caught, not that what they’re doing is bad.”

“So, no shame, no remorse, no guilt?” She cuts into her steak, and pink juice pools on her white plate. She delivers the morsel to her mouth, chews. “I thought those were sociopaths.”

“Labels.”

“And you like to study these people?”

“Yes. To learn more about the range of human nature, and what might drive someone like you to take lives. Especially to stab to death little Danny Duvalier, just seven years old.”

A spark ignites in her eyes. The energy in the dining room suddenly feels electric, as though my words excite her. Again, I’ve witnessed this while interviewing life-sentence inmates in prison. Talking about one of their murders helps them relive it, and for some this is arousing.

“You knew the little boy?” she asks.

A memory washes into me. Clear blue eyes. Pale skin with pink cheeks. Effervescent energy. Huge smile. Danny loved gadgets, stories about animals, and hunting. He loved knives and guns and wanted to be a hunter when he grew up. But he never did grow up.

I reckon she already knows the answer to her question, so I say, “I babysat him once or twice. Several kids my age did.” Emotion surges suddenly into my eyes. It thickens my throat.

Little Danny saw the lot,

took off at a rapid trot.

But before he could tattle

she grabbed the knife

plunged it thrice

and stole the little boy’s life.

“He was a good kid,” I say.

Claudia leans forward, candlelight twinkling in her eyes. Color has come into her cheeks.

“Why are you a ghost? Why not write true crime under your own name?”

“I prefer not to draw attention to myself. I prefer to let the voices of others speak.”

“So you hide. Behind the voices and names of others.”

“Meaning?”

But before she answers, the door swings open and Waldjeck appears. “It’s time, Ms. Blackwood.”

Claudia looks flustered. “We’re not quite done.”

“You are.” Waldjeck casts me a stern glance. “You can pick up in the morning.”

I say, “If Claudia is willing to agree to work with me, that is.”

Claudia’s gaze locks on mine. Energy burns hot in her eyes now. She’s clearly titillated by this. This sick, frail woman approaching the end of life has one last chance to bring this thing to thrilling, living color in her mind, to redraft the narrative of it.

“I think I can work with you, Grace. We officially start tomorrow.”

Waldjeck reaches for the wheelchair and draws Claudia away from the table.

“On one condition,” I call after her.

Claudia throws up her hand, halting Waldjeck. “What is it?”

“You need to tell me if it’s true—do you really recall someone else in the woods that day?”

She studies me in the flickering light. Outside, thunder claps, and the drapes breathe against the window.

“Yes,” she says quietly, her gaze holding mine. “And when we are done, Grace, there will be a new ending to the story.” She pauses. “The correct one. I promise. You will help me fix the rip in the integrity, and put it whole.”

10

I toss and turn in bed, plagued by nightmares, snatches of images, disjointed conversations.

I see Andy in a passionate embrace with his bikini-clad mistress on our boat. An explosion blows them away. I scream, reach out for him. I love him. Why is he doing this to me?

Claudia appears in a black executioner’s robe, silver knife in hand—little Danny’s hunting knife. I see the coroner’s photos of his naked body, eye-shaped wounds of dark red. I shouldn’t have asked to see the photos, but it was research, along with the trial transcript. In my nightmare, Claudia raises the knife, and it turns into an axe. She shrieks: Jealousy! Animal emotion! Must cut cut cut! Guilty! Grace Logan fix my rip! I wince as the axe comes down. Pieces of the smashed skulls of Jacques and Jill who went across the hill explode everywhere, Danny spinning in the air, down, down into the churning ocean where Charon awaits to ferry them all to the other side.

A scream shatters the air.

I sit bolt upright in bed. I’m sweating. My heart thuds. I listen for another scream but hear only rain. Was I screaming in my sleep?

I hear it again. For real. Outside. My body snaps, wire tight. I can hear it because the sliding door is slightly open. I always open—even slightly—any window at night if I can, just for the sense of air and motion. And freedom. To ward off my intense claustrophobia.

I get up and go to the sliding doors, pull one side open just enough to step out onto the rain-drenched balcony. I go to the balustrade, peer down into the darkness. Silvery rain slashes my face. My vision slowly adjusts, and I see something. A blur of white in the blackness. My heart kicks and I lean forward.

It’s a woman in a white nightdress—white legs, bare feet, long hair—moving swiftly across a small envelope of lawn toward tall trees swaying in the wind.

Then another figure. Dark. Bigger. More fluid and athletic in movement. Chasing after her. As she reaches the shadows of the trees, he grabs for the woman’s arm. She spins around to face him. Lightning flashes. In staccato images her face is illuminated. Claudia?

She jerks away from the man and disappears into the trees. He goes after her. Thunder crashes, and hard bullets of rain begin to pummel me from the sky. I swipe rainwater from my eyes, but the lightning has blinded me for a second, and when I think I can see shapes again, mist billows in from the cliff tops, and there is nothing.

I go back inside. Drenched, dripping on the carpet, I pull the door shut. Did I imagine it? Was it a hallucination that grew out of my nightmares? Or was it something more sinister? I felt strange after dinner—is it possible Claudia or her staff put something in my wine? Because surely there’s no way that was Claudia running barefoot into the woods. Not frail, sick, dying Claudia with ataxia who is confined to her mobility aids.

Could it have been some other woman? And who was the strange man?

I step back from the window, scared now. Of what I saw. Of my own mind. If what I witnessed was real, I should get help for the woman. I should summon Waldjeck, or December. I think of the message on the mirror.

Someone on island trying to kill me . . . Trapped!

I move quickly to the door.

Thunder booms. Wind wails. Rain sounds like artillery against the window.

I turn the door handle, yank. Nothing happens. A tongue of panic flicks through my belly. I turn, yank, turn, pull. Nothing. My door has been locked. From the outside.

I’m locked in my room.

11

Sweat prickles my skin. My throat closes. I rattle the handle, bang on the door. “Help! Help me! Get me out!”

Fucking Waldjeck. She’s locked me in with her big key. I bang harder. With my fists, my palms. Panic rises to drown me. It grips my heart, squeezes. I can’t breathe. Tears sting my eyes and roll down my face, melding with the rain dripping from the wet hair plastered to my head.

I bang again. “Help me, you motherfuckers! Let me out of here.”

Trapped!

Doesn’t want her to tell Secret. Wants to silence me.

Help!

I kick my bare feet at the door, then race back to the slider, yank it open, run out onto the balcony. My phobia is blinding me. Can’t even think straight. I look over the balustrade and give a sob. It’s too high to jump. I’ll kill myself dead. Like Nora Moss.

I run back inside, then freeze as the door swings open wide. Waldjeck steps in.

Followed by December, who holds a gun.

I give another sob and drop to my knees in a shaking, wet heap, no longer able to bear my own weight.

December steps forward.

I bow my head and cover it with my arms.

12

Waldjeck is talking, but I can’t hear—my arms are covering my ears. There’s buzzing inside my head.

I feel a hand on my shoulder. I tense, scramble backward on hands and knees, tangling myself in my sodden nightclothes.

“Easy. Easy, Grace.” It’s December’s voice. Soothing. Low. Kind. My body stills. I wait, listen. She touches me again. “Can you look up at me, Grace?”

Slowly, cautiously, I glance up.

She crouches down beside me. I notice her gun has been holstered.

“What happened, Grace? What’s going on?”

I glance at Waldjeck, whose face is crumpled into lines of concern.

“I . . . I was locked inside.”

“The door was just a little stuck,” Waldjeck says. “It happens every now and then. The ocean climate, moisture—it swells the wood.”

I stare at her. I don’t believe her. I saw her key.

“Grace?” December says. “Tell us what happened?”

“I—there was a woman running in a nightdress outside. In the dark. Down on the lawn in the storm. She—she disappeared into the trees.” I point my shaking arm toward the window. “A man. There was a big man chasing her. She screamed.”

Waldjeck says to December, “Go fetch something warm and sweet for her to drink. She’s in shock.” Waldjeck reaches down to help me to my feet. “We should get you into something warm and dry. I’m going to run you a hot bath. Sit here on the bed while I get it ready.”

I sink onto the bed. I sit there shaking—big juddering shakes. My teeth chatter.

Claudia appears in my doorway in her electric wheelchair. She steers herself in. Her hair is wet and she wears a robe. She looks pink and scrubbed and devoid of makeup. I can’t make out if she has a white nightdress on beneath the robe. My gaze goes to her feet. They’re encased in warm-looking slippers.

“What’s going on?” she asks.

“I saw you outside.”

“What?”

“Running . . . away from a man.”

Claudia scrutinizes me, then glances toward the bathroom, where Waldjeck is steaming up the room, as though her housekeeper might appear to provide her with some answers.

“I’m sure it was you.” My voice comes out thin. Shame, a deep sense of humiliation, creeps up my chest. There’s nothing pretty about panic, or phobias. Suddenly I am unsure of everything. Maybe I imagined it all. Perhaps I was lucid dreaming, sleepwalking, hadn’t woken properly from my deranged and feverish nightmares.

“I haven’t run in years, Grace. I can barely walk. Or type anymore.” She holds up her hands, demonstrating how they tremble and jerk.

“Your hair’s wet. From the rain.”

“I was in the pool. Hydrotherapy with my resident physiotherapist.”

Confusion swirls. “Is your physiotherapist a male?”

“He is.”

“He—ah—he wasn’t outside . . . maybe?”

“No. He was with me in the pool area.”

“At this hour?”

“I don’t sleep well, Grace. It’s a result of my last round of treatment. I’m always tired, but can only nod off a few hours at a time. We were definitely not outside, and certainly not in that storm.” She hesitates. “Maybe you imagined something.”

Nothing is ever quite what it seems . . . always things lurking beneath.

I stare at her. There’s no way in hell I trust her and her games, or any of the staff. But I also don’t trust my own brain right now, and that terrifies me more than any of this nonsense on Blackwood Island.

December returns and hands me a mug. “Sweet tea,” she says.

I clasp the mug with both hands, and sip. The warmth is instant, and I’m grateful. “Thank you,” I say softly.

Waldjeck appears from the bathroom. “Can you stand, Grace? I have a bubble bath ready. It should warm and calm you.”

Clearly they all think I am losing my grip.

“Did you see it?” I ask.

Waldjeck frowns. “See what?”

“The message on the mirror, in the steam.” I surge up from the bed. “I’ll show you.” I glance at Claudia. “Come. I’ll show you all.”

They all follow me into the steamed-up room, fragrant with an herby smell from the bubble bath.

I stare at the fogged-up mirror.

No writing.

It’s gone.

I spin around and stare at their faces. “Someone washed the residue off.”

They regard me in silence. I read concern in their eyes. They clearly think I’ve lost my mind.

13

I’m with Claudia in the library. It’s been two weeks since my panic attack, and despite what happened, this could still be the biggest story of my life. The outcome could change everything for me. We have both since signed off on the contract, agreeing to work with each other on her memoir. I’ve managed to stay calm. Focused. Watchful. Biding my time. I’ve been working out in her gym, swimming in her pool—staying away from the walking trails along the cliff tops for obvious reasons. And things have been going pretty smoothly. Almost boring. For this I am thankful.

Perhaps it’s lulled me into complacency, but I’m even beginning to doubt she really is going to reveal a new memory. Over these past few days, she’s increasingly exuded an image of a sad and very lonely woman with a darkly tragic past that has held her hostage. Perhaps she just needs a fellow traveler on this last scary bit of her life. Crafting a memoir could be her way of struggling to put her life into perspective, and make her peace. Guilt can be a very lonely game.

I did glimpse the man again. This time he was pushing Claudia in her wheelchair. As I watched from my balcony one afternoon, he pushed her to a bench overlooking the sea, right at the cliff edge. I tensed, but he sat on a bench and they talked. When Waldjeck came to fetch me for our next session, I asked her about him. She told me this particular man was a psychologist who comes to the island at regular intervals to treat Claudia.

Because their intimate body language made me curious, I asked, “Are they involved?”

“As in lovers?”

I nodded.

She regarded me. “Yes. He’s helped her immensely. I think he will actually cure her.”

“Not her cancer, surely?”

“Her mind. He’s been working on her memory.”

“Is he the reason she now thinks she recalls something about the murders?”

“Ms. Blackwood will tell you anything she feels you need to know.”

But as I sit with Claudia in the library now, she’s explaining how deeply the death of her mother affected her when she was sixteen. I’m recording the interview, and I take notes. Before the hour is out, she’ll be exhausted. Waldjeck will once again swing open the door with an order to stop. And while Claudia is resting, I will transcribe her words and attempt to shape her memoir into a riveting narrative. All the while, I wait for the revelation that was dangled before me.

“Everything changed after my mother died,” Claudia says. “I adored her. She was my best friend.”

“How did she die, Claudia?”

“ATV rollover while hunting with my dad and me. I was in the second ATV, following with my father.” A long silence.

I glance up from my notes.

She waves the memory aside with her hand. “I developed what I now know is termed unresolved grief.”

“You don’t want to talk more about the accident?” I press gently. “Explore it a little?”

She shakes her head. “Maybe eventually, but I’m tired today. I don’t know how many more sessions I will have—I want to press on. To the part I reached with the last one.”

Energy ripples through me. “Nora?”

She nods.

My pulse quickens. The silence in the library is suddenly loud, and I can hear distant waves on the cliffs. They send up a soft spray of sea mist against a blue sky.

“How did you come to this diagnosis?”

“My psychologist. He specializes in dealing with suppressed memories around traumatic events. We started working together a year ago.” Her eyes meet mine. “And yes, we’ve become intimate—Waldjeck told me you asked. After all these years, Grace, I’ve finally found a soulmate, and now”—she opens her hands to show her wheelchair—“I’m facing my mortality. But one thing he’s given me is a way to process my past. To close circles. To accept things I cannot change, and to go to work on those I can. It was he who suggested writing a memoir. As a method of facing my monsters, so to speak.” She pauses, watches me closely. “He encouraged me to engage you to write it.”

I shift in my chair. “You mean, Nora Moss first, then me.”

She dips her head slightly but doesn’t answer.

I breathe in slowly, then out, keeping myself calm. “And he helped you remember something you suppressed?”

“All of it. In living, brilliant color.”

My adrenaline spikes. It’s actually happening. This is what I came for. What is she going to reveal?

“How can you be certain these new memories are actually real, Claudia? I mean, there are treatments like hypnosis designed to retrieve memories, but the techniques sometimes surface false recall, with devastating consequences.”

A weak smile curves her mouth. “Everything is narrative, Grace, even memories and the so-called ‘truth.’ We can only see the world through our own eyes and within the context of our own biology and our own pasts.” She reaches for the glass of water on the table beside her and tries to sip without spilling. As she sets her glass down, a few drops splash onto her phone, which rests on the table. My gaze lingers briefly on it.

She reaches for a tissue, dabs the corners of her mouth. “For the purposes of my memoir, this is my truth. What I’m about to tell you now are memories that have been surfaced in my mind. Let the world judge if it’s true. They certainly judged before.”

I wait. A bird slams into the window with a thuck. I jump. It spirals down past the glass pane. I feel rattled by the sudden death, and the atmosphere shifts.

Claudia stares at the smear on the pane, then faces me. “Not long after my therapist started treating me, I saw something on the news. I—”

“What’s your therapist’s name?”

She hesitates. “Let’s just call him Dr. X for now.”

I regard her, and wonder what she is hiding. “We should know for the book.”

“As I was saying, I follow a lot of news, especially stories about crimes of passion and murder. I’ve always sought to understand what happened to me that day, and my writing is inspired by these real tragedies so like my own.”

She takes another sip. She’s struggling. Tension coils low in my belly.

Claudia clears her throat. “Then news broke about a new murder investigation that intrigued me. The more I read about it, the more it took me down a curious path. There was something familiar in this tale that was niggling me. I spoke to Dr. X about it, and he explained that sometimes, while one’s conscious mind has no recall of a trauma, the body can still remember it. It’s written into the autonomic nervous systems. He gave me the example of a terrible car accident that the victim might not remember at all. The victim’s mind is protecting the victim by blocking it. But if she drives past the spot where the accident occurred, she might not even know it, but her body will respond with stress—panic attacks, trouble breathing, headaches, all manner of things. In really simplistic terms, his goal in therapy is for patients to face this autonomic response, and to find a narrative to understand what occurred, then neutralize it.”

I reach for my own water. She watches my throat as I swallow.

“He encouraged me to follow the threads of this news story to see where they led. I hired a PI, who surfaced an old photo of one of the people involved—a photo taken when she was a teen. And wham. I was struck almost blind between the eyes.”

“Why?”

“I remembered the person, Grace. It was her. She was there in the woods that day.”

I can’t breathe from the tension. “She? And . . . she witnessed what you did?”

“No, Grace, I was the witness.” Her gaze locks with mine. “I saw what she did that day. I’m not a killer. I’m a victim of one.”

My heart near stops. “Who is she?”

The door opens abruptly. “It’s time,” announces Waldjeck.

I curse viciously, inwardly, as Claudia collapses into herself, exhausted. Her eyes close. As Waldjeck wheels her charge away, I quickly reach over and grab the phone.

I slide it into my pocket.

14

I sit at the desk in my room, going through today’s recording and deciding how to handle this. I’m wired. This changes everything. There remains a vague chance Claudia is messing with me, still playing some game—every time I enter the library, I see a chess piece has been moved closer to trapping the king.

And who is the mysterious Dr. X?

I look out the window, thinking of the night I saw two people in the rain. My mind returns to the memory of him pushing her wheelchair toward the bench at the very edge of the cliff, the way they sat, heads bent together, talking. And I’m struck with an idea.

I begin to formulate a plot thread as I start to type:

And realizing the horror of what she did, facing her own mortality, she—

A sharp rap sounds at my door. I jerk my head up.

Waldjeck enters. “Ms. Blackwood is ready.”

It’s time.

“It’s such a beautiful afternoon,” I say as I feel in my pocket for the “borrowed” phone. “Do you think Claudia might be amenable to doing our afternoon session outdoors?”

Waldjeck lowers her brow, and her beetle gaze bores into me. I can almost hear the wheels of her brain whizzing and clacking over this request for a change in routine, searching for the trick.

I force a smile. “I can take the digital recorder along. Might get some fresh aspect.”

“I . . . don’t see why not,” she says finally. “I’ll ask her. December can go with you.”

“Better alone. She’s far more candid that way.”

Moments later I’m pushing a clearly happier and refreshed Claudia Blackwood into the golden sunshine of a very pleasant winter afternoon. We reach the bench, where the ground drops away sheer to rocks and waves below. To our left is a trail. The sign says WIDOW’S WALK. It seems flat and innocent enough. Smooth and devoid of pebbles. Fine for the wheels of her chair.

“Shall we go to that bench farther along the trail?” I point to the bench at the edge of the cliff and out of sight of the house. “There’s a nicer view there.”

Claudia looks up at me, vulnerable.

“It’ll be fine. If we need Waldjeck, the house is just around the corner.”

“Why not,” she says.

My pulse is racing as I park Claudia at the Widow’s Walk bench and place a blanket over her lap. I sit and glance back to make sure no one is in sight. I inhale. My belly is shaking inside. It’s now or never.

“Shall we pick up by going to the start of that fateful day?” I ask gently. “Then lead up to who you think you remember at the scene?”

She glances up at the sky. A beatific look falls across her pale face, her skin almost translucent in this light. She smiles. Claudia appears as though she’s been released from a cage of darkness, and she’s finally feeling the warmth of the sun. I can see how I will write the ending.

Just as she was about to confess, about to be freed from the prison of her guilt, the release visible in her body, tangible in the afternoon air, when—

“This is the part we reached with Nora,” she says.

The ghostly words on the bathroom mirror shimmer into my mind.

Doesn’t want her to tell Secret. Wants to silence me.

My resolve falters. It still makes no sense. I’m missing something. “What had you been about to tell her?”

“A few days before Jacques died, he told me he had a stalker. Some younger girl from school he stupidly kissed once, and she’d gotten the wrong idea. She became all obsessed about him. I mean next-level obsessed. He got freaked, but he never really thought she’d do anything dangerous. He had a name for her. Stalker Walker. I sort of brushed it aside—Jacques had plenty of girls swooning over him. But when my PI sent me the photo of the woman involved in the murder investigation I was following on the news—an image of the woman as a teen—I realized it was her. Stalker Walker.”

I try to swallow, try to stay cool as I quietly reach for the phone.

“Her real name was Olivia Grace Walker.”

Blood drains from my head. I go dizzy. I cast a furtive glance back at the house. “What—what was the murder investigation in the news about?” But I already know.

“It was the one I referred to over dinner. The explosion and fiery deaths of Andrew Logan and his mistress.”

Very softly, I say, “Ah, so you recognized I was Stalker Walker, the kid from your hometown. The Olivia Grace Walker who became Andy’s wife, who now calls herself Mrs. Grace Logan, the same woman involved in the murder investigation in the news.” I force a light laugh. “We all do such ridiculous, idiotic things as kids. And of course the boat explosion was ruled an accident.”

She nods. “And Jacques was such a heartthrob. Except, this recognition ignited all the neural connections in my brain associated with that fateful day. It all came flooding back.”

“False memories, maybe?”

“No. I remember it clearly now. I went to see Jacques at his house earlier that day. He wasn’t home, but his little brother, Danny, was. I asked Danny where Jacques had gone. He said, to meet a blonde girl. I was shocked, and asked what girl. He went to his brother’s room and fetched a note. It read: Meet me at lovers edge, lover.”

“The note that was found in your pocket,” I say.

“Yes. I put it in my pocket and hurried into the woods, making for the trail that led to the cliff. Danny followed. I told him to go home, but he didn’t, and I was too rattled to care too much. I knew the blonde girl had to be Jilly. And I was burning with hurt, anger, jealousy. You know the feelings, right, Grace?”

I edge the phone out of my pocket, dial a 9.

“Danny always brought his hunting knife into the woods. He was too young to have one, honestly, but we were all woods folk, hunting families. Life was different then, in our little town on the fringe of wilderness, wasn’t it, Grace?”

I dial a 1.

“As I reached the cliffs, I saw Jacques and Jill kissing, and to my utter horror, I saw a girl with dark hair and a baseball bat run screaming out of the woods. She swung and struck Jacques across the face, and he went over the edge. He screamed on his way down. Jill turned to see, and Stalker Walker pushed her over, too. Danny shrieked. I dashed for the bushes.” Claudia falls silent. “That was my crime, Grace. Running and not going to help Danny when this wild, murderous teen realized the boy had witnessed what she’d just done. He turned and fled, but she chased after him. He fell. She took his knife, and she stabbed the little boy to death.”

“And then when she was gone,” I say, voice flat, cold, “you went to look. You touched him. You picked up the bloody knife. You were in catatonic shock when hunters found you, covered in his blood with Jacques’s note in your pocket. And you couldn’t remember what had just happened.”

She smiles. “There you go. My new ending.”

I press the final 1 on the phone and raise it to my ear. I hear the operator say, “911, how can I direct your call?”

I suck in a big breath. “Help! Help!” I yell. “My name is Grace Logan. I’m on Blackwood Island. They’re trying to kill me, like the last one, like Nora—” And I hurl the phone into the sea.

I grab the handles of Claudia’s wheelchair, and I shove her toward the cliff edge.

15

As the wheelchair hurtles toward the cliff drop, Claudia wails and lurches out of her chair. She drops to the ground, rolls, scrambles to her feet, and barrels at me.

The shock of seeing her move immobilizes me. The image from that night—the woman in white, running in the storm—slams into me at the same time Claudia does.

She’s small and she might be frail-looking, but her body against mine is hard and wiry. A sick, cold sensation coils in my stomach as I realize she’s not ill at all. Just two years older than me, she’s still strong as a little ox, and she has me on my back on the ground.

I kick her off, roll over, and go for her throat. But someone powerful grabs my arm and a fistful of my hair. I gasp as pain sears into my eyes. I realize it must be Dr. X, who gets me into a chokehold, because through my watering eyes, I see December running toward us from the opposite end of the Widow’s Walk. Behind her comes Aron, the ferryman.

Claudia pushes to her feet, disheveled. She smiles, breathing hard, and it hits me in slow, syrupy motion: This was staged. All of it. Right down to her memoir proposal call to Edward and the ghostly writing on the bathroom mirror. And I swallowed the bait because I needed to know if Claudia really remembered. Because if she did, then I knew I’d have to do something—anything—to stop her telling. Or my life, my freedom, would be over.

Dr. X yanks my arms behind my back and binds my wrists. I am doomed. I’ve already called the cops myself. I imagined I would push Claudia over the edge and blame it on a mystery attacker, claiming he’d assaulted us both and fled down the trail, hoping they’d believe me because I was the one who’d made the call. And because Nora had met a similar ending.

Except now I realize there was no Nora.

“So you really did remember,” I say to Claudia.

“I believed so. But my therapist here—Dr. Marshall—and I feared false memories. We were hoping your physical presence on the island would help me.” She pushes a fall of dusty hair off her face. “You trying to kill me has proved I was right.”

Her smile deepens, and her blue eyes dance with the light of the sky. Claudia Blackwood is in her story mastery element, calling the plot shots.

She glances at her watch. “I imagine the police chopper should be landing near the Overlook shortly.”

Dread presses into my chest. My worst fears will be realized. I will be imprisoned in a small, closed space. Probably for the rest of my life, because now they will surely reopen the investigation into Andy’s death and learn I killed him and his mistress, too, in a state of similar jealous fury.

Everyone will discover that I am incapable of true remorse. That I have a violent jealous streak. That I always manage to shape some narrative to justify my actions and avoid crippling guilt. I have kept safe and out of the limelight by ghostwriting, and I do the writing because I’m unable to stay away from true crime and the mind games of killers. What I told Claudia at dinner that first night is basically true: The events of that day inspired me to study minds like mine—those who kill. Women specifically. And to meet with and interview them.

My only true terror is of being caught. She used this to hook me.

“Thank you, Grace,” Claudia says. “For my new story ending.” She grins. “Checkmate.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Loreth Anne White is an Amazon Charts, Washington Post, and Bild bestselling author of The Maid’s Diary and The Patient’s Secret. With over three million books sold around the world, she is an overall Daphne du Maurier Award winner, an ITW Thriller Award nominee, an Arthur Ellis finalist, and the winner of multiple other industry awards.