“You like the water?”
A vein in his neck popped. He darted a stone far past the waves, and it skipped along the smooth surface, past the choppy whitecaps. “I despise it.”
“Then, why come?”
His shoulders lifted, and my gaze slid over his profile. He was tall, possibly six foot two. He chucked another stone against the water’s surface with a side throw. “If I tell you, will you leave?”
“Depends. Will you be real with me?”
His chin dropped, and his chest expanded before looking back up at the water through thick lashes. “You wouldn’t know the difference.”
“True. But I’m a stranger. You have no reason to be anything but real.”
He tilted his head and finally looked at me—really looked at me. We were only a few feet away from each other, but it still managed to collect my breath with the one sweep of his gaze. His eyes, dispassionate as bullets, traveled over my features with unnerving thoroughness, unearthing me, studying me, learning me.
Then he let go as if he’d dropped me from his arms, and returned his gaze to the ocean. “Okay. If I said that when I throw the stones, they’ll make ripples, and that these ripples are like sound waves. And” he pitched another stone, “these sound waves can cross over to the other side and send a message, would that be real?”
“Yes.” Another wave splashed over our rock, and the foam sizzled at the toe of his boots. “Can I help?”
The stones popped up in his palm again. “It’s a one-person job.”
“Well,” I started to say, looking down and around at the rock we were standing on for a place to set my mug. My foot took one unsolid step as I bent over, placing it behind us. “Maybe, between the two of us, we’ll reach whoever you’re trying to send a message to. Plus,” I continued, balancing myself beside him again, “I’m a pretty badass stone skipper.” I offered a smile and the palm of my hand. I couldn’t tell if he was smiling or not. His eyes remained distant and as lifeless as the bodies that passed over my table at the morgue back in Texas.
“Alright,” he dropped a single stone in my hand, “Let’s see it.”
“You give me one?”
“Make it count.”
“Whoa, the pressure. Okay.” I popped the stone in the air, and my foot lost balance when I went to catch it. The guy snatched my arm, keeping me from falling into the ocean.
“The stones aren’t toys,” he scolded. His eyes darted to his hand on my arm, and he cleared his throat, releasing his grip just as quickly as if he’d touched something that burned him.
I steadied his conflicting reaction, and whispered, “My bad.”
He straightened his shoulders. “Rookie mistake.”
Seagulls squawked ahead. I rubbed the stone between my fingers, feeling the smooth surface, feeling his eyes watching me, his chilling stare sliding over my body like a blanket of something cold and fierce and familiar, like home. It flared goosebumps over my flesh. I tried to shake it away, and with a flick of my wrist, I threw the rock.
It only treaded a few feet out, plopped into the water, and sank.
“You’re right. That was … badass,” he stated dryly.
“Hey!” someone shouted in the distance. I turned to see a woman in a robe and rain boots, curlers in her hair, waving a newspaper high in the air from a few houses down. “I thought I told you to stay off our land!”
Following the cliff’s edge, she marched toward us, looking down over the rocks and shouting threats about taking his trespassing to the next Town Hall meeting.
I snapped my gaze to the guy. He nudged his head with a crinkle in the corners of his eyes before he turned and swiftly moved across the rocks. The lady shouted again. My gaze bounced up to her, and when I looked back to the guy, he was already gone.
I took a cold shower and spent the rest of the morning unpacking, then made up the full-sized poster bed I’d slept in the night before. My large bedroom was on the second story with its own bathroom and views of the coastline. Oakwood planked the cathedral ceiling with low beams running above.
Through the French doors and out onto the balcony facing the sea, a staircase curved to the ground below. I took the stairs and walked across the overgrown brush to the garage, where Gramps had said the scooter would be.
After a few tries, the single garage door lifted, and clouds of dust ballooned out as it folded at the top. Boxes stacked one on top of the other, lining the walls inside. I walked past a covered vehicle, and sitting behind it, a white scooter.
It looked as if it hadn’t been used in quite some time, the key still resting in the ignition. I ran my white fingernail across the frame. Beneath the thin layer of dust, the remnants of a faded silver emblem branded the side. The same emblem embossed over the cracked leather of the photo albums I’d found in the attic back in Texas.
A five-pointed star with five symbols all inside a circle.
I turned over the engine, and the little thing popped before it roared to life. In leather pants and my hair tucked inside the helmet, I rode the white scooter up and down the neighborhood streets before taking it into town.
There had been more souls walking the streets at night in Weeping Hollow than during the day. Circling the gazebo, I saw tiny shops; a bookstore called The Strange & Unusual, a post office, Hobb’s Grocery, a doctor’s office, The Corner Store, and The Bean coffee shop Gramps had mentioned, to name a few. The grim town was decorated in dull oranges and yellows and browns as if it weren’t summer. As if the town was trapped in fall, even at the beginning of August. Artificial autumn leaves wrapped around the spindles of the gazebo, and hay bales and pumpkins decorated the storefronts. The depressing scent of dying leaves was laced in every fierce breeze, unlike the intimate and playful winds back in Texas.
I parked the scooter in a horizontal space in front of Mina Mae’s Diner and pocketed the key. Inside, the atmosphere was a drastic change from the somberness stirring just outside the doors. Cushioned bar stools lined the long counter space stretching from one end to the other, and in front of the hungrily awaiting patrons, the kitchen. The staff and waiters—wearing black and white pinstripe shirts with food-splattered aprons—moved swiftly to accommodate the lunchtime rush without looking up to see where they were going. Somehow, no one ran into each other through the hustle and bustle.
Upon my arrival, everyone stopped to stare in my direction. But just as quickly as they looked my way, they looked away, going about their work, meal, or company, as if realizing I was nothing special.
I plucked a menu from the sleeved-pocket of a standing sign that read Seat yourself and spotted an empty booth beside a window. My gaze roamed over the diner as I slid across the bench.
Mina Mae’s seemed to be a melting pot for Stepford wives, judging eyes, and regulars who most likely came here every day for the last fifty-plus years. Three elderly ladies in fancy hats stared at me and lowered their voices to a whisper as I returned my attention to the menu, feeling their gazes move to the back of my neck.
“Let me guess,” a voice said, causing my head to pop up. “Fallon Morgan.”
A guy in his mid-twenties was standing in front of my table, wearing beige slacks and a newsboy hat.
“Yes,” I confirmed, looking around to make sure he was talking to me, even though he’d said my name. “I’m Fallon Morgan, and you dress just like my grandfather.”