Page 54 of The Familiar Stranger

My phone buzzed with phone calls and texts from, I presumed, Maddie. I ignored them, for now.

Where is he?

Had the note he left me been just another part of the game?

I thought of Cade. And Maddie. Boo. Henry, Kat, Andi—the list was long, my friends and loved ones. And here I was risking my lifefoolishly… to solve a case that made no sense and a lot of sense all at the same time.

I brushed the sand from my hands and jeans, cursing myself for taking the bait. I had been reacting, a puppet on a string, the whole time.

I was playinghisgame, not mine.

And it was high time I started.

I picked up my phone and called Maddie.

“Sloane! Where are you? And what’s with the note you left me? What’s going on? I’ve been trying to reach you! You couldn’t pick up the phone?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

But what had I thought would happen?

Of course she would worry.

The buffeting of the wind was coming through the phone line, something she picked up on.

“Wh-what is that sound?” she asked. “Oh, hell no. Did you go to the beach without me? You said something about needing to do this alone? What … Sloane, what?”

“I’m coming back now, okay? Everything’s fine. I’ll explain when I get there.”

“I would have gone to the beach with you,” she said. “But hey, alone time. I don’t like it, but I get it, I guess.”

“You’re not missing anything. It’s cold, damp, and dreary out here. I’m heading to the car now. See you in a few.”

“But—”

“No buts ...”

As I bent to pick up the cane, she made a noise that sounded like a growl, and I gasped.

The cane was no longer there.

CHAPTER36

I turned to look for the cane and was hit from behind. Air escaped my lungs with full force, and I lost my footing, falling face first onto the sandy hill. The sharp grasses cut at my face and hands. I pushed up to my knees and did my best to spit the sand out of my mouth, to wipe it from my eyes with my shirt sleeve.

I knew what had hit me.

And who.

I scrambled back at the sight of a pair of boots, attached to a pair of legs, attached to a man.

Terrence Slade.

But … how?

And though I still didn’t understand why he’d come after me and those I loved, there was a connection, after all, between that case in Jackson Hole over a decade ago and the human-trafficking case I’d solved in Savannah.

But again … how?

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