Page 134 of Our Little Secret

Standing in the very spot where she stood now.

And he’d left her a little gift, a reminder.

His words during their desperate fight that last night came back to her, echoing through her mind:

One way or another, you and I, Brooke, we will be together. Forever. I will never let you go.

Never.

CHAPTER 29

“You sick fuck,” she whispered to the empty cabin.

With quivering fingers, she picked up the bit of jewelry with its tarnished sailboat and damning date.

When had he been here?

Months ago?

Yesterday?

She felt her heartbeat kick a little faster.

How long had he stayed?

Had he stayed here? Slept in their bed?

Don’t do this, Brooke. Don’t let your imagination run wild. He probably dove for it that very same night, sailed south, and left it here months, possibly a year ago. Maybe by now he wouldn’t even remember doing it. If it was the original.

She snorted out loud.

Didn’t believe her own rationale for a second.

Turning slowly, she looked around the kitchen, then stepped into the living room. She eyed every inch of the living room, with its built-in bookcases and battered, hand-me-down furniture. She imagined him walking through here, an apparition she’d never wanted to envision.

He’d known how to get inside of course. Because she’d shown him. On the weekend they’d come down here, she, still giddily in love or lust or whatever, had retrieved the hidden key from the spot where it always hung behind a crossbeam in the woodshed.

He’d seen her play with Shep, feed him, and stash his toys in the cupboard.

And all the while he’d taken note.

To use the information to haunt and terrorize her.

As she passed through the dining area, she imagined him possibly putting on his wet suit and diving down to retrieve the bracelet where she’d tossed it into the frigid waters of the marina. That was how laser-focused he was. But when he couldn’t find it? He’d just had another made.

Who would do that?

Who would go that far?

Who would then come down here and break into the cabin and stash the bracelet here, where it might not be found for years, if ever?

A man obsessed.

She shivered, cold from the inside out.

That was just plain crazy.

What if she hadn’t been the one to find the bracelet? What if Neal or Marilee had discovered it? They would have recognized it in a heartbeat, remembered finding it on Shep’s collar the day he’d disappeared for a while.

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