Page 8 of Lost Love Cove 2
“I’m establishing a timeline,” Carrie countered. Then she shifted, her voice quieter but firm. “Would you mind if I looked through her bedroom?”
Ian stared at her for a long moment. Finally, his jaw flexed, and he gave a stiff nod. “Sure.”
“But before we go,” Carrie said, “you still haven’t answered why you came home today.”
“I told you.” Ian’s voice sharpened. “Katy called. She said she was in trouble. She said she needed money. We were supposed to meet her at the house tonight.”
The words landed in Matt’s chest like bricks. Tonight of all nights.
He stared at the sand, realization crawling through him like ice. Katy’s body had been left on this beach in front of her parents’ home. She was supposed to meet them tonight. Whoever killed her had staged her body to make sure her parents would find her.
The image of the black sedan shot through his mind. Arno’s words about the man who had carried something too heavy to haul without a car. The way the vehicle had roared past his house, gravel spraying.
Matt’s throat tightened. His mind spun back further, to Carrie’s unease that morning, to the shadow she had seen on the rocks. Someone had been watching. Waiting.
And now a woman who had been tangled in his own house’s paperwork, in the permit mess that already smelled like rot, had washed up dead practically at his doorstep.
Matt’s jaw clenched, his chest pounding. This wasn’t a coincidence. It couldn’t be.
The threads were tightening, and whether he liked it or not, he was already caught in the weave.
Matt’s gaze slid back to the Marshall house looming over the rocks, its windows catching the last copper light of the sinking sun. Too many names crowded his thoughts, names that had seemed separate until now. Trevor Carlton. Dick Stanstead. Ian Marshall. The Winters estate. They weren’t scattered pieces anymore. They were threads, tightening, looping, knotting themselves into something he could no longer ignore.
He heard Arno’s voice from earlier when they were on the ferry, as clear as if the young man were standing right beside him instead of leaving on a boat with his grieving mother.My father worked with the same company as the man whose house you’re staying in for the summer, Ms. Ware.
The words hit him harder now than they had before.
Matt’s heart slammed against his ribs. His mind leapt to the black sedan he’d seen idling at the ferry slip once again. Was that Dick Stanstead’s car?
And then a darker thought, colder than all the rest: was Dick Stanstead the older man Katy Marshall had been seeing?
The possibilities stacked like storm clouds, each one heavier, darker, more dangerous. Matt’s breath came slow and uneven, his gaze fixed on Carrie as she spoke with Ian Marshall. But his mind was no longer on the questions she asked.
This was no coincidence.
And for the first time since buying the house at Lost Love Cove, Matt Parker realized he might already be in far deeper than he’d ever imagined.
4
CARRIE
The beach was still humming with voices, detectives’ radios crackling, and the churn of boots on wet sand. Carrie stood with her arms folded across her chest, posture square, every muscle thrumming with the old instincts she thought she’d left in Nantucket. A scene like this didn’t belong here. Not on a sleepy island, not in Lost Love Cove.
Her eyes flicked toward Matt and Paula. They lingered near the edge of the commotion, half in shadow, half in the fading light, pretending they weren’t eavesdropping but failing at it. Carrie narrowed her eyes. This wasn’t the time for watchful neighbors. Ian Marshall needed space, not an audience.
She took a step forward, her voice carrying with the authority that slipped back into her bones like it had never left. “Ian, let’s go inside. I need to see your daughter’s room.”
Ian stiffened. His face was gray, jaw clamped, but after a heartbeat, he gave a small nod.
Carrie turned and motioned the youngest detective over. He was barely out of the academy, his clothes all neat and tucked in, face too open. He hurried toward her, his notepad already in hand.
She drew him aside, lowering her voice. “Don’t go into Katy’s room until I’m there. Not a step. I want you to start with the rest of the house. Look for forced entry, signs of a struggle, anything that feels off.”
The rookie blinked, pen hovering above the page. “Do you think she was killed in the house?”
The question stung—not because it was foolish, but because it revealed just how green he was. Carrie steadied her tone. “We don’t assume anything. We check every angle, no matter how small.”
His cheeks reddened, but he nodded, tucking his pen away. “Yes, Captain.”
