Page 5 of Lost Love Cove 2
Matt’s frown deepened, confusion cutting across his features. His eyes flicked from Arno to the body, then back to Carrie. He leaned close, his voice low, tight.
“Carrie…” Matt whispered. His words seemed to slice the humid air. “That’s not just Arno’s sister.” His eyes met hers, and she frowned. “That’s Ms. Marshall. The woman from the county office. The one who was fired and had helped me with my deed and renovations for my house.”
Carrie’s stomach plummeted. The world tilted, just slightly, and the cove was suddenly darker around its edges.
She looked back at the body, her breath snagging in her throat.
And for the first time in years, Carrie Ware felt the ground beneath her feet wasn’t solid at all.
3
MATT
The beach no longer belonged to itself.
Earlier that afternoon it had been quiet, a stretch of pale sand framed by rocks and palms, a place that seemed to belong only to the children and the dogs who had raced across it. Now it was something else entirely—cordoned off with yellow tape, the air cut by the hum of radios, the scrape of boots, and the hollow slap of an engine as one of the county boats idled offshore. Voices carried low across the water, clipped, professional, and grim.
Matt stood off to one side with Muttley pressed against his leg, Luna hovering near them, uncertain. Beside him, Arno kept his eyes fixed on the ground, shoulders bent, every line of his young frame shuddering with grief.
Matt didn’t know what to say. He had offered a hand earlier, a squeeze of the shoulder, but words had stuck fast in his throat. What could he say? What could anyone say when a young man had just watched strangers lift the body of his sister out of the sand?
His own mind reeled.
Katy Marshall. Matt still couldn’t believe it. The efficient clerk who had handled his permits in Monroe County, the one who had always seemed brisk, no-nonsense, quick with her pen and quicker with a glance, now lying dead on the beach at Lost Love Cove.
It felt impossible.
Matt’s pulse hammered in a way that had nothing to do with the heat. He told himself over and over that it had nothing to do with him, with his house, with his permit, but the word he had been shoving into the back of his skull for the past couple of hours now pressed forward, bold and brutal.
Fraud.
Matt had tried not to think about it. Tried to frame everything as paperwork, as an error that could be fixed with a signature and a smile. But Ms. Marshall was dead. And his gut told him that was no accident.
Matt swallowed hard and stared out at the water, remembering the coroner’s words: The woman hadn’t drowned. Her clothes, hair, and body may have been wet, but she hadn’t drowned, nor had she been in the water for very long, so there was no way she could’ve washed up on the shore. She had been dumped here. The coroner also stated there had been no signs of struggle and that all signs pointed to Katy having been poisoned.
Matt breathed out. Katy had been purposely placed. Staged. Right there in front of her parents’ house, just up enough that the tide would lap and recede but never carry her back out.
The thought chilled him. It was too much like a message. A warning delivered in the cruelest possible way to her family.
A shiver traced his spine.
“What am I going to tell them?” Arno’s voice cracked beside him, raw and too loud. He pressed his fists against his thighs, knuckles white. “What am I supposed to say?”
Matt blinked, dragging his attention back. “Your parents?” he asked gently.
Arno nodded without looking up. “I have to tell them. I… I don’t even know how. They’ll be—” His words broke, and he bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. His eyes lifted suddenly, wild, locked on Matt. “What am I going to tell them?”
Before Matt could shape an answer, a shout cracked across the sand.
“Arno!”
Both men turned. Down the slope from the rocky path that led to the houses came two figures running—an older man and woman, their voices carrying, their faces stark in the fading light.
Matt’s gut twisted.
“I thought you said they were gone for the summer,” he said under his breath.
“They were.” Arno’s tone was dazed. “I swear, they were.” He took a half-step forward, then froze as the couple drew closer, the truth undeniable. “I’d better—” But it was already too late.
