Page 3 of Vacation Friends

I glance at the resort where I’m staying this week.

The place is pure paradise.

I can’t wait to enact everything I have planned. I’ve been meticulous in my preparations.

Now you can’t get in my way.

My first obstacle has been taken care of and checked off my list.

But I have many other tasks to complete in order to reach my goal.

I turn around once more and see your body floating in the water, the soft moonlight hitting your white shirt as waves toss you around.

“Farewell, Jared,” I whisper. “I’m sorry things had to end this way.”

But I’m not really.

I smile at the thought.

Then I slither through some brush until I reach the resort.

It’s time to enact the rest of my plan.

The next step is for me to look like I have no idea what just happened.

CHAPTER

TWO

BENCHMARK SUNNY DAYS RETREAT DAY 2

I know something you need to know. Someone is out to get you. I need to explain in person and not through text. Meet me at 5:30 a.m. on the beach. Tell no one—trust no one. Delete this message.

Maddie Waters lay back in bed and read the text again.

Meet a stranger in an unfamiliar place at that early hour?

She shivered as she glanced out her patio doors to the dark sky blackening the outside of her suite.

The message sounded so ominous.

How could she ignore words like that? However, the person who’d sent the text wasn’t in her contacts and didn’t leave a name—which raised some major red flags. Why wouldn’t someone want her to know his or her name? Maybe they were hiding something.

Based on the message, that was definitely true.

When she’d received the text at eleven p.m. last night, she’d responded asking who sent it. There’d been no answer, and that was five hours ago.

She hadn’t been able to sleep since then.

Should she go find out who wanted to meet her? Find out what this person knew? Or would that be stupid—practically a death wish?

Maddie wasn’t sure. But her curiosity was strong . . . especially in light of everything that had happened recently. Did this have something to do with her past? With the secret she’d kept hidden for more than a decade?

What if someone knew? If they wanted to expose her?

Her head spun at the thought of it.

Should she tell Josh, her fiancé, about the message? Maddie already knew what he would say. He’d tell her that going to the beach at such an early hour to meet an unknown person would be stupid, that no one in their right mind would be foolish enough to do something like that.

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