Page 145 of One Last Promise

No, this wasn’t that. She hadn’t gotten spooked. Last night at dinner, she’d told him about her parents—diplomats—and how she’d grown up travelling the world. Then she’d tucked herself against him, and they’d watched an episode ofManifest.

She wasn’t going anywhere.

Except his own accusation to Colt was now ranging around his head.“Are you telling me youwantsomeone to find her?”

He swallowed.Just calm down. . . .

He pulled out of the airport and headed south on Highway 1, down to Diamond Boulevard. His jaw tightened as he glanced at his phone. No call. No text.

He turned onto Diamond, headed east toward the sound, past neighborhoods, Campbell Lake. Jewel Lake sat just ahead to the northwest. Ice from the storm clung to the trees, skeletons against the hazy day.

“This is near our house,” Boo said from the back seat. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice the accident on the way in.”

He said nothing as he slowed, seeing the cruisers up ahead parked at the municipal fishing dock. A few cops clustered, chatting. As he pulled in, Axel sat up. “Flynn’s here with Dawson.”

Shep spotted Flynn with Moose’s cousin Dawson, standing with a handful of cops at the dock that jutted out over the water. A haze lay over the water, the air crisp, quiet, as he parked and got out.

No sirens. No panic.

Yet a terrible foreboding gripped his chest.

Sort of like it had so many years ago on the mountain, a moment before the avalanche had roared down over him.

Hello. This was not Switzerland, and he wasn’t about to be buried alive.

Axel jogged out to the dock to meet Flynn, about twenty feet ahead of him.

Shep caught a glimpse of the car. Fully submerged in the water, a glaze of ice over the top of the water, unbroken.

So the car had been there for a while.

It sat under the glaze like a pumpkin, orange and squatty, the shape of a hatchback.

Or a . . .

Axel turned and looked at Shep and . . .

It was a Crosstrek.

An orange Subaru Crosstrek.

No—Shep started to run.

Axel caught him. “They ran the plates. It’s hers—but let me get in the water?—”

Shep didn’t wait. He pushed past Axel and ran right off the dock, into the icy water. A thousand blades speared him, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t that deep, and his entire body had turned to fire anyway.

He swam down to the front and peered into the car.

A body floated in the front seat, hair around her face, her arms floating.

Oh, no—no?—

Breathe. He kicked hard, surfaced. Gulped breaths.

“Shep! Wait—” Axel, pulling on his gear, but Shep headed back down.

Grabbed the door handle.

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