Page 3 of Shrouded Past

The words flitted around in his head like a nightmare that would never go away.

She was gone. Taking his world with her.

Chapter One

Two years later. Hope Island, Maine

Anew start. That’s what he’d told the mayor he needed. Neither had bought it. They both knew he was all washed up. Law enforcement wasn’t an option. Running away was.

Losing Jenna had taken away his desire to do good.Shewas the good in his life. That died with her that night in May two years earlier. Since then, he’d gone through the stages of grief from denial to anger—bargaining with God. Depression. But acceptance, well, that wouldn’t come. Instead, he hovered somewhere between anger and depression most days.

Because of him, Jenna had died, and his life ended. He’d gone after the nameless drug smuggler because he’d naïvely thought he could do something about the massive number of drugs flooding his county and most of the state of Wyoming. All Bryce had accomplished was getting his wife killed. The real drug czar had gotten away without being identified despite the arrests they’d made. One of the men taken into custody had claimed responsibility for Jenna’s and Tess’s deaths. The guy had given up several other men in the organization, yet Bryce was convinced this man wasn’t the one he’d encountered in the abandoned building.

Bruce had stopped nothing. Heroin still permeated the county. People were still dying from overdoses and murders related to the drugs.

In the months following Jenna’s death, he’d sunk into a depression that seemed impenetrable. Some days Bryce hadn’t even managed to get out of bed.

Eric did what he could, but soon Bryce realized the only way to escape the past was to get as far away from it as possible.

And so, he’d tossed his badge on the mayor’s desk and left Basin, done with being the good guy and doing the right thing. From here on out, he’d live his own way.

Until a couple of weeks ago, Bryce couldn’t imagine leaving Wyoming. Now, he couldn’t see himself returning. All the good memories had been obliterated by “that fateful night.”

He’d rented a house on Hope Island, Maine, online and sight unseen. The name Hope Island had caught his attention when Eric recommended it. He and Jenna had vacationed there when they were kids. They’d loved it.

Bryce figured he could use a little hope in his life, so he’d packed everything he could carry in his truck and traveled across the country to the small town of Hope Island.

The past two weeks he’d spent doing little repairs around the old Cape Cod house. The owner had given him a discount on the rent in exchange for fixing the place up.

Bryce had fallen in love with the house the first moment he’d seen it. A little weathered like himself, he found using his hands to bring the old house back to life had been therapeutic.

A few days after arriving on the island, Bryce heard a noise out back near the trash can. Even though a civilian now, part of him would always be in cop mode.

His first thought was the drug smuggler had followed him to Hope Island, determined to finish him off. Instead, he’d found a little kitten rummaging through his trash for food. The kitten barely looked old enough to be away from its mom.

Bryce had brought the frightened animal inside and noticed it had a gash on its front paw. Despite the cat’s attempts to squirm free, Bryce cleaned the wound and bandaged it. Then he’d given the tiny, solid-white cat a bowl of tuna and some water. Soon, the two had accepted each other’s presence in their lives. Although, he’d never had a cat before and was mostly a dog guy, that needy little furball had stolen his heart.

With darkness approaching, Bryce finished up at his last stop in town and climbed behind the wheel of his truck.

As he headed home, Bryce leaned forward in his seat and watched as the approaching storm continued to gain strength over the ocean. He prayed he’d make it safely home before the brunt of it struck the island.

This one had hit the coast of Florida as a Category 3 hurricane a few days earlier. As it worked its way up the Eastern Coastline wreaking havoc as it went, the storm had weakened and been downgraded to a tropical front.

If it weren’t for the need for groceries, Bryce would have waited out the storm at home. Because he’d worried the road leading to downtown might become closed due to downed trees or power lines, he’d ventured out into the ugly twilight for necessities, not in the least were kitten food for Bella.

News of the storm’s imminent approach was discussed at each of his stops. Small towns were mostly close-knit with few secrets. For the past couple weeks, his arrival had been the talk of Hope Island. He’d fended off numerous questions from friendly townsfolk just wanting to get to know him better and a few single women interested in more. When he’d heard about the impending storm, Bryce had been grateful to have the interest off him.

While in town, he’d stopped to watch the weather at the small grocery store, where the old man who ran the place pointed out the tropical storm bearing down on them now was nothing compared to the second hurricane brewing in the Atlantic. Hurricane Henre had all the makings of the one that almost destroyed the island a few years back.

Unease settled over Bryce as he drove. Had he made a mistake by coming to an island that seemed to be in the path of numerous inclement run-ins? The good news was he didn’t own the house. He could pick up and move whenever he wanted.

Bryce passed the last shop in town when the wind rocked the vehicle with enough force to move it sideways a few inches. The outer wind bands had hit the island. Blowing rain covered the windshield. Darkness pressed in despite the remaining hour left before sundown.

In Wyoming, Bryce dealt with hazardous winter weather all the time. He’d never faced down a tropical front, much less a hurricane. According to a lot of the old-timers on the island, hurricane season had just begun, and this year had all the makings of a bad one.

Bryce flipped the headlights on bright as a full-blown darkness descended quickly. The wipers slapped across the windshield as the light rain turned to thick drops smashing against the glass.

He turned onto Ocean View, the road that ran parallel to the shore. Farther down, half a dozen houses sat to his right scattered along the coast. The heavy wooded area to his left reminded Bryce a lot of Wyoming.

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